Notre Dame Football: Making Schedules Tougher in 2019

The 2019 Notre Dame football team looms large on some of college football’s toughest schedules.

Earlier this week, 247Sports published its list of college football’s ten toughest schedules in 2019. Notre Dame absent from the list — sort of.

That list included the schedules of the Florida Gators, Maryland Terrapins, USC Trojans, Michigan Wolverines, Georgia Bulldogs, LSU Tigers, Auburn Tigers, Stanford Cardinal, Texas A&M Aggies, and South Carolina Gamecocks.

Not surprisingly — and regardless of whether or not you agree — the SEC makes up 60 percent of that list.

More importantly for those with a vested interest in Notre Dame football, that list features four opponents on the 2019 Fighting Irish schedule. Math is hard, but I’m pretty sure that means 40 percent of the ten toughest college football schedules of 2019 feature Notre Dame.

That’s impressive, and a it’s nod to just how good people think Notre Dame could be once again this coming season. Six teams on 247’s list appear in nearly every “Way too Early” Top 25 published so far this year. Of the four teams who play Notre Dame, two of them — Michigan and Georgia — are in the top five of most of those lists.

Both of those contests will be played before Halloween, making them instrumental on a national level in the final run toward completing the final College Football Playoff puzzle.

The Fighting Irish not only appear on the schedules of four teams on 247’s list, but are also featured talking points in the individual write-ups for each team.

For those wondering, another site — SouthernPigskin.com — has the 2019 Notre Dame schedule ranked as the 24th toughest in the land.

Notre Dame seems to be a consensus top ten team in the preseason and figures to play a huge role in what the final College Football Playoff rankings look like. Looks like Irish fans are in for another fun, yet anxiety filled season.