Notre Dame Football Schedule, 2019: The Pursuit of Trappyness

Notre Dame football, like every other team in the country, has some games on its schedule that could be categorized as a trap game. I examined the schedule and categorized all of the games based on their level of “trappyness”.

Yes, I probably should have spelled it as “trappiness.” Instead, I went for the pun and gave a tip of the cap to the iconic 2006 film starring Will Smith and his son Jayden. In any event, let’s talk about Notre Dame football.

College football fans love combing through their team’s schedule to find potential trap games. I think the main reason for doing so is to get out in front of any potential disappointment.

As is the case every year, there are games on the 2019 Notre Dame football schedule that give Irish fans some anxiety.

I am not talking about the big marquee games. Instead, I am talking about the games against scrappy opponents that may fall during a tricky part of the season.

The author of a recent article on the FanSided College site picked USC as Notre Dame’s biggest trap game this season. I disagree with that selection. That article sent me down a rabbit hole that led to the birth of the article you are reading now. Article-ception.

In an effort to fill time during the college football offseason, I went through Notre Dame’s 2019 schedule and graded each game by its perceived level of “trappyness.”

After I evaluated each game, I grouped them into three categories:

• No Trap: This one is pretty self explanatory.
• Mouse Trap: Games with some trap potential that could be painful if you are not cautious.
• Bear Trap: Games with the greatest trap potential that could seriously harm a season.

Let’s see which category each game fell into.