Notre Dame Football: Style points don’t matter for Irish

Notre Dame football faces two lesser opponents to start its season in Louisville and New Mexico. Should the Irish care about point differential?

It is almost time for the Notre Dame football team to embark upon a new season. For the Irish, it is obvious that Georgia looms on the horizon at the end of September. In the meantime, however, the Irish have Louisville and New Mexico on the docket.

It’s no secret that the Irish should have no trouble dispatching the Cardinals and the Lobos with relative ease.

But given that the Irish have sustained major injuries to significant players ahead of the season, these games now have a greater importance. Add that to the fact that the Irish are unproven on the interior of the defense, and the first two games continue to magnify in importance.

Many would say that the expectation is for the Irish to blow the doors off both Louisville and New Mexico. Many would take that a step further and dub that as a requirement for the Irish to prove that they are a championship caliber team.

But style points simply don’t matter to the Irish.

Notre Dame has never been the type of team to completely blow the doors off their opponents, nor do they need to be one.

In the past, when the Irish have gotten big leads in games, they’ve seemingly taken their foot off the accelerator. But that only tells part of the story.

With the Irish looking to get answers to significant question marks, inexperienced players likely will get meaningful plays early in the game. As a result, things might not always be pretty on the field as players attempt to get their feet wet ahead of the season’s biggest test in Athens.

Notre Dame’s inexperienced players need snaps that matter–not snaps that come with the Irish leading by 4 scores against New Mexico’s third string.

Notre Dame probably won’t have much difficulty beating Louisville or New Mexico, but as the season begins, it would be wise to accept some minor growing pains rather than obsessing over style points and point differentials.