Notre Dame Odds for 2020-21 National Championship

Do you ever feel like Han Solo saying, “Never tell me the odds?” As Notre Dame fans, we do.

I know that I’ve felt like that a lot when it comes to the Notre Dame betting odds in recent years. Here’s the thing, Notre Dame’s odds to win next seasons National Championship are much better than you’d expect, at least initially.

According to Fanduel, the Fighting Irish open at +2000 for odds to win the 2020-21 National Championship. That’s 6th best in the country. They’re behind Clemson, Ohio State, Alabama, Georgia, and LSU. Just behind Notre Dame are Florida, Texas (somehow), and USC (also somehow) at +2500. Oklahoma, Wisconsin, Penn State, and Oregon are all well behind Notre Dame in the odds book.

The Action Network has Notre Dame at 30/1 odds, tied with Auburn, Texas A&M, Penn State, Oregon and Oklahoma. The only team with better odds are Florida, LSU, Georgia, Alabama, Ohio State and Clemson.

What does this mean?

For one, you may want to hold off on betting on Notre Dame until the line becomes more favorable. Secondly, Notre Dame is returning its starting quarterback, and retained Clark Lea.

Teams behind or even with Notre Dame who you’d expect by recent success to be ahead of the Irish can’t say the same. Neither Oklahoma nor Oregon have a set quarterback yet. Both may have plans in the works, but that’s a big unknown. Wisconsin needs to replace Jonathan Taylor, leaving a gaping hole in their ability to score.

By keeping Ian Book, Notre Dame doesn’t have as major a question on offense as these other schools. That isn’t to say there are no questions left for the Irish offense, but ‘who will be your No. 1 wide receiver?’ is less of a big deal than ‘who is going to be throwing to that wide receiver?’.

More importantly, Clark Lea is still the defensive coordinator. He didn’t end up coaching Boston College as was rumored. His scheming is at an elite level among defensive coordinators, and it would have been a monstrous task to replace him.

Still, 6th best odds in the country feels high for a team that doesn’t know its offensive coordinator yet. It feels high for a team that’s losing almost all of its production to graduation or the NFL. It feels high for a Brian Kelly team that always finds a way to disappoint.

Hopefully Vegas is onto something.