Notre Dame football: Ranking the Irish's 2021 schedule game-by-game

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SOUTH BEND, IN – NOVEMBER 10: Julian Love #27 of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish tackles George Campbell #11 of the Florida State Seminoles in the second quarter of the game at Notre Dame Stadium on November 10, 2018, in South Bend, Indiana. (Photo by Joe Robbins/Getty Images) /

Notre Dame football: Ranking the Irish’s 2021 schedule by entertainment value

No. 5: Florida State, Week 1

This game isn’t so high on this list just because it’s a great helmet game. After all, the Seminoles haven’t been good, or even average, recently. They’ve been a bad team. Still, there are a lot of reasons why this is going to be a great game to watch.

First, this is a week 1 game, where the stadium will finally have full capacity. That’s going to be exciting itself. Add to that an expectation that Florida State improves, and the possibility McKenzie Milton returns, and this will be much-watch TV.

That question about Milton is exciting for a lot of people. He hasn’t played since Black Friday in 2018. Back then he played for UCF and was in the middle of leading them to 25 straight wins and a National Championship. He ran a quarterback draw to the strong side before one of USF’s corners went to take him out low.

His right knee was obviously dislocated. The ACL and MCL were surprisingly intact. The real issue was that his popliteal artery had torn. Blood wasn’t flowing properly, and there was extensive nerve damage. Doctors would say that it’s the type of injury you see in a major car crash, and he had a 50/50 shot of keeping his leg.

After two years of surgery and rehab, where he acted as an extra quarterback coach at UCF, he was finally cleared to play again, a minor miracle in and of itself. By then, UCF had found its next great quarterback in Dillon Gabriel, who had replaced Milton as the starter in high school and had been recruited to UCF by Milton. No hard feelings between the two, Milton left for Florida State to play again.

Coach Mike Norvell hasn’t named a starter yet, but the chance it could be Milton has the college football world excited. If he is anything like the player who got injured, then Notre Dame could be in trouble against a potentially explosive offense.

Even if this does become a laugher like the last couple of games between the two programs has, this is one that every Notre Dame fan should be excited for.

Florida State leads the all-time series 6-4. They last met in 2020, when the Irish won 42-26.

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