Notre Dame football: Irish to play in two of the most important 2021 games
By Brad Weiss
The Notre Dame football team must run through a tough regular-season schedule in 2021, including two of the most important games in the country.
Now that they are back to their Independent schedule, the Notre Dame football team has a bunch of exciting games to look forward to. They will get back to playing the likes of Stanford and USC this season and have some other big battles on the horizon as well.
A few weeks back, 247Sports.com put together a list of the top-10 games in college football in 2021, and the Irish were listed twice on that list. Those games were matchups against both USC and North Carolina, two home games that just happen to be back-to-back.
Looking around the internet, it seems that the media outlet is not the only one who has a few Notre Dame football games circled this season.
Notre Dame football will play in two of the most important games in 2021
Recently, College Football News put out a ranking of the ten most important games for the 2021 college football season, and the Irish were well represented. In fact, out of the ten most important games this season, the Irish will play in two of them, and they are two games that are loaded with storylines.
The Irish game against North Carolina was also listed on this ranking, as it is viewed by writer Pete Fiutak as the No. 9 game in the country this year. Coming in at No. 6 overall is the October 2 matchup against Cincinnati, which will be the first time new defensive coordinator Marcus Freeman takes on the team he helped reach incredible heights last season.
Both Cincinnati and North Carolina have first-round talents at quarterback, and they will certainly be ready to try and pick apart this Irish secondary. Luckily for Notre Dame, they have elite talent back there, including Kyle Hamilton, arguably the best safety in the country.
These two games will be must-watch television.
For the Irish, every game is important, but in the grand scheme of college football, these two matchups were listed. They are both incredibly big games for the program, and wins against both Cincinnati and North Carolina will likely go a long way in the Irish walking away with another very successful regular season.