Notre Dame Football: 5 reasons the Irish will beat Toledo in Week 2
By Andrew Hall
The Toledo Rockets travel to South Bend to take on the Notre Dame football for the first time in a game the Irish should win.
The Notre Dame football team returns to the field on Saturday afternoon against the Toledo Rockets. The Rockets are one of the oldest teams in the FBS, and they return 22 players with starting experience. Although Toledo is from the Mid-American Conference, they are a dangerous team.
Here are five reasons that the Irish will avoid an upset and pick up their second victory of the season.
Notre Dame Football: 5 reasons the Irish will beat Toledo in Week 2
Current home winning streak
The Notre Dame football team has won 24-consecutive games at home, which is the longest streak in the modern-era record. The overall longest streak occurred from 1942 to 1950 when the Irish won 28 straight at Notre Dame Stadium.
It is the second-longest active streak in the FBS – trailing only Clemson’s 28 game streak.
During the current winning run, the Fighting Irish defeated multiple ranked teams including No. 11 USC, No. 14 N.C. State, No. 14 Michigan, No. 7 Stanford, No. 18 Virginia, No. 23 Navy, and No. 1 Clemson. Eventually, this record will come to an end, however, the likelihood that the first loss since Sept. 2017 comes at the hands of the Rockets is very slim.
In addition, Brian Kelly and his team have defeated 32 unranked opponents in a row. This school record surpassed Lou Holtz’s streak of 29 victories against unranked foes from 1990-94. Holtz’s winning run ended when the Irish were beaten by Northwestern and then-linebacker Pat Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald’s Northwestern team won 10 games en route to a Rose Bowl berth.
When factoring these two streaks into the equation of Saturday’s matchup, history (as well as the depth chart) are stacked against the Rockets.