Win on Saturday will vault Notre Dame football back into the top-10
By Brad Weiss
The Notre Dame football team remained at No. 12 in the latest AP Poll, but a win on Saturday will change the narrative surrounding the 2021 team.
When the latest 2021 AP Poll was released on Sunday, the Notre Dame football team saw themselves in the same position they were a week earlier. Starting the season in the top-10, the Irish have fallen to No. 12 overall in recent weeks, as they have struggled to look like a top-10 team all season long.
However, the Irish can erase all of the early narratives with a strong win on Saturday, which will hopefully springboard the program entering a tough run of their schedule. Wisconsin did lose their season opener against Penn State, but they are a legitimate top-25 team, though this home game for them will be played on a neutral field.
This game also has the Jack Coan narrative in it, as Coan will be going up against a school he once led to a Big Ten title game. The Irish are going to want to win this for their quarterback, so expect them to be fired up inside Soldier Field.
Notre Dame football can make a statement on Saturday
It has been a crazy season for the Irish so far, as they won an incredible game in the opener at Florida State, but needed overtime to do so. That win was diminished with the Seminoles losing to an FCS team the following week, and then there was the struggle against the Toledo Rockets inside Notre Dame Stadium.
In Week 3, they played close with another Big Ten team, Purdue for most of the afternoon before pulling away in the fourth. Those three close games did not help them in the national rankings, but if they can go into Soldier Field and dominate the Badgers, it will go a long way in terms of them moving up some spots in the next AP Poll.
With a win, you can expect the Irish to vault back into the top-10 for the first time in weeks, and creep even higher if they can get the job done the following week against Cincinnati. This is a crucial three-game stretch for the Irish, one that could make-or-break their season, but it all starts Saturday inside Soldier Field.