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Notre Dame football officially a dangerous underdog against Texas A&M

Las Vegas believes that the Aggies are the team to beat in the Kyle Field matchup and that's a good thing.

By Oliver Vandervoort

Tom Hauck/GettyImages
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The Notre Dame football season opener against Texas A&M was always an exciting matchup. Then the Aggies hired the Fighting Irish's former DC as its head coach and his former starting quarterback transferred to South Bend.

Then came the 12-team playoff. Suddenly, every game on the schedule somehow became more important and less important all at once. If Notre Dame loses to the Aggies to open the season, they still have a chance at the playoffs. On the other hand, if they lose to the Aggies to open the season, they aren't going to have very many other teams to prove they belong against.

Because of this, the pressure on Notre Dame football to beat an SEC team on its home turf, a home field that is among the best in the sport, seemed to amplify greatly. That's why it might actually be a good thing that the Irish are seen as the underdogs by Las Vegas.

Notre Dame football could be more comfortable as the 'dog'

Earlier this week, most of the most prominent sportsbooks, including FanDuel and DraftKings laid out the spreads for most of the games in Week 0 and Week 1. That included a spread that shows the Irish at +3.

In other words, the oddsmakers are saying that Texas A&M should win the game by at least three points. The Golden Domers are now on upset patrol. And the Aggies are the ones who will be "upset" should they lose on August 31.

In reality, nothing changes for Marcus Freeman and the gang. They still need to win the game and get off to a fast start to the season. But, they could now have a little chip on their collective shoulders.

While there's been plenty of talk about the Irish going to the playoffs, suddenly the betting world thinks they're not even good enough to topple a team with a new head coach that went just 7-6 a year ago.

Notre Dame football went 10-3 last season, didn't have to fire its head coach, and upgraded at quarterback and wide receiver considerably. If I'm Marcus Freeman, my approach to the pregame is "how dare they consider us the underdog?!" And go from there.

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