Ohio State vs Notre Dame How to watch
Date: 9/23
Time: 7:30 EST
How to watch: NBC
Ohio State vs Notre Dame Preview
Ohio State Buckeyes
Ohio State has improved as the season has gone on and got better each week. They are coming off of a 63-10 win against Western Kentucky last week. That was their best performance by far with big plays all over the field. Marvin Harrison Jr had a 75 yard touchdown catch, TreVeyon Henderson had two touchdowns, and the Buckeyes defense scored twice on turnovers. They played the type of football that Buckeye Nation expects them to play. The big thing that stood out in last week's win was how good the defense was against a Western Kentucky offense that has a great passing attack. Ohio State held them to 207 passing yards. They've held their three opponents to 10, 7, and 3 points this season. Ohio State will go on the road for the second time this season to face Notre Dame in this game. They got off to a really slow start in their only other road game this season against Indiana when they only took a 10-3 lead to the locker room at half before pulling away for a 23-3 win in the second half. The defense will need to be great against Notre Dame QB Sam Hartman who leads the Nation with 13 touchdown passes and 0 interceptions. If the offense continues to do what they did last week, they will be in a good position to win this game. Notre Dame will be the toughest defense that they have faced to this point in the season but Notre Dame also allowed 17 to Central Michigan and 24 to North Carolina State. The Buckeyes can't afford to get off to a slow start in this one.
Notre Dame Fighting Irish
Notre Dame has played their way up into the Top 10 for this matchup but a loss here will likely drop them out. So how do they get the win in this game? Continue to dominate the offensive line, establish the run game, give Hartman time to pass, and play great defense. They will need to put a check box next to each one of those items to beat this #6 Ohio State team. Sam Hartman has been everything that Notre Dame fans could have hoped for to this point throwing for 13 touchdowns and 0 interceptions. The ground game has been strong for the Irish averaging 5.9 yards per carry as a team but lead back Audric Estime is averaging 8.3 yards per carry. Things have looked great on offense for Notre Dame but let's see how they respond against the Ohio State defense. Add in some rain that's in the forecast for this game and it will make it even tougher. I am a little suspect about the Notre Dame defense just because if Central Michigan ran for 131 on them, it feels like Ohio State can run for 200 if they want. 17 points to Central Michigan and 24 to NC State just feels like Ohio State can put up 30+ and I just don't know if the Notre Dame offense will be able to keep up.
Ohio State vs Notre Dame Prediction
Notre Dame made this game a battle last year but Ohio State ended up winning 21-10. Some of the same players are back but there are also some key differences with the biggest being Notre Dame QB Sam Hartman. He's a great QB but he's also just 3-8 against ranked teams in his career (0-4 vs Top 10 teams). I think there's a couple different versions of this game that we could see. The first would be a low scoring defensive battle where Notre Dame is able to hang around and keep it interesting down the stretch. The other version is Ohio State plays the great defense but Notre Dame's defense is exposed against the best offense that they have faced this season which is coming off of it's best performance of the season. As of the time of this article being written., 61% of the money is on Notre Dame to cover the +3 but I'm going the other way. I just feel like Ohio State is the better team despite not playing anybody yet. I think we are going to see great defense from them and like I said above, I'm suspect about the Notre Dame defense. I could be wrong and this one won't be my most confident play of the week but I'll be putting a small bet on it simply because it's the prime time Saturday Night game a 7:30. Give me the Buckeyes -3.
Ohio State -3
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