Notre Dame Opens as Big Underdogs to Georgia & Michigan

It’s the first few days of spring and even though we are still months away from the start of college football, but Vegas just released some opening odds – a few of which featured Notre Dame. This comes as no surprise because the Fighting Irish has a schedule filled with some power houses in 2019.  It may come as a surprise, that they opened a big underdog to a team they beat in 2018 though.  

We will look at the three games, Georgia, USC and Michigan, and take a look at some other preseason opening odds.

Georgia (+11.5):

September 21st, 2019

Notre Dame opens as big underdogs for their third game of the season and first major test as they walk into Athens.  Georgia and Notre Dame have a lot of similarities, losing a lot of key players on both sides of the ball, top recruiting classes (UGA 2nd and ND 14th), top 10 preseason ranking and experienced quarterbacks to lead their offense.  Georgia will have one of the best offensive lines in the nation but lost a lot of talent at the receiver position.  For the Irish to win this early season battle they will have to replace players like Tillery, Coney and Tranquill and not have D’Andre Swift run all over them.

USC (-11.5):

October 12th, 2019

After Athens, Notre Dame comes back to South Bend for three home games.  The first two are against Virginia and Bowling Green before their archival Trojans come to town.  Notre Dame opens as 11.5-point favorites and that’s a lot of points for any rivalry game. USC will also be coming off a bye week and will have two weeks to rest up and prepare for this battle to try and redeem the loss they received at home last year from the Fighting Irish.  But will that be enough for a struggling program to be able to come into South Bend against one of their biggest rivals?

Michigan (+8.5):

October 26th, 2019

After USC, the Fighting Irish get a week off and have two weeks to prepare for Michigan.  This should be a war and ND should be riding a high coming off a probable win against USC.  Notre Dame opened the season last year with a win over Michigan after initially opening as underdogs then too.  Can they beat them again this year? Look for Michigan’s offense to be performing at a high rate with their new offensive coordinator, Josh Gattis, who they poached from Alabama.  Notre Dame will need to be able to get to the quarterback and find a CB to replace Love this off-season so Gattis and the Wolverines don’t pass all over them.

Other Notre Dame Opening Odds:

College Football Champions:

Depending on the book, Notre Dame starts the season between the +3300 to +4500 range to be crowned the College Football Champions in 2019.  With their strength of schedule, the Irish should have another chance at the College Football Playoffs if they end up with one loss or better. Georgia is a huge test to see how the Fighting Irish match up against the big dogs of college football.  If they can survive Athens, that means that can play with anyone. Those odds aren’t bad considering there are 7-8 teams that have a legitimate chance to win it all, ND being one of them.

Heisman Winner:

Westgate Las Vegas SuperBook has Ian Book to win the Heisman at +6000.  Book, who took over early last season as the starting quarterback, will be the QB for the Fighting Irish for the 2019 season. After 9 starts, he finished the season with 23 total TD (19 passing and 4 rushing), 7 INT, 68.2% completion rate and 280 yards on the ground. There might be a lot of players starting the season with better odds than him to win the Heisman but never doubt a QB who can lead a team to the Playoffs.  If Book leads the Fighting Irish to an undefeated season and has that stats to back it up, look for him to be a Heisman Hopeful at the end of the season.

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7 Comments

  1. Michigan STINKS! (well, you know what i’m trying to saw – in code – so that it will be published) Their new D-coordinator? Might be a problem. Once we score, though, I propse having no mercy on the Skunkbears. TWIST THE KNIFE.

  2. Why are they under dogs to these three teams?
    Notre Dame has not yet exposed their full hand.
    Don’t believe me just watch! Go Irish!☘️

  3. Georgia has lost 10 times in 3 years, has not beat Bama in a decade, their guys show up at the combine running 4.5s and 4.8s. Lost by 20 to LSU, got.dominated for 60 minutes, but hey, yeah.
    Michigan another program with unearned street cred. They have up over a 100 points their last 2 games and lost their top 3 defensive players. Since when does Shea Patterson scare anyone?

    This is why ND can not still sit back and lose the PR war when idiots are out there with the negatives. Espn Finebaum has been calling ND an embarrassment for 5 months.
    The CFP is part beauty pageant, and part of that is perception.

    ND let Georgia and the SEC control the story pre and post Clemson.
    Result..perception is 11.5 dog to a team dominated by 4 loss Texas.

    1. Hey, Georgia is going to be angry (at us) regardless of how the critics talk or even how we talk. They can’t be made any angrier. So I say “screw Georgia, like my daddy do.”

      BGC ’77 ’82

    2. BBORU: Perhaps, but Texas was a pretty good team, despite a couple of losses to teams they should have been able to beat. I don’t think Georgia was ready for Texas even though Texas had the only regular season win over Oklahoma.

      BGC ’77 ’82

      1. Post script: Contrary to popular myth, LSU was a pretty good team too! I do not think we would have beaten LSU in the Citrus Bowl without Book. And LSU’s 2018 team was a little better that the Citrus Bowl version…better QB and better field goal kicker. By the way, if you look at LSU’s 2018 season you will see that they did the same thing in 2018 that Notre Dame did in 2017. Watch out for BOTH Texas and LSU this fall.

        BGC ’77 ’82

  4. Hmm. Watch, they’ll beat Georgia and Michigan, and lose to USC.

    Or they’ll beat all 3 and lose to Bowling Green……I kid, I kid

    In any event, it’s probably a bit early to look at spreads. I honestly don’t pay a lot of attention to them at this early stage. It’s interesting to read of course, but I wouldn’t make any bets at this early juncture (that is if I were even to make bets)

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