Frankie V’s Prediction: One More Tune-Up for Notre Dame Before Real Season Begins

Notre Dame has one final tune-up game in what turned into a prolonged preseason for the Fighting Irish thanks to opponents like Purdue, Michigan State, and this weekend’s foe, Stanford, being at the bottom of their conferences. The Irish are nearly 40 point favorites this weekend before a stretch that will see the Irish square off against three ranked opponents over the final six weeks of the season. Complacency and focus are larger opponents this weekend than a Stanford team that lost 57-3 a week ago.

What to Worry About

The ghosts of 2022, and BYU looming. The setup should feel familiar. The 2022 Cardinal were 2-4, getting 16 points, and giving up 32.6 points a game, which ranked 111th in the country. They left South Bend with a 16-14 win. The Irish offense had only 106 yards at halftime that night, and Notre Dame lost the turnover battle, which is exactly how a heavy favorite lets an inferior team hang around.

In the three meetings since, the Irish have outscored Stanford 154-50, and Stanford is again 2-3 coming to South Bend, this time as a 37.5-point underdog. The bigger risk is the calendar. The Irish travel to Provo next Saturday night, and BYU is the biggest test on the schedule to this point. Notre Dame has won 15 straight games because it has handled spots like this one. It needs to make it 16 without one eye on the Cougars.

Staying healthy before BYU. Notre Dame’s injury report is the most important thing to watch this week. Leonard Moore remains in the concussion protocol and is questionable for Saturday after a late collision with UNC tight end Jelani Thurman. Freeman has already said that Jayden Sanders and DJ McKinney would start at cornerback if Moore can’t go. Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa, dealing with a thumb injury, is questionable as well, though he should be available for BYU.

Both players are too important to the defense to risk against a team the Irish should handle without them. Viliamu-Asa had one of Notre Dame’s two interceptions against UNC, picking off Billy Edwards Jr. on the Tar Heels’ first snap after Notre Dame’s opening touchdown. The ideal Saturday is Moore and Viliamu-Asa resting, the backups getting quality reps, and nobody new showing up on Monday’s injury report.

Cleaning up the pass defense. The UNC game exposed matchups that BYU, Miami and SMU will all study. Edwards completed 17 of 28 passes for 208 yards and three touchdowns, and wide receiver Jordan Shipp caught seven passes for 109 yards. UNC’s 15-play, 97-yard march right before the half produced more than half of its 188 first-half yards and turned a potential 28-7 game into 21-14.

The 26 points UNC scored were the most Notre Dame has allowed this season, though six came on Jaden Jefferson’s 98-yard kickoff return to open the second half. Special teams had other hiccups too, including a failed two-point try after a botched extra-point snap. Before last week, the Irish had allowed just 33 points in four games, and on the season they’re still allowing only 11.8 points per game.

Stanford can throw it some. Davis Warren’s best game came against Georgia Tech, when he set career highs with 396 passing yards and three touchdowns in a 34-27 Stanford win. But the Cardinal managed just 148 passing yards at Wake Forest last week. This is a low-risk chance to clean up communication and leverage issues on the back end before they matter.

What Not to Worry About

Another big day from CJ Carr. Carr is playing the best football of his career. Through five games, he has completed 88 of 124 passes (71.0%) for 1,197 yards, 13 touchdowns and just one interception, averaging 9.7 yards per attempt. He has also run for three scores. Against UNC, he completed 21 of 29 passes for 234 yards with four touchdown passes and a rushing touchdown. No Notre Dame quarterback had posted three-plus touchdown passes and a rushing touchdown in consecutive games in 30 years until Carr did it the last two weeks.

Stanford’s pass defense is in rough shape. Wake Forest completed 22 of 30 passes for 322 yards last week, averaging more than 10 yards per attempt. The Cardinal are allowing 38.2 points per game overall, and in their three games against Miami, Duke and Wake Forest, they’ve been outscored 137-16. Carr should be on the sideline early in the second half.

The running game. Notre Dame’s ground attack was a question mark through September. Before Chapel Hill, the Irish were averaging 141.8 rushing yards per game, which sat 98th in FBS. Then they ran for a season-high 241 yards on 45 carries against UNC. Freshman Jonaz Walton carried 23 times for 120 yards and was the centerpiece of the attack, and his 5.85 yards per carry on the season (228 yards on 39 carries) is the best among Notre Dame’s running backs. Nolan James Jr. added 65 yards.

Stanford can’t stop the run either. Wake Forest ran for 197 yards and six touchdowns against the Cardinal last week. Expect Walton to get another heavy workload early before the reserves take over.

Stanford replicating what UNC did. UNC had a legitimate passing attack and a defense capable of slowing Notre Dame down for stretches. Stanford doesn’t. The Cardinal have to win with Warren’s arm because their run game doesn’t work. They ran for 49 yards on 34 carries at Wake Forest, 1.4 yards per attempt. Even in the win over Georgia Tech, Stanford couldn’t run, managing 2.3 yards a carry. Notre Dame has allowed just 2.0 yards per carry on the season and held UNC to 77 rushing yards on 23 carries. If the Irish take away the run again, Stanford becomes one-dimensional.

One thing to note is ball security. Warren went his first 167 attempts of the season without an interception, matching the Stanford record, and it took a ball bouncing off a receiver’s foot at Wake to finally end it. Despite the 2-3 record, the Cardinal have yet to come out on the wrong side of the turnover margin. If they have any path to keeping this close, it’s by not giving Notre Dame free possessions.

Players to Watch

Matty Augustine. Augustine has been out since camp with a right foot injury and is questionable for Saturday. If he’s cleared, this would be his season debut. He likely would have been a starter on the offensive line if not for the injury, but does not figure to just step into that role right away. By all accounts, the coaches think a lot of him, and how much he plays Saturday could tell us whether the starting five changes before BYU.

Mylan Graham. Graham didn’t play a single snap against UNC. Jordan Faison carried the receiving corps with eight catches for 132 yards and two touchdowns, but Notre Dame needs more than one consistent threat on the outside against the defenses still to come. Stanford is the right opponent to get Graham back involved.

Bubba Frazier. If Notre Dame jumps out early, Frazier could see real second-half snaps. His speed gives the Irish a different dimension, and Notre Dame needs to develop more playmakers during the regular season. Frazier, Elijah Burress and Jerome Bettis Jr. all need meaningful reps, and a game with a 37.5-point spread is exactly where they should come from.

Adon Shuler. Shuler had a rough day in coverage against UNC, and he’s too important to the back end of this defense to carry that into BYU. With Moore likely out and backups starting at cornerback, the safeties will have even more responsibility. A clean, confident game from Shuler would be one of the best things to come out of Saturday.

Prediction Time

Some fans want to see Notre Dame hang 60+ on Stanford, but I have a feeling that Marcus Freeman and crew might take their foot off the gas as early as they can to stay healthy heading into their trip to Provo next weekend. This team still has a lot to clean up, but with BYU, Miami, and SMU in the second half of the year, staying healthy and fresh is just as important. It still won’t be close and anything resembling a contest at halftime would be alarming. Stanford gets an early field goal and then adds a late touchdown against Notre Dame deep reserves. CJ Carr throws another four touchdowns and Jonaz Walton dazzles the home crowd with a long touchdown run.

Notre Dame 52, Stanford 10