Kansan weighs in for ND vs. UNC

Notre Dame comes off a fairly nice win against the Middies of the Naval Academy (as an Army guy, I have a different name for them, but I will keep this post G rated). I don’t know why it was so hard to defend the pitch man, but by the second half the Irish D had figured it out and the Irish offense was on all cylinders for most of the afternoon. Now, the Irish face a UNC club with one win under their belt and a lame duck coach at the House that Rockne built. I like ND’s chances.

As my buddy Matt Jones (aka Jones Puss) recently indicated, UNC does have some talent. ND is not facing a club like Navy that wins based off of discipline, guts and hard work, despite having barely a scintilla of talent on. UNC has some athletes, they just don’t use them very well (e.g. Willie Parker). UNC lost a close one last week to Wake Forrest – a 7-1 team with a shot at going to the ACC Championship team. If ND doesn’t show up, they could have another close game which would hurt our BCS standings.

Based on the few reports that I’ve read regarding this week’s preparation, I think Charlie has our boys in the right frame of mind. I look for ND’s offense to have a very good, if not great game. UNC ranks in the bottom tier in almost every defensive statistic. They rank as 90 or lower in defensive yards given up, points allowed, and passing defense. I think UNC comes out spirited, but once ND gets a lead on them they simply cannot have the confidence to think that this defense will stop us. ND needs to get the ball first and march right down the field and score. If that happens, this game may be over at half time.

I like how the Irish Defense has come along. I say this based solely on my preseason expectations. In five years if ND puts a defense like this on the field, I will be extremely disappointed. Ty did a good job of leaving the cupboard bear at numerous positions and he simply didn’t recruit enough defensive stars. The senior class does have a nice group of defensive linemen and Zibby is up to ND’s standards.

ND should win handily and I think UNC scores some garbage points at the end to make it look closer than it really was.

Prediction:
ND: 42 UNC: 17