College football coaches spend a wall-to-wall month of fall camps obsessing over details large and small, sleeping fitfully when not staring at the ceiling and — in time for season openers, they have to hope — figuring out what they have.
Then, if you’re Florida State’s Mike Norvell, you travel all the way to Ireland to discover your top 10 team can’t even handle Georgia Tech. Or, if you’re Colorado’s Deion Sanders, your beard turns whiter as your team barely holds off lower-division North Dakota State. You didn’t invite chaos to your door, yet there it is.
Enter Marcus Freeman and his promising, perilous Year 3 as a head coach. No. 7 Notre Dame (+2½) at No. 20 Texas A&M (6:30 p.m., Ch. 7, 780-AM) is a chance, right off the bat, to secure his biggest road win with the Irish. Given the navigability of the Irish’s schedule, it could set his team up for massive success. On the other hand, you noticed the point spread doesn’t exactly jibe with the preseason rankings, didn’t you? The danger of disappointment could be one bad half, one bad quarter, one bad series away.
“I’ve never gone into a game saying we’re not ready, but you don’t know, truly, until you face an opponent, and a good opponent at that,” Freeman said this week. “But I’m confident that this team is ready and will be ready.”
Same here when it comes to the Irish defense, which has elite players in Howard Cross up front, Benjamin Morrison in coverage and interception machine Xavier Watts flying around and making trouble. Even with quarterback Conner Weigman on the field after he missed most of last season with an injury, the Aggies shouldn’t do much scoring. In all likelihood, very few Irish opponents will.
The most obvious reason for worry is the Irish offensive line, the first unit coming in with a combined six career starts and zero for either tackle, true freshman Anthonie Knapp on the left side and third-year player Aamil Wagner on the right. The Aggies surely will send the heat at quarterback Riley Leonard, and Kyle Field is a madhouse. For the o-line, just holding it together will be a major task.
Some enticing side notes: Aggies coach Mike Elko had the same job at Duke last season and nearly upset the Irish, who trailed with under three minutes to go. Elko was Notre Dame’s defensive coordinator in 2017 but chose to leave then-coach Brian Kelly’s staff after one season, burning some bridges in South Bend. Freeman’s new offensive coordinator, Mike Denbrock, also rankled Kelly by leaving him behind at LSU for a “dream job” with the Irish. Leonard was Elko’s QB at Duke but entered the transfer portal after A&M fired Jimbo Fisher and hired Elko.
Trying to squash Leonard is “interesting and weird and not really something I want to do,” Elko said, “but, at the end of the day, it’s part of the game.”
You can’t spell “under” without the “D.” Aggies 20, Irish 13.
OTHER WEEK 1 PICKS
All games are Saturday unless otherwise noted.
No. 14 Clemson (+12½) vs. No. 1 Georgia (11 a.m., Ch. 7): An interesting, perhaps admirable thing about Clemson is that it’s continuing to try to win by bringing its own players along rather than by slashing and remaking the roster every year via the portal. Pretty sure the Bulldogs don’t give a dang. If Georgia keeps the pocket clean for Carson Beck, it’ll be over quickly in Atlanta. ’Dogs, 34-20.
No. 8 Penn State (-8½) at West Virginia (11 a.m., FOX 32): The sultry stench of upset possibility is in the air in Morgantown, home to a team that really ought to have been in the preseason Top 25. Anyone else remember when this was an annual rivalry? Ah, the good old days. Nittany Lions, 24-23.
Miami (Ohio) (+3½) at Northwestern (2:30 p.m., BTN, 720-AM): Two years ago, the RedHawks won in Evanston. Last year, they won 11 games and a MAC title. Chuck Martin has taken three straight teams bowling, and the streak could be five if not for the 2020 pandemic season, when Miami played only three games. In case you didn’t think this could get dicey for the Wildcats — who finally take their pop-up stadium out for a spin — think again. ’Cats by three in OT.
No. 23 USC (+4½) vs. No. 13 LSU (6:30 p.m. Sunday, Ch. 7): No Caleb Williams on one side. No Jayden Daniels on the other. It won’t stop either team from rolling big numbers in Las Vegas. Tigers, 34-30.
My favorite favorite: Florida State (-16½) vs. Boston College (6:30 p.m. Monday, ESPN): Hey, it’s only Week 1. It’s almost like FSU’s loss to Georgia Tech never even happened. OK, not really, but this one demands the Seminoles’ utmost attention. FSU in a runaway.
My favorite underdog: Florida (+2½) vs. No. 19 Miami (2:30 p.m., Ch. 7): Many have pointed out the Gators have an all-time-brutal schedule — it could be a long season for them — but they’ll have upward of 90,000 Swamp friends helping them protect their turf against an in-state rival that hasn’t been in the big-game-winning business in a long time. Upset.
Last season’s record: 74-34 straight-up, 56-48-4 against the spread.