The first weekend of the college football season concludes with a Labor Day game between the no. 9 Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the Louisville Cardinals. Game time is set for 8:00 EST on Monday, September 2 at Cardinal Stadium in Louisville, Kentucky. The game will be broadcast on ESPN.
According to the Week 1 college football odds, Notre Dame is favored by 20.5 points on the road. The over/under for the game is set at 57.5 points.
For a handful of years, Louisville was one of the top teams in the ACC Atlantic division. But one bad season under Bobby Petrino was enough to get him fired. The Cardinals were atrocious last season, finishing 2-10 overall and winless in ACC play. Petrino didn’t even last the entire season, getting fired with two games left to play.
His replacement is Scott Satterfield, who heads to Louisville after six outstanding seasons as Appalachian State. In Satterfield’s first season at App State, the Mountaineers were a 4-8 FCS program. By the end of his tenure, he had turned the Mountaineers into a team that won at least a share of three consecutive Sun Belt titles. Satterfield was 40-11 over his last four seasons at Appalachian State, leaving no doubt that he’s ready to coach a power conference team, even if he has a big job ahead of him.
Meanwhile, Notre Dame is coming off their first-ever appearance in the College Football Playoff. The Fighting Irish navigated the 2018 regular season undefeated, even if they benefited from the likes of Stanford, Virginia Tech, Florida State, and USC all having down seasons. That schedule caught up with them in the CFP semifinals when they were shellacked by Clemson 30-3.
Now that Brian Kelly and company have reached the CFP, anything less will be considered a disappointment. The Irish may have to go undefeated again if they want to secure a spot in the top-4, which won’t be easy against a schedule that includes road games against Georgia and Michigan. That means they can’t overlook their so-called “easy” games, including the season opener against Louisville.
This will be just the second time these two programs have played one another. The first meeting came in 2014 Petrino led the Cardinals to South Bend and left with a 31-28 win. Kelly will surely have that loss in the back of his mind as he prepares Notre Dame for their road trip to northern Kentucky.
Brighter days are likely ahead for Louisville, but the program is too big of a mess for Satterfield to fix by the season opener, especially with a powerhouse program coming to town. Notre Dame will be far more talented on both sides of the ball, and once the excitement of a new era of Louisville football wears off, the Fighting Irish will seize control of the game. I have no problem eating the points and leaning toward Notre Dame to cover.
Louisville’s problems begin on offense. Jawan Pass was named the starting quarterback for the opener despite completing just 54% of his passes with eight touchdowns and 12 interceptions last year. To be fair, Louisville’s offensive line was a big reason why Pass struggled last year. Of course, that’s not necessarily an issue that can be completely fixed in one offseason. The offensive line was so bad last year that the team’s leading rusher was backup quarterback Malik Cunningham. Based on his time at Appalachian State, Satterfield will want to run the ball, but that will be tough with the personnel on the Louisville roster.
The Notre Dame defense will also play a role in the Cardinals struggling to move the ball. The Irish have lost some key players from last year’s defense, leaving them a little young and undersized at linebacker. But they still have tremendous size on the defensive line, which should prevent Louisville from getting consistent gains in the running game. If that’s the case, the Irish have the type of pass rushers that can cause big problems for Pass.
On the other side of the ball, Notre Dame is in good hands with quarterback Ian Book. He was Mr. Consistency after taking over as the starter a month into the 2018 season. Book averaged over 300 yards per game and threw at least two touchdowns in every game he started except the CFP semifinal against Clemson. Even with a few losses on that side of the ball, Notre Dame has more than enough coming back to give Book time in the pocket and a productive running game to complement the passing attack.
Meanwhile, questions linger about the Louisville defense despite returning most of their starters. The Cardinals are working with their fourth defensive coordinator in as many years, so there’s little continuity despite having so many starters coming back. The Louisville defense was also torched for 44 points per game last year, so even if there’s some improvement, it may not be enough to slow down the Notre Dame offense.
A few years ago, this would have been an amazing game to watch on opening weekend. Unfortunately, I see it as a lopsided affair. It’ll take a while for Satterfield to clean up Petrino’s mess, and I think Notre Dame will provide a strong piece of evidence of that on Monday. I like the Fighting Irish to cover the spread and then some.