Notre Dame Fighting Irish have a very daunting task in Georgia

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish have their toughest regular-season game in the last few years tonight when they play the number three ranked Georgia Bulldogs.

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish are in for the regular-season game of their lives. They sit at number seven and they are headed to Athens, Georgia to take on the number three Georgia Bulldogs. Obviously, both of these teams are undefeated heading into the matchup so this is a huge game for both team’s playoff hopes. Notre Dame’s lack of conference championship possibilities makes it where they pretty much have to go undefeated in order to make the college football playoff.

Georgia and some of their players were upset last year at the way the College Football Playoff selection committee elected to put in an undefeated Notre Dame team over the two-loss Georgia team.  Georgia was the better football team in most people’s estimation, but Notre Dame did what they needed to do based on the criteria to get in. That whole thing set up a really fun matchup for week four of the following season.

Notre Dame was defeated by Clemson in the playoff and lost by a wide margin (30-3) to the eventual National Champions, but Georgia lost themselves in the Sugar Bowl to a four-loss Texas Longhorns team. Now this year, they still see Georgia as a much better team so Notre Dame is going to go into this game motivated and hungry for a win.

They are underdogs by 14.5 points, which seems to be a bit high for two teams separated by four in the AP Poll. However, if Notre Dame is going to have a chance in this game, they are going to need Ian Book to have a solid game and not turn the ball over. He had five passing touchdowns and added a rushing touchdown last week in their win against New Mexico. Obviously, Georgia is in another class as far as opponents, but Book needs to have a good game.

Georgia is outscoring their opponents 148-23 through three weeks, but they don’t really have a formidable opponent to brag about yet either. Georgia should be confident, but this isn’t as much of a freebee as their first three games. Notre Dame is one of three teams that are currently ranked on their schedule so if Georgia takes them lightly, they are going to have a bad time. They have a really good quarterback of their own in Jake Fromm and he has been really good and working well this season so far.

Notre Dame is a big underdog in this game based on the fact that these are two high-level football programs in the country and people are giving them no chance to win. It wouldn’t be surprising to people who keep up with Notre Dame if they pull off the upset, but it certainly isn’t going to be easy. Whoever loses this game, in all likelihood is missing the playoff this year. If Notre Dame wants to win this game, they are going to need to have the best possible performance from both the offense and defense.