Notre Dame Fighting Irish (-3.5) at Michigan Wolverines, Total 55 |
Notre Dame dropped its opener, 23-20, as double-digit home favorites to the South Florida Bulls and a new starting quarterback will be under center this week as a result. Tommy Rees is no stranger to Irish fans, leading the team to a 4-0 record to close out the 2010 season.
“As we talked about, relative to Dayne, we talked about production,” commented Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly this week. “Tommy was very productive in the second half and he’ll get a chance to start against Michigan.”
Reese threw for 296 yards and two touchdowns and fell just short of completing a furious comeback.
In what’s being billed as the “First Michigan Home Game Under the Lights”, they may want to take a look at the Irish’ 3-0 record in previous meetings when playing in night games against the Wolverines.
Notre Dame’s defense has also been up-to-task recently, allowing just five offensive touchdowns in its last six games. The Irish had twice as many total yards as the Bulls last week and still found a way to lose due to five turnovers.
Sportsbooks bettors will be interested in knowing that the Fighting Irish are 6-1 ATS in their last seven road games, while the ‘under’ is 15-7 in their games away from South Bend.
Michigan welcomes in ESPN College Game Day for the first time since the 2007 season and is 13-7 all-time when the crew from Bristol, Connecticut, is in town. The last time ESPN was at a Wolverine-Fighting Irish contest was in 2003.
The Wolverines have won five of the last six meetings against the Irish in Ann Arbor, including consecutive games on last minute touchdown drives.
First-year head coach Brady Hoke nailed down a rain-shortened 34-10 home win over Western Michigan last week, but the offense managed to run just 39 plays in the contest.
“There’s some things that are still out there,” Hoke commented afterwards. “There’s some things that we didn’t get to in the offense that maybe we would have liked to.”
Michigan’s 28-24 victory last year was a classic and quarterback Denard Robinson enjoyed one of the best days in his career, accumulating for 502 of the team’s 532 total yards.
college football betting players will notice that the underdog is 6-1 ATS in the last seven meetings, but the Wolverines are 0-4 ATS in their last four chances when getting points at The Big House.
