No shortage of story lines whenever the Jeweled Shillelagh rivalry, which began in 1926, is renewed. This Notre Dame football team no longer has any College Football Playoff hopes for this season, but that doesn’t mean they’re going to pack it in. The biggest intersectional rivalry of all awaits as the #10 USC Trojans come to town on Saturday night
Notre Dame and USC are separated by about 2,100 miles. It’s four and a half hours by air, 30 hours by car, and as anyone who has ever been to one of these games will tell you- time absolutely flies when you’re there.
#10 USC Trojans at #21 Notre Dame Football FYIs
If you’re looking to bet, like you would with SlotsATM, you’ll see ND favored -2 1/2, with the total, or O/U at 63. ESPN Predictor is showing 61.9%-38.1% in favor of ND.
Feature on the role this matchup plays in “Die Hard:” go here
Feature on uniqueness of this rivalry: go here
TV: NBC 6:30 PM
#10 USC Trojans (6-0) Preview
You have the reigning Heisman winner and likely No.1 overall pick in the NFL Draft, Caleb Williams, coming to town for this one. Enough said! He leads an offense that averages 51.5 points per game, which is second in the nation.
They’re also third nationally in passing yards per game, at 355.5. ND will have to fixate on trying to stop him, this crazy good passing offense and Williams’ top target, Tahj Washington.
It’s a tall order to say the least. Notre Dame always gets up for this game though, so it’s easy to see why they’re favored in this one, despite being 11 spots lower in the national rankings.
It’s one that our players really circle each year,” then Notre Dame coach and lifelong Cajun, with a very genuine Southern/Creole accent Brian Kelly said on a media teleconference ahead of the 2015 affair.
“Each game that we play has a rivalry to it, whether it’s Navy or Stanford, or Michigan. We play a lot of rivalry type games. USC is one that certainly always stands by itself, it has a great tradition to it.
“They came in for a treatment today and all they could talk about was the opportunity to play USC.”
The Trojans have a very suspect defense, so we’ll see if this Notre Dame football team can exploit it.
#21 Notre Dame Football (5-2) Preview
ND-USC didn’t feature two teams ranked at the same time much during the late 2000s and early 2010s, so this edition, at least on paper, should be better than most. Notre Dame are playing in their fourth straight night game against a nationally ranked opponent.
They’re 1-2 so far in these Saturday night fever affairs, having eked out a win at Duke, lost on the last second at home to Ohio State, and getting beaten decisively by Louisville.
Enough jokes have already been made about this team sometimes not having enough players on the field. No need to pile on with that. Notre Dame football coach Marcus Freeman has been ripped plenty already for that.
Quarterback Sam Hartman finally came down to Earth last week at UL. Up until then his numbers had been video game like. The Trojans secondary is vulnerable, so we’ll see what happens with the ND passing offense versus the USC passing defense.
Prediction: Notre Dame football 37, USC 34
These rivalry trophy games are often very weird and quite unpredictable.
Paul M. Banks is the owner/manager of The Sports Bank. He’s also the author of “Transatlantic Passage: How the English Premier League Redefined Soccer in America,” and “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry.”
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