The venerated Notre Dame Fighting Irish football program seems to be finding its footing, at just the right time with Southern Cal on the schedule next week. But the Irish must deal with Air Force first, which means the Irish must thwart a whole bunch of running game. <\/p>\n
Air Force vs. Notre Dame<\/strong> The Irish looked good last week with a convincing 38-10 victory over in-state rival Purdue in West Lafayette. Notre Dame desperately needed some momentum, after an awful 0-2 start to the 2011 regular season; it will be crucial to get another win against the Falcons to carry the vibes into the USC match-up.<\/p>\n At least the Irish fans across the continent know they will be getting a prolific offense. Quarterback Tommy Rees has racked up 1,242 passing yards and 10 TDs, RB Cierre Wood has 103 carries for 583 yards and five majors, and hallmark WR Michael Floyd has proven his worth with 47 receptions for 561 yards. Tight end Tyler Eifert has been a nice secondary target with 24 grabs. The Irish are in the top half of the FBS in both passing and rushing offense; more encouraging still is that the defense has locked down in recent weeks \u2013 the Golden Domers now rank just 26th<\/sup> in total defense, surrendering only 18.6 points per contest. Keeping Michigan State, Pittsburgh and Purdue each to under two touchdowns is an impressive accomplishment for any team, much less an Irish \u201cD\u201d that looked ugly in the first couple weeks.<\/p>\n These realities make it seem like a tough hill to climb for Air Force. Last week, the Falcons squeaked by Navy in OT, but the Falcons defense has been positively Swiss cheesian thus far \u2013 something that does not bode well going up against Notre Dame\u2019s high-octane attack. Falcons QB Tim Jefferson is what makes the offense go and if the Falcons start getting a nice yield on the ground, they must try and control the tempo of the game. If not, Notre Dame can roll out the vertical passing game and put points on the board in a hurry. [soliloquy id=”82219″]<\/p>\n Air Force senior RB Asher Clark has 382 yards rushing on just 41 attempts, so if he can rip off big gainers like that against the Irish, it will be a good omen for Air Force\u2019s upset chances.<\/p>\n Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly has a warm seat right now, not unlike any Irish head man that doesn\u2019t perform wonderfully sooner rather than later. Yet if the Irish can roll this recent success into sustained winning for the rest of 2011, it will do wonders for Kelly\u2019s evolution as a successful head coach under the microscope in South Bend. Rees should have a field day with the aerial attack against the visiting Falcons; if the Irish can get ahead by a couple of scores early, even a successful running game (re: Air Force is third in the nation) isn\u2019t very effective when it is playing catch-up.<\/p>\n To come into hostile northern Indiana and pull off an upset, Air Force must not only run the ball well, but present enough passing from Jefferson to keep LB Manti Te\u2019o and the Irish \u201cD\u201d honest, as well as wrest some miracle turnovers out of Rees. Without these pre-requisites, Notre Dame\u2019s superior speed and talent will dictate the terms of the contest.<\/p>\n For Notre Dame\u2019s part, it must ensure that it isn\u2019t caught looking ahead to the USC Trojans, rather than focusing on the task at hand. With the Irish\u2019s nice wins over these last three weeks, it looks like the team is rounding into form to be ready for loathed USC. But a .500 ballclub, with USC coming into town next week won\u2019t have as much spring in its step as a program riding the wave of four straight wins.<\/p>\n Kelly should have his players ready for this week.<\/p>\n Score Prediction: Notre Dame 38, Air Force 14<\/strong> CHECK OUT OUR\u00a0College football betting forums<\/strong><\/a> today! Join us today and make College football picks against the spread for all Division 1 NCAA Football matchups!<\/p>\n Welcome to the CappersPicks.com college football weekly predictions pages! We KNOW you will find our FREE weekly\u00a0college football picks<\/strong><\/a>, tips, betting advice, strategies, CFB gambling articles and more to help you become the best College football bettor on your block!!<\/p>\n The Air Force Falcons vs. Notre Dame Fighting Irish will both be trying to pick up a win in Week 6 on Saturday\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":28345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[2743,2749,52569,1685,414,52570,3256,769,906,1445],"class_list":["post-44318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ncaa-football","tag-air-force","tag-air-force-falcons","tag-air-force-falcons-vs-notre-dame-fighting-irish","tag-college-football-spreads","tag-falcons","tag-falcons-vs-fighting-irish-odds","tag-fighting-irish","tag-ncaa-football-picks","tag-notre-dame","tag-notre-dame-fighting-irish"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/127"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44318"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44346,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44318\/revisions\/44346"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nNotre Dame Stadium, South Bend IN
\nSaturday, Oct. 8, 3:30 pm EST
\nNCAA Odds from Sportsbook.com:
\nMoneyLine: Air Force +465, Notre Dame -667
\nSpread: Air Force +15, Notre Dame -15
\nOver\/Under: 55.5<\/p>\n
\nOver\/Under Prediction: 52<\/strong><\/p>\nGRAB THE BEST CFB PICKS ONLINE WITH OUR EXPERTS\u2019 NCAA FOOTBALL PREDICTIONS \u2014\u2013><\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"