A surprise trip to the BCS National Championship Game has all eyes back on one of college football\u2019s most storied programs, but the Notre Dame Fighting Irish will face a tall order in replicating last year\u2019s feat. <\/p>\n
2013 Preview: Notre Dame Fighting Irish <\/strong> The Irish won\u2019t be able to catch anyone by surprise this season, and several key performers from a year ago, including Manti T\u2019eo, Everett Golson, and Tyler Eifert, won\u2019t play a single snap in 2013. <\/p>\n Head coach Brian Kelly certainly isn\u2019t allowing that to sway his optimism for this upcoming season, as he included the Jan. <\/p>\n 6 national title game on the team\u2019s schedule board.<\/p>\n A lot had to go right for the team to get to 12-0 last year, but there\u2019s no question that coach Kelly has the program back in position to compete with college football\u2019s elite, as Notre Dame should be. A stellar recruiting class means the future remains bright for the Irish.<\/p>\n As for this upcoming season, there could be some growing pains on offense as there will be plenty of new faces in the starting lineup. With Golson out of the picture, the keys to the offense have been handed to senior Tommy Rees. Whether or not Rees can keep the offense humming will decide if the Irish will remain in the national title conversation. <\/p>\n He\u2019s looked solid in spurts as an option of the bench, but producing consistently is a whole other story.<\/p>\n He could have a tough time doing that with Eifert, Theo Riddick, and Cierre Wood all having moved on. The team is loaded with true freshman that have a ton of potential, but this year they\u2019ll lean on guys like George Atkinson, Amir Carlisle, and T.J. Jones, none of whom have shown the ability to move the needle. <\/p>\n It\u2019s unreasonable to expect this group to light up the scoreboard, but if they focus on ball security and limit turnovers that could be enough most weeks.<\/p>\n On the other side of the ball, don\u2019t expect the defense to lose a step this season. That\u2019s a tall order considering they finished second in the nation in scoring defense a year ago, allowing only two rushing touchdowns in the regular season. T\u2019eo drew all the attention last season, but there\u2019s still plenty of talent in town. .[soliloquy id=”82219″]<\/p>\n Louis Nix and Stephon Tuitt will anchor the defense up front, while there are a slew of talented linebackers ready to fill T\u2019eo\u2019s shoes, and the secondary will be filled with plenty of veteran players.<\/p>\n There were no shortage of friendly bounces to help the Irish to a 12-0 regular season a year ago. Last year\u2019s schedule makes this year\u2019s look like a cake walk, but it still won\u2019t be easy sledding. <\/p>\n The team is fortunate to get games against Michigan State, Oklahoma, and USC in South Bend, but consecutive road contests against Michigan and Purdue, and their closing game at Stanford will be tough.<\/p>\n Rees is the key player for the Irish this season. He gets to play behind one of the nation\u2019s best offensive lines, but he\u2019ll be feeling a different kind of pressure from day one. He\u2019s been around South Bend long enough that it\u2019s reasonable to think that he can handle the pressure, but there may not be enough talent around him at the skill positions to expect anything but a regression from the offense.<\/p>\n If the Irish don\u2019t make a BCS game the season will likely be considered a failure. It\u2019s tough to imagine them catching the same breaks in back-to-back seasons, especially as they transition new faces into the lineup.<\/p>\n 8\/31 Temple 2013-14 Football Previews \u2013 (Independant) \u2013 Fighting Irish A surprise trip to the BCS National Championship Game has all eyes back on one of college football\u2019s most storied programs, but the Notre Dame Fighting Irish will face a tall order in replicating last year\u2019s feat.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":976,"featured_media":65132,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[59304,59786,5100,15851,3023,14304,1445,59787,51011,51012,59788,51013],"class_list":["post-65065","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ncaa-football","tag-2013-bcs-lines","tag-2013-football-previews","tag-bcs-odds","tag-fighting-irish-predictions","tag-football-predictions","tag-football-season-preview","tag-notre-dame-fighting-irish","tag-notre-dame-football","tag-notre-dame-football-predictions","tag-notre-dame-gambling-odds","tag-notre-dame-picks","tag-notre-dame-schedule"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65065","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\/976"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65065"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65065\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65133,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65065\/revisions\/65133"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65065"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65065"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/capperspicks.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65065"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nCoach: Brian Kelly <\/strong>
\n2012 Record: 12-1 <\/strong>
\nNotre Dame gambling odds to win BCS: +5500<\/strong>
\nNotre Dame Team Page \u2013 Player Stats \u2013 Roster \u2013 2013 Schedule \u2013 ><\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nCheck out our in-house Handicapper!!! Buy Razor Ray’s College Picks in 2013!<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\n
2013-14 Notre Dame Football Prediction: 8-4<\/h3>\n
2013 Irish Schedule<\/h3>\n
\n9\/7 at Michigan
\n9\/14 at Purdue
\n9\/21 Michigan State
\n9\/28 Oklahoma
\n10\/5 Arizona State (at Arlington)
\n10\/19 USC
\n10\/26 at Air Force
\n11\/2 Navy
\n11\/9 at Pittsburgh
\n11\/23 BYU
\n11\/30 at Stanford<\/p>\nGRAB OUR BEST Expert CFB Picks for 2013 NCAA FOOTBALL Betting! \u2014\u2013><\/strong><\/a><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"