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Of course, Notre Dame defeated Navy last week! The Irish were 15.5-point favorites, playing at a neutral site (that probably felt like a home game), and were riding a three-game winning streak to enter the day. This game was never supposed to be much of a contest.
At halftime, the Irish held a 22-point lead, on their way to an absolute blowout of the now 3-7 Midshipman. Notre Dame had the game in hand! Easy money!
Until it wasn’t.
After going into halftime with a three-possession lead, the Irish emerged from the tunnels of M&T Bank Stadium for the second half and proceeded to puke all over themselves for the final 30 minutes of the game.
You can never get too confident in the Irish. With this team, nothing that should be easy is. One would think that a team fresh off beating No. 4 Clemson would be ready to stomp a military academy program the following week, but that would be too obvious.
Instead, Notre Dame put on their worst offensive display in the second half (more on that later), and watched the Midshipman outscore them 19-0 in the second half. Navy totaled 16 points in the fourth quarter to make the game much closer than it initially appeared.
We have no idea which Notre Dame team will appear this weekend against Boston College, but we know the Irish will at least be on the field. Let’s get into the breakdown of this Week 12 matchup and find out what we should between the 7-3 Irish and the 3-7 Eagles.
Note: All stats and info courtesy of CollegeFootballData.com, PFF.com, and Sports-Reference.com.
Notre Dame
Notre Dame’s close call against Navy should have been somewhat expected. The Irish offense has made a living off running the ball, and Navy held them to 66 yards 32 carries, with their lone rushing touchdown coming on an 11-yard scramble by Drew Pyne.
Navy has allowed the sixth-fewest rushing yards per game on the season (85.8), and stood firm against the Irish all afternoon. In the second half, Notre Dame’s offense was completely shut out after they entered halftime with a 35-13 lead. They totaled 16 yards in the final two quarters, which sounds like a wildly impossible stat -- yet here we are talking about it.
Now, they prepare to face a Boston College defense that ranks 54th in yards allowed per game (366.3), 88th in rushing yards per game (157.0) and 43rd in passing yards per game (209.3). Can Pyne and company find a way to take advantage of a lower-tier rush defense? We would assume that they could. They probably should. But as usual, this offense gives you little to believe in after an awful performance that we never envisioned possible.
It should be mentioned at this point that Notre Dame’s offense simply isn’t good. After Michael Mayer (54-647-7), their next leading receiver is Lorenzo Styles (26-306-1). Running back Audric Estime (125-711-9) leads the team in rushing, but has rushed for fewer than 60 yards in five of his 10 games.
Defensively, the Irish rank 40th in the nation in points allowed per game (22.3), but over their last three games, they’ve allowed 16.7 points per game in the second half. For a team being led by a defensive head coach, and that was expected to be one of the better defensive teams in the nation, Notre Dame’s inability to close out games is concerning, and something Boston College could take advantage of.
Boston College
In their last two games, Boston College lost 38-31 to Duke, and came away with a 21-20 win over NC State last week. Quarterback Emmett Morehead has lit a bit of a fire under the Eagles’ offense as of late, while he’s thrown for 658-7-2 in his last two starts while rushing for 54 additional yards.
Morehead’s 658 passing yards are good for eight-most over the last two weeks, but the redshirt freshman has also had four turnover-worthy plays per PFF in those two games -- although we should probably also mention that he has five big-time throws. It’s possible quarterback Phil Jurkovec makes a return this weekend against Notre Dame, although I’m not quite sure how you sit Morehead fresh off a game that led to him being named ACC Rookie of the Week.
Wide receiver Zay Flowers has enjoyed Morehead’s recent emergence as well. Flowers, a potential Day 2 draft pick in next year’s NFL Draft, has gone for 14-193-4 over the last two games and ripped off an 8-128-2 game in last week’s win over NC State.
On what was arguably his biggest play of the day, Flowers took an underneath route on 3rd and 6 for a 35-yard score in the third quarter, evading multiple defenders on his way to the end zone.
Zay Flowers 🤝 yards after the catch
— ACC Football (@ACCFootball) November 12, 2022
A 35 yard catch-and-run for the BC score!@BCFootball | #ACCFootball
📺 @accnetwork pic.twitter.com/zBWqd4bOSN
Flowers, who opted to return in 2022 instead of declaring for the 2022 NFL Draft has done everything he can to make his final season at Boston College count. His 922 receiving yards rank 13th overall in the nation, while his 10 receiving touchdowns are tied for fifth-most. A legitimate threat after the catch (as you can see in the above video), Flowers also ranks ninth with 452 YAC and is 39th among receivers with 12 missed tackles forced per PFF.
The Eagles are far from an offensive powerhouse. They rank 118th in the nation in points per game (19.0) and are 120th in totaled yards per game (321.0). Flowers and Morehouse are arguably the two best things about Boston College’s offense -- but a similar argument could also be made about Drew Pyne and Michael Mayer for the Irish.
I don’t expect this game to be any kind of an offensive explosion, but if the Eagles are to push Notre Dame in any way, you’ll likely hear Flowers’ name called quite a bit.
Irish Pick ‘Em Predictor
Notre Dame Rushing Yards
Given their offensive inconsistencies, picking the Notre Dame rushing total feels like a safer pick than most. At best, we know the Irish want to run the ball as often as they can. We also know Boston College has struggled against the run, allowing 157.0 rushing yards per game. The Eagles’ defensive success rate against the run (41.5%) ranks 49th in the nation, but if the Irish (-21) are performing as expected, then game script should permit them to stick to their preferred method of offense.
Pick: Notre Dame 135+ rushing yards
Notre Dame 2nd Quarter Points
This game has one of the lower projected totals on the weekend. With an over/under of 43.5 points, it’s safe to say the books don’t love a shootout here. The Irish are averaging 10.9 points per game in the second quarter on the season, and are averaging 14.0 points in the second quarter over their last three games. Outproducing their per-game average by 3.1 points, I’d expect a little bit of negative regression to hit the Irish at some point. If Boston College is able to keep its offense on the field a bit, this will also limit Notre Dame’s scoring opportunities at any given moment. I’ll bank on the Irish taking a slight step back from their recent second-quarter performances, but think they find a way to get a few points on the board.
Pick: Notre Dame 2nd Quarter Points 4-7
The Game
Neither of these teams is particularly good against the spread, but the Eagles are 2-0 ATS under Morehead. Notre Dame, who loves playing down to its competition, is getting a big number in this spot and both offenses have struggled to score points all season. In addition to their run-heavy approach, Notre Dame also ranks 116th in the nation in seconds per play (28.3) with Boston College ranking 39th at 24.4 seconds. Notre Dame beat Clemson by 21 points a few weeks ago and also had a 23-point win over UNLV. Outside of those two games, Any Irish victory has come by 17 points or fewer. Notre Dame’s propensity to play down to its competition is enough for me to think they can’t won’t cover in this one -- I didn’t think they’d cover at -15.5 last week to Navy, which worked out well. But if there’s one thing we know about the Irish, it’s that nothing goes as you’d expect. With that being said, I’ll pick the Eagles to cover this one, riding the mini-high that Morehead has given them over the last two weeks.
Pick: Boston College +21
2022 Record: 28-39-1
