It's quite simple for No. 3 Notre Dame: If the Irish win their next two games, they will earn their first berth to the College Football Playoff. That road starts Saturday afternoon with No. 12 Syracuse in Yankee Stadium and continues next week at unranked USC. But that "kick your feet up" weekend in California is going to be a lot more stressful if Notre Dame does not take care of business in the Bronx. It's not about the uniforms, though those are controversial. How will ND play against a tough offensive team in 'Cuse?
While the Irish have only two more opportunities to make an impression on the committee, it helps their case that championship weekend could include as many as three teams it beat this year (Michigan, Northwestern and Pitt). But Notre Dame doesn't want to leave that to chance, giving teams like Georgia, Oklahoma, West Virginia and Washington State an opportunity to jump it in the final rankings thanks to the "championships won" criteria for the playoff.
Other teams have championship weekend, but Saturday's top-15 matchup with Syracuse might as well be Notre Dame's conference championship.
Viewing information
Date: Saturday, Nov. 17 | Time: 2:30 p.m. ET
Location: Yankee Stadium -- Bronx, New York
TV: NBC | Live stream: fuboTV (Try for free)
Storylines
Notre Dame: The return of Ian Book comes as a sigh of relief to Notre Dame fans concerned by a rib injury that was apparently suffered early in the win against Northwestern. Such injuries sometimes linger, and often it's impossible to know from the outside what to expect in terms of a player's return to action. Syracuse, as you might imagine, is intimately aware of Book's status and will try its best to make him uncomfortable with a defense that ranks No. 10 nationally in sacks per game. So it will be on the Irish offensive line -- a group that has maintained an edge against opponents even after losing two first rounders to the NFL Draft -- to protect Book for the sake of this game and the team's College Football Playoff hopes.
Syracuse: The Orange have got to do everything they can to get this game to second half and deep into the third and fourth quarter without letting Notre Dame establish a heavy advantage on the scoreboard. Notre Dame has been playing really loose in the second half of the season, but a lot of that has been the freedom to play loose as they protect big leads. That means not only getting stops on defense but finding a way to balance the up-tempo offensive attack with some ball control to shorten the game. Shortening the game would also benefit the Orange to mask some deficiencies in terms of depth. While Dino Babers called this a "typical November," he also noted that the team is one injury away from "floodgates" at a few positions. How Babers and the offensive staff choose to call the game, and how quarterback Eric Dungey executes that plan, will ultimately decide whether Syracuse is in a position to win.
Game prediction, picks
Book may be historically great in terms of accuracy, but in his six starts he hasn't faced a defensive front as tenacious as the one he'll see on the other side of the ball on Saturday afternoon. Alton Robinson leads a group that ranks No. 10 nationally in sacks per game and put a hurting on Trevor Lawrence earlier this year. Because of that, I'm expecting this to be a big game for running back Dexter Williams and a score that could be lower than you might expect given the potency of the two quarterbacks. Notre Dame will win and continue its playoff march, but Syracuse finishes inside the number. Pick: Syracuse +9.5
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