Wake Forest at Notre Dame – College Football Predictions
The Game
Notre Dame will try and take another step towards a DATE with DESTINY and the college football playoff this week when they tackle Wake Forest at home on Saturday afternoon. The Irish are rolling this season and playing fantastic football blowing out every opponent by 20+ points other than the mighty Georgia Bulldogs (one-point loss). Wake Forest is sitting at 5-3 and are fresh off a yuuuuge win over LUA-VUH. Can they pull off another stunner ? Let’s dig in.
The Details
Notre Dame -14 Wake Forest (55)
MEGALOCKS LINE – Notre Dame -17
Sagarin Ratings – Notre Dame -18.5
“Vegas” Implied Projected Score: Notre Dame 34.5 Wake Forest 20.5
Massey Ratings Projected Score: Notre Dame 38 Wake Forest 17
The Match-Up
Notre Dame offense vs Wake Forest defense
The Irish STEAMROLLER gets another chance to inflict MAXIMUM pain this Saturday. They are averaging an amazing 318 (!) yards per game rushing (#6 FBS) and face a Wake Forest defense that was gashed for 191,427 and 190 yards in their last three games (LUA-VUH, Ga Tech, Clemson). The Deacons will be without leading tackler S Jessie Bates and that is not an ideal scenario when facing Notre Dame. RB Josh Adams is having an excellent campaign and would have already been the Heisman LOCK if ESPN had not gone all-in on someone else back in September. Adams has over 1,100 yards rushing at 8.9 yards a pop and would have 3,400 yards if he played Stanford’s schedule. QB Wimbush is not Lamar Jackson but is an excellent runner. The RB depth is gross. Keep your eye on WR Kevin Stepherson who has caught a TD pass in each of the past two games. Wake has allowed 26,28,38 and 32 in their past 4 games. Even a sluggish Notre Dame squad should get into the 30s without an issue.
Wake Forest offense vs Notre Dame defense
The Deacons just finished scoring 42 vs LUA-VUH but that defense is complete trash. In their previous four games they scored 20,19,14 and 24 and now face one of the most underrated defenses in college football. They will be without their best offensive player by a MILE in WR Greg and the Irish have not allowed more than 20 points in a game in 2017. QB John Wolford has done a fine job at QB (15-2 TD to INT ratio) but he is also their leading rusher (just 341 yards). It seems to us that they are going to have trouble mounting much offense in this game. Added bonus ? Notre Dame’s excellent OC was at……Wake Forest last season. That may mean nothing. But it can’t hurt.
MEGA-MAZING MINUTIA
These two teams have combined for just two (!!) ATS losses in 2017. Something has to give, yo. Or maybe the game lands on 14 ?
Summary
Things do not look good for Wake Forest. Notre Dame should run without mercy and its hard to see Wake get more than 14-17 points without help from the defense and/or special teams.
Longtime MEGALOCKS members and readers know that we are ALWAYS keen to bad situational spots. You can make the argument that Notre Dame is due for a letdown BUT they MUST win every game from here on out to make the playoff. They have been nothing but focused all season and we expect nothing less this Saturday. Added bonus ? We think that this is actually a bad spot for the Deacons as well. They have three big ACC games on deck including yuuuuge rivalry games with Duke and NC State. They just lost two of their best players to injury and we feel they will be happy to give it a “college try” and get the hell out of town. NC State was pulverized for four quarters last week and they ran out of ice in the locker room.
Conclusion
Notre Dame -14 (sent 4:35pm Nov 2) (play up to -16.5) (Note – you can still get -13.5 at some major books including Pinnacle and The Greek. We will use -14 for record keeping purposes. Shop around).