Notre Dame Needs to Make a Huge Statement Against Air Force

 Despite not currently being ranked in the BCS Top 25, Notre Dame still has BCS hopes. It can happen if the Fighting Irish win out and go 10-2. To do that they have to go one game at a time. You can't go 10-2 if you don't go 6-2. But even with a 10-2 mark, they could still get left out if they don't impress the pollsters. It won't help if Notre Dame has opponent whom they should blow out on paper and end up barley beating them. That already happened once this year against Purdue and being honest, the Irish weren't really all that impressive against lowly Temple too.

Now here we are this week against an Air Force team that is 1-6 from a second tier conference in the Mountain West. From what I understand, they have already started 4 different quarterbacks. So going into this game, Air Force doesn't scare me at all. Notre Dame does. The Fighting Irish often do not get up for games like this and allow an inferior opponent to be closer than it should be. On paper, Notre Dame should blow the Falcons out. But they need to blow them out on the field. Notre Dame has looked good the last couple games and some of the pollsters have noticed. But an uninspired win will not help rally new ones.

But not only for purposes of moving into the polls, games like this are how you are supposed to build programs. These games should feature extended playing time for backups and give them game experience. But the coach can't do that if they keep it closer than it should be. What happened with Andrew Hendrix last week is a perfect example. Had he got game experience against Purdue and Temple, he might have been better prepared and done a little better. The fact is that he is the back up and may be called upon again in a key situation. That is why getting him and other back ups in this week is vitally important.

So Go Irish and blow this team out. We have no interest in an exciting game.