Oh, the ‘trap game’. The bane of many a college football fan’s existence, the ‘trap game’ can doom a team’s season if not adequately anticipated.
For those not ‘in the know’ (i.e. not complete college football nerds), the trap game is a game whose placement on the schedule makes it more difficult than you’d expect. For instance, playing a team like, say, Vanderbilt, or Iowa State, doesn’t seem like much. But depending on the placement of those games on the schedule, they could become a headache. Last year, Navy fell between Clemson and USC on the ND schedule. Talk about your traps. Luckily, the Irish were able to shake off a slow start and put the Midshipmen away, and even better, beat the Trojans the following week as well.
Last year at our old stomping grounds, I looked at the potential trap games on the Irish schedule and rated them on a scale of 1 to 10 ‘Ackbars’, in honor of our old friend who introduced us to the danger of the trap:
This year, we’re back to do it again. Without further ado, let’s look at the potential ND trap games:
Sept. 10: Nevada (between @ Texas and Michigan State)
Nevada’s surrounding weeks: Cal Poly, Buffalo
This is only the second game of the season, so it’s hard to say it’s too big of a trap. But it fits the profile: ND has what’s sure to be an exciting and taxing Sunday night opener at Texas Sept. 4, and when kickoff of this one hits, they’ll be a week away from taking on consistent contender Michigan State. What’s nice about this one is that it’s the home opener, and it’s against a Group of 5 school. The Wolf Pack went 7-6 last season under Brian Polian, but only two of those wins were by more than 10, and they lost easily to both Power 5 foes they played. This one shouldn’t be too scary a trap. I’m going to give it 5 out of 10 Ackbars.
Oct. 8: @ NC State (between @ Syracuse and Stanford)
NC State’s surrounding weeks: Wake Forest, @ Clemson
Syracuse isn’t exactly a land mine (although who knows how quickly Dino Babers will get his light-speed offense on track), but it is a road trip to (near) NYC, with what should be a titanic clash with Stanford on deck the following week. That makes NC State, a sneaky-decent team with a stadium that will likely be amped up for ND’s first-ever visit, a tricky spot for the Irish. Recall that the Wolf Pack gave Clemson a sizable test last season and did the same with Florida State the year before.
It’s the second straight East Coast road trip for the Irish, and the third straight ACC game — all against teams ND is better than but you wouldn’t expect them to crush. And it’s the 6th game in a row without a bye. If there’s a ‘dog days’ of the football season, this is probably it. This game doesn’t stand out as a clear trap game the way Nevada did, but there’s a lot not to like about the placement of this one, and the Wolfpack (no space this time) are scarier than Nevada. I’m giving this 7 out of 10 Ackbars.
Nov. 19: Virginia Tech (between Army I’m not crazy about the placement of this game either, falling between a Shamrock game against an academy and a West Coast road trip. The Hokies, of course, have a new coach, Justin Fuente, and since this game is in mid-November, he’ll probably have his team on the same page by then. It’s also Senior Day, and ND hasn’t looked all that great the last two Senior Days. That being said, if the Irish have the season we all hope they will have, there will be plenty to play for in this game, and the Hokies have been a consistent enough program that they’re unlikely to sneak up on the Irish even with USC on deck. I’m going to give this one 6 out of 10 Ackbars.
Va Tech’s surrounding weeks: Georgia Tech, Virginia
That’s a 6 Ackbar average. i’m comfortable with that. Nevada might even rate less than 5. A head-scratching, early season loss for a team that finishes 11-1 seems like a formula that has worked for other teams in the young playoff era.
Good stuff. I share your concerns about NC State, because it’s just what they do, and Virginia Tech, mostly because that combo of Fuente and Bud Foster could be something and they’ll have had almost an entire season to work out the kinks.
ND didn’t look good last year on Senior Day? Is that because you expected us to drop a 50-burger on Wake? We pretty much dominated that game from start to finish.
That game was like the anti-BC game for me. We seemed to be winning comfortably but were not significantly outplaying Wake or consistently moving the ball against them.
Wake outgained use on the day. Half of our points came from a returned INT and a 98 yard run.
28-7 looks good 9 months later, but that game could have been a typical 4th quarter sweat fest.
Whereas the BC game would have been a blowout without a couple of aggravating plays.
Agreed. They couldn’t do anything against us, but really we didn’t do much against them either. We kind of looked like we were sleepwalking and managed to log a three-score win just because we had better players. It was very uninspiring.
Not 2008 Senior Day bad, of course. Thanks Chuck.
Like 2007, that never happened.
2007? I have a vague recollection of Jeff Samardzija prancing into the endzone against a ranked UCLA team for the game winning score…they must have handily won every other game, can’t recall anything else
The Samardzija TD catch was 2006. 200X was the Maurice Crum TD fumble (INT?) return to win the UCLA game, which, of course, never happened.
That 2006 game was my first date with my wife, so it happened. 2007, not so much.
ESPN says we have only a 45.9% chance of beating Texas, second toughest on our schedule behind USC at 27.3%.
In other news, ESPN computers are as reliable as your iPhone’s auto-incorrect.
Full list from here:
http://www.espn.com/college-football/story/_/id/17275862/no-10-notre-dame-fighting-irish
Notre Dame’s chances to win each game
09.04 @ Texas: 45.9%
09.10 vs. Nevada: 94.4%
09.11 vs. Michigan State: 67.0%
09.24 vs. Duke: 83.9%
10.01 vs. Syracuse ( MetLife Stadium): 80.2%
10.08 @ NC State: 62.9%
10.15 vs. Stanford: 66.8%
10.29 vs. Miami: 72.6%
11.05 vs. Navy (EverBank Field): 87.2%
11.12 vs. Army (Alamodome): 94.3%
11.19 vs. Virginia Tech: 78.5%
11.26 @ USC: 27.3%
Texas is projected to be tougher than Stanford? Am I missing something here?
As is NC State. And according to that list USC is supposed to be our most difficult game by far, which I don’t really believe.
I’n guessing that whatever algorithm they use gives a pretty substantial weight to home field advantage. Texas closed last year pretty well (which doesn’t make me sold on them, but it helps this kind of thing) and they’re at home. I’m much more surprised by the USC probability – I can’t see a 1-in-4 chance of winning that game as realistic. Coin flip, or 40%, sure, but 27%? Come on.
Well but you see USC has ELITE talent and it’s at USC and Notre Dame is slow and did we mention USC?
(ignore USC’s new coach and absolutely brutal schedule…nothing to see here)
The line is currently at ND -4.5 after opening ND -2.5 a few months ago. We’re not getting much respect.