It’s the home opener for the 2016 football season and the last opener before the official unveiling of the Crossroads project. On Saturday we’ll finally see the (nearly) finished bones of the $400 million project, complete with video board space without a video board.

The Irish come off a deflating loss on the road in Austin plunging many a fan into depression thinking about the remaining 11 regular season games. However, the national outlook isn’t nearly as gloomy. That’s a product of playing a wildly entertaining game (people love those!) and carrying an offense that is led by media-favorite DeShone Kizer–now trending as a possible No. 1 overall pick in the NFL Draft. What a 12 months for that guy.

Nevada (+28.5) at Notre Dame

Notre Dame Stadium
South Bend, Indiana
Date: Saturday, September 10, 2016
Kickoff: 3:30 PM ET
Television: NBC
Series: 1-0-0 Notre Dame

Nevada makes the 2,000 mile trek back East for their second-ever meeting with Notre Dame. Led by former Irish special teams coach Brian Polian, the Wolf Pack are licking their wounds following a near-loss in the opener to California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo aka Cal-Poly. They did pull out the victory in overtime which has brought Polian to 19-20 in his career in Reno.

3 Matchups to Watch

Irish Defense vs. Nevada’s Rush Attack

Nevada definitely lives off of their rushing attack. They lost 1,000-yard rusher Don Jackson but bring back another 1,000-yard rusher in junior James Butler. At 5-9, 210 he’s a well-built back with shiftiness but a short-strider who shouldn’t run away from most players at the Power 5 level.

Penn State transfer Akeel Lynch will also get in the mix but it’s difficult to know how productive he’ll be with only 4 carries in the opener. Quarterback Tyler Stewart is also used a weapon in the spread read option attack averaging just under 8 carries per game since becoming starter.

The Wolf Pack were pretty good at creating some long runs–finishing 32nd nationally with 24 carries of 20+ yards–but only mustered one such run in the opener on Butler’s 50-yard touchdown run. The addition of Lynch (220 pounds) probably won’t help the explosiveness all that much.

VanGorder vs. Tyler Stewart

Shut down the Wolf Pack running attack and this game should be over quickly. Stewart, the 5th-year senior making his 15th straight start, has led a very lean passing attack since 2015. He’s only completed 20+ passes twice in his career and combines a pretty pedestrian YPA with accuracy under 60% in 8 out of his last 14 appearances.

Does the defense pack the box in combination with soft coverage to play it safe through the air and dare Stewart to string together a bunch of passes? Or do they creep tight and challenge an offense whose 46-yard pass last week against Cal-Poly was just the 3rd snap through the air of 40+yards since the beginning of 2015?

Notre Dame Running for All the Yards

If you thought the Irish running attack disappointed last Sunday now is the time for them to get back into your good graces. Nevada came into the season really swimming upstream having to replace 6 of their front 7 starters, and oh boy, did things not go well in their opener: 383 rushing yards surrendered with 3 scores given up on the ground AND no sacks nor quarterback hurries.

Last year’s 457 rushing yards against UMass was the high-water mark for the Kelly era and that total could be in danger this weekend.

2 Sides of the Line

Nevada had a veteran offensive line coming into the season that went through a small shakeup as left guard Ziad Damanhoury (9 starts in 2015) was dismissed from the team after a July DUI arrest. In his place, they put JUCO sophomore Jake Krepsz (6-5, 320) as the starter in the opener. Filling out the interior is senior center Nathan Goltry (6-1, 300) and 5th-year right guard Jeremy Macauley (6-1, 300) who started 13 and 11 games respectively last year.

On the left edge will be redshirt junior Austin Corbett (6-4, 300) and on the right 5th-year senior Jacob Henry (6-4, 295) both who started every game last year. Besides the new starter Krepsz this is an under-sized line which is to be expected from a Mountain West team. Last year they had some quality traditional stats (2,738 rushing yards, 24 rushing TD’s, 22 sacks surrendered) although S&P liked their rushing attack a lot less (81st nationally).

The Wolf Pack are breaking in two new defensive ends in redshirt sophomore Malik Reed (6-1, 245) and junior Patrick Choudja (6-3, 250) who combined for 12 tackles and 1 tackle for loss in their opener.

On the interior returning starter and 5th-year senior Salesa Faraimo (6-2, 290) is back but was limited to just 4 assisted tackles last week. He’ll start next to redshirt sophomore Korey Rush (6-1, 280) who got some experience last year and made 2 tackles in the opener. Redshirt freshman Hausia Sekona (6-1, 275) will also see some action and totaled 6 tackles and 1 TFL in their first game.

1 Prediction

Nevada had a weird opening game against Cal-Poly. They burst out to a 21-7 lead on 97 rushing yards and 178 total yards in the 1st quarter. From there they managed just a field goal, no points in the second half, and only 185 yards through the end of the game which went into a single overtime session. What happened?

The Wolf Pack fell asleep and Cal-Poly did a great job keeping the ball away from the Nevada offense. The Mustangs picked up 23 first downs which enabled them to keep running the ball for an absurd 71 carries. In the second half, Cal-Poly had the ball for nearly 22 out of the 30 minutes of game time! Nevada still averaged 6.3 yards per play overall but only had 6 offensive snaps in the 3rd quarter and 12 in the 4th quarter.

Nevada should be frisky on offense against Notre Dame. They really lost only one impact player from a year ago and you know Brian Polian is going to be really aggressive throwing out some trick plays and thinking good and hard about any 4th down attempts. Without some turnovers this game has annoying written all over it when Nevada has the ball. With the shape and morale the Irish defense comes into this game with who’s to say the Wolf Pack won’t do some positive things on offense?

This game will not be fun. The offense has a really good chance of lighting up the scoreboard but anything short of 60 points is unlikely to move the needle for most folks. Putting up a 50-spot is expected. Additionally, the weather forecast is calling for 74, cloudy, with the chance of some showers. Notre Dame Stadium is known to get awfully sleepy when a game isn’t competitive and I can see a really dull afternoon all things considered.

Notre Dame 51

Nevada 24