Merry Christmas Notre Dame football fans! Your gift- a Camping World Bowl Preview! This morning, Christmas Eve, the Fighting Irish conducted their first on site bowl game practice. The Irish went 10-2 this regular season, and they’re currently ranked #15 in the college football playoff and #14 in the Associated Press.
Yet here they are in the Citrus Bowl’s junior varsity game, taking on an unranked 7-5 team. Obviously, the Irish deserved a lot better, a whole lot better, but that’s water under the bridge now! Let’s look ahead to the game.
The game will kickoff Saturday, Dec. 28 at 12:088 p.m. ET at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Florida. It will serve as the perfect opening act for your college football playoff Saturday, as by the time it’s over, we’ll be nearing kickoff of the first final four bowl game. The Fighting Irish are favored by just 3.5 points, with the over/under set at 54. So what are these people thinking here with these lines? Well, Iowa State will likely enter this game with a major chip on their shoulder.
Their five losses include a one point defeat at the hands of college football playoff qualifier Oklahoma (the #4 seed) and a two point set back to New Year’s Six bowl qualifier Baylor. The Camping World Bowl will be televised on ABC, with Bob Wischusen (play-by-play), Dan Orlovsky (color) and Allison Williams (sideline) on the call. The big news, however, in the Notre Dame media world this week, concerns the Notre Dame on NBC sideline reporter Kathryn Tappen.
Tappen’s NHL on NBC colleague and close friend Jeremy Roenick went on a podcast and openly talked about his desire to have a three way with her and his wife. Not making this up, and if you want to know more, click here. Speaking of outbound clicks, I did a segment on the Camping World Bowl, Notre Dame and the bowl season in general for the Minutia Men show, on the Radio Misfits network.
Notre Dame enter this game on the heels of having achieved 22 wins in the pass two seasons and three straight double digit win campaigns. They bring a very balanced team to central Florida that is pretty strong all around.
Their defense will have to contend with an Iowa State offense that is on pace to break several school records in passing offense (ranking 9th nationally, 318.3 yards per game), yards per play (16th, 6.6), total offense (21st, 458.7) and scoring (26th, 34.1).
Iowa State has already set season school records for Touchdowns (53), Points (409), Touchdown Passes (29), Passing Yards (3,820), First Downs (284) and Total Offense (5,504).
“This is a really good football team that could easily be 11-1,” Notre Dame Coach Brian Kelly said of his opponent.
“They’ve got an outstanding quarterback in Brock Purdy. I haven’t watched them on film. We don’t have any crossover games with them. We played Oklahoma obviously in the Big 12, so we have a great understanding of the caliber of football that they play week in and week out.”
“Explosive offenses in the Big 12, really solid defensively, physical football team, well-coached. Matt Campbell is an outstanding football coach.”
Prediction #15 Notre Dame 31, Iowa State 24
Well, ND really should have Virginia’s slot in the Orange Bowl this season, but what can you do? It’s a very flawed system. What you can do is take care of business in the bowl game they’re in and I think they will.
Paul M. Banks runs The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with News Now. Banks, the author of “No, I Can’t Get You Free Tickets: Lessons Learned From a Life in the Sports Media Industry,” regularly appears on WGN CLTV and co-hosts the “Let’s Get Weird, Sports” podcast on SB Nation.
You can follow Banks, a former writer for NBC Chicago.com and Chicago Tribune.com on Twitter here and his cat on Instagram at this link.