Notre Dame Texas Odds

The No. 10 Notre Dame Fighting Irish travel to face the Texas Longhorns on Sunday, September 4 in a huge non-conference showdown to open the season. In their first meeting in nearly 20 years last season, the Fighting Irish rolled the Longhorns 38-3 at home.

Notre Dame has national title aspirations this season after going 10-3 last year and making the Fiesta Bowl. It didn’t show very well, however, falling 28-44 to Ohio State. But the Buckeyes were probably still the best team in the Big Ten even though they didn’t make the four-team playoff.

Texas actually missed out on a bowl game last season with a 5-7 record. Charlie Strong is now 11-14 in his two seasons in Austin and really needs to show some progress in Year 3. If not, he’ll likely be handed his walking papers at season’s end.

Kickoff inside Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium is scheduled for 7:30 EST Sunday night with ABC providing the television coverage. Taking a look at the odds in Las Vegas, I find Notre Dame as a 3.5-point favorite over Texas with a total set of 59.5 points.

My Early Lean: Texas +3.5

I’m huge on Texas this year and believe it will compete for the Big 12 Championship. I love third-year head coaches like Charlie Strong, especially in situations like these. He didn’t have the players he wanted his first two seasons, but now he has mostly his players in place to execute his schemes in Year 3.

In fact, Strong welcomes back 15 starters and 52 lettermen this year, making this his most experience team yet in Austin. The key will be improvement on offense, which won’t be a problem with new coordinator Sterling Gilbert, who guided Tulsa’s offense to over 500 yards of offense per game last year.

Tyrone Swoopes and stud freshman Shane Buechele are expected to share snaps this game. They will run Gilbert’s veer and shoot system, which is going to be completely different than what Notre Dame was up against last year. The change in scheme will cause some problems for Notre Dame’s defense as the Longhorns have the element of surprise working in their favor.

Strong should have his best defense yet at Texas with eight starters and seven of the top nine tacklers back from last year. The Longhorns are absolutely loaded with talent on this side of the ball, and several of the freshmen who played big minutes last year are now sophomores and will be improved greatly.

Many expect Notre Dame to compete for a national title this year, but I’m not seeing it. I see this as more of a rebuilding year for head coach Brian Kelly and company. That’s because the Fighting Irish return only four starters. They lose four of their top five receivers on offense, three starters along the offensive line, and six of their top eight tacklers on defense.

There’s no question that Texas has been working extra hard all offseason to try and avenge its ugly 3-38 loss at Notre Dame to open the 2015 season. The Longhorns will want this one badly, and now I would argue that they are actually the better team. They have 15 starters back compared to nine for Notre Dame, while last year they only had 11 starters back compared to 16 for the Fighting Irish.

Plays on underdogs of 3.5 to 10 points (TEXAS) – with 6+ more total starters returning than opponent, in the first month of the season are 58-24 (70.7%) ATS since 1992.

This line has been bet down from 4.5 to 3 in a lot of places for good reason. Plays on underdogs of 3.5 to 10 points (TEXAS) – with 6+ more total starters returning than opponent, in the first month of the season are 58-24 (70.7%) ATS since 1992.

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