Saturday, Aug. 31
7:30 p.m. Eastern, 4:30 p.m. Pacific
ABC
The 2024 college football season has some showcase matchups in Week 1, and it’s hard to get much better than Notre Dame and Texas A&M in prime time. Notre Dame and A&M face a lot of pressure in most seasons, but 2024 truly is critical for both programs. Notre Dame simply has to make the 12-team College Football Playoff. If it fails to do so, Marcus Freeman will likely catch a lot of heat and face a lot of questions about his ability to lead Notre Dame to the top tier of college football as Brian Kelly’s successor. Freeman has struggled to field a good offense. He brought in Mike Denbrock, the former offensive coordinator at Notre Dame who, at LSU under Kelly, helped Jayden Daniels win the 2023 Heisman Trophy.
Freeman knows he has to figure out the offensive side of the ball if Notre Dame is to reach its potential. Freeman is a high-level defensive coach, but head coaches with expertise on one side of the ball have to know how to get results on the side of the ball they know less about. Freeman has whiffed so far, but in 2024, if he can solve the puzzle, Notre Dame could rise to the top of the sport once again.
Texas A&M made one of the best coaching hires of the offseason, or at least, that’s the conventional wisdom. Mike Elko was amazing at Duke. Going with him over Mark Stoops of Kentucky was a really, really good choice by A&M. Elko, interestingly enough, has past experience on both sides of this matchup. He was Jimbo Fisher’s defensive coordinator at A&M before he took the Duke job. Previously, he was a defensive coordinator at Notre Dame under Brian Kelly. This game has no shortage of storylines with a set of stakes which could not be higher. This is the kind of game we love in Week 1 of a college football season.
Hear T.J. and Gary talk the huge primetime showdown with the Irish and the Aggies on the latest “3 Dog Thursday Podcast” by clicking play below,
Notre Dame Fighting Irish vs Texas A&M Aggies Odds
Spread: Notre Dame +3 (-115), Texas A&M -3 (-105)
Total: 46.5 (Over -110, Under -110)
Underdog moneyline: Notre Dame +125
What to Watch?
Another big storyline in this game is that Notre Dame’s quarterback will face his former coach at Duke. Riley Leonard is Notre Dame’s new starting signal-caller. He played for Elko at Duke and did really well for the Blue Devils. Duke would have done even better under Elko had Leonard not run into injury problems.
It is clear that Elko knows what Leonard’s strengths are, and that he has a good idea of how to defend him. Leonard has a good idea of what Elko will try to do. Ultimately, it seems that Notre Dame’s offense is probably going to have tough sledding against the A&M defense. Notre Dame, as the underdog in this game, will win not with its offense but its defense. The Irish offense might be good later in the year, but in Week 1, the defense has to carry the freight. A&M quarterback Conner Weigman never reached the full ceiling of his potential under Jimbo Fisher. It would be ironic if Fisher’s former defensive coordinator, Elko, is able to bring out the best in the Aggies’ signal caller. Right now, skepticism is warranted in a game Notre Dame can definitely win.