Notre Dame and BYU meet Saturday night in Provo, both unbeaten. Yahoo Sports says each can improve its College Football Playoff hopes with a win, and that there is mutual respect between the schools. One Foot Down's Joshua Vowles writes that the game has been called the biggest home game ever for the Cougars. ESPN has a piece on what the result will mean for each team's CFP chances. Yahoo also carries ESPN analyst Greg McElroy's win-loss scenarios for the outcome.
The Irish are No. 2 in the latest AP poll (June-to-date figures aside, the poll is dated Oct. 11) at 6-0. BYU is No. 8 at 5-0, and 3-0 in the Big 12, where it sits first. Notre Dame has no conference standing to protect as an FBS independent, so the game matters to it mainly through the playoff picture. For BYU it counts toward both the playoff and the conference race.
Notre Dame has won six straight, and the scores have been lopsided: 49-10 at Purdue on Sept. 26, 37-26 at North Carolina on Oct. 3, and 58-7 against Stanford on Oct. 10. The North Carolina game was the only one in which an opponent scored more than 10. BYU's last three were 41-23 at Colorado State, 17-10 at TCU and 24-10 against Iowa State.
Yahoo's preview frames the matchup around Bear Bachmeier and what it calls one of the nation's most explosive offenses. It says the Irish defensive front faces its biggest test so far. Our logs show how uneven his season has been. He threw for 329 yards and two touchdowns on 22 of 30 against Iowa State and ran for 109 more. At TCU he managed 62 yards on 11 of 24 passing, though he ran for two touchdowns. He has thrown one interception, at Colorado State, and has fumbled once without losing it. The TCU game was a tight, low-scoring win, which shows BYU can win without big passing numbers.
Yahoo also lists three keys for Notre Dame to avoid what it calls a top-10 road upset. CBS Sports' Daniel Kohn previews the game with SportsLine's model picks, but the summary we have doesn't say which side the model backs. We have only the headlines and summaries of these pieces, not the full articles.
Sat, Oct 17, 7:30 PM ET
Kickoff is Saturday night at BYU. The Cougars' schedule shows Notre Dame as their next game and the Irish's next game is at BYU.
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