It’s going to be a wild crowd in College Station on Saturday night, exacerbated by ESPN’s College Gameday being on campus for the Notre Dame at Texas A&M betting matchup. Both teams have their eye on a berth in the expanded playoffs, and even though there’s a whole slate to play this season whoever wins on Saturday night gets a nice notch in their resume.
The Fighting Irish are #7 in the preseason rankings and A&M found their way into the polls at #20 so this is an early season heavyweight fight. Despite ND being #7, they find themselves as +3 point underdogs at Kyle Field and even though the Irish are a popular national squad, betting is split 50/50 on this one.
Why Notre Dame Has Value at +3
Texas A&M has moved on from the Jimbo Fisher era, ushering in Mike Elko to come over from Duke to be the new head coach. Elko had some bright spots in his two year stint with the Blue Devils, going 9-4 in 2022 and winning the Military Bowl and following that up with a Birmingham Bowl victory last season after going 8-5.
There could be an adjustment period for the Aggies with a new regime, meanwhile Notre Dame has found stability as Marcus Freeman enters his third season at the helm sporting a 19-7 record with two bowl game wins so far. The Fighting Irish had the #5 total defense in the country last year (276.3 ypg) and allowed only 15.9 ppg and that should be a constant this year again with the unit DC Al Golden has built.
It’s almost a fact that the ND defense is going to be great, and their offense has upside with transfer QB Riley Leonard coming in from Duke – where he was coached by A&M’s Elko. Notre Dame has been a running back factory lately, and Jeremiyah Love will get the first crack at improving his NFL draft stock on Saturday night.
Why Texas A&M Has Value at -3
This may be Elko’s first game with the Aggies, but he’s got a built in advantage on game one of scouting against the Notre Dame QB Leonard – who he’s seen every practice for the past two seasons at Duke. Leonard also only played 7 games last year with the Blue Devils because of foot and ankle injuries and has had two more procedures this Spring after joining the Irish, so his health could be in question.
When you have a QB that wants to avoid hits, you want to have a solidified offensive line and that’s not the case for Notre Dame. They lost Joe Alt and Blake Fisher to the NFL, and were crushed when one of their depth pieces at tackle Charles Jagusah was lost for the season with a shoulder injury at the beginning of the month.
The Notre Dame defense is good, but A&M thinks they have an underrated star at QB in Conner Weigman. The redshirt sophomore has 16 TDs to 2 INTs in his career and completed 68.9% of his passes in limited time last season.
Free Week 1 Notre Dame at Texas A&M Betting Pick
This is one of those games that could go either way. Texas A&M could ride the momentum of being at home against a national powerhouse with a new coach and College Gameday in the house as they get a big early season win. Notre Dame has stability though – especially on defense – and even though they lost some key lineman those are usually just plug and play in South Bend.
Free Pick: Notre Dame +3
