The Sandman Cometh - Her Loyal Sons

The ICU beds surrounding the Virginia Tech campus are 96% full, and Lane Stadium may be 100% full on Saturday night. Some folks will do anything to avoid watching the ACC Network.

The Irish are back on the good side of the metrics here this week after going against long odds each of the past two weeks. That offensive gap could easily flex depending upon who’s under center for the visitors, but ND fans have long been enamored with the backup QB, so don’t expect much to change.

I can’t wait to see what shenanigans awaits us in the HLS NCAA14 sim Thursday night. Sim Drew Pyne got the nod last week with wondrous results but fresh terrors await us every week.

What to Watch: Stanford (3-2) at Arizona State (Fri 10:30PM ET, ESPN)

Show the Pac-12 some love on a Friday night on a non-Pac-12 Network network. I can’t think of two more divergent recruiting pools…unless you want to sample Navy at SMU on Saturday afternoon.

Georgia Tech (2-3) at Duke (Sat 12:30PM ET, Watch ESPN)
Virginia (3-2) at Louisville (Sat 3:00PM ET, ACC Network)
Navy (1-3) vs SMU (Sat 3:30PM ET, CBS Sports Network)
North Carolina (3-2) vs Florida State (1-4) (Sat 3:30PM ET, ESPN)
Southern Cal (3-2) vs Utah (Sat 8:00PM ET, Fox)

Past Opponents

Cincinnati (4-0) vs Temple (Fri 7:00PM ET, ESPN)
Toledo (3-2) vs Northern Illinois (Sat 12:00PM ET, CBS Sports Network)
Wisconsin (1-3) at Illinois (Sat 3:30PM ET, Big Ten Network)

Schedule Strength

Last week, Notre Dame opponents went 8-3. On the year, teams on the schedule are 30-26 with an average schedule strength of 45.

RANK	TEAM	RECORD	CHANGE
1	Wisconsin	1-3	↑ 2
7	Stanford	3-2	↑ 2
11	Notre Dame	4-1	↑ 14
22	Georgia Tech	2-3	↑ 22
35	Virginia	3-2	↑ 20
39	Florida State	1-4	↓ 27
45	Navy	1-3	↑ 20
46	Southern Cal	3-2	↑ 3
52	Purdue	3-2	↓ 2
53	North Carolina	3-2	↓ 29
58	Cincinnati	4-0	↑ 64
83	Virginia Tech	3-1	↓ 4
102	Toledo	3-2	↓ 19