The two teams have met once previously. In 2009, Michael Floyd and the Irish smacked Colin Kaepernick and the Wolf Pack 35-0! This year, the Wolf Pack will show up looking to score.

STARTERS RETURN ON OFFENSE 

The scariest part of the Wolf Pack is their plethora of returning starters on offense. The returners include a 1,000 yard rusher in James Butler as well as all their wide-receivers. Three tight ends who made starts will return and the offensive line welcomes back all primary starters. 

James Butler (Credit: Yahoo)

The most valuable of the returners will be Butler. After averaging 6.47 yards per carry as a sophomore, many conference experts say he has the potential to be named the best tailback in the Mountain West.

QUARTERBACK QUESTIONS 

DEFENSE BY THE EXPERTS

• Michigan State
• Duke
• Syracuse
• NC State
• Stanford
• Miami
• Navy
• Army
• Virginia Tech
• USC

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The When/Where/What Time/Etc.: The game is being played at Fenway Park, the home of baseball’s Boston Red Sox, as part of Notre Dame’s annual “Shamrock Series.” Kickoff is at 7:42 p.m. on NBC Sports Network. That is not a typo. NBC has exercised an option they’ve had in their ND contract since 2006 for the first time. The game will air on NBC Sports Network, which carried the Irish’s spring game for the past two seasons as well as a couple of dozen Notre Dame hockey games. Twenty-seven percent of American households with a TV can’t get NBCSN. To find out if your cable or satellite provider carries that network, go here. Dan Hicks will handle the call with Doug Flutie, a BC alumnus, expected to provide color. (Flutie’s parents both died Wednesday, so I’m unsure if this affects his plans.) Kathryn Tappen will handle sideline duties.

The ISP Sports Network will transmit the game via radio, with IMG Sports’ Don Criqui and Allen Pinkett on the call. Here is a list of affiliates that will broadcast the game Saturday.

NBCSN will also re-air its final “Onward Notre Dame” installment of the season at 4:30 p.m. EST today (Friday) as well as immediately after its postgame show on Saturday. The segment focuses on Coach Brian Kelly’s “personal journey home, including a look back at his upbringing.”

The Opposing Coach: Steve Addazio should be a familiar name to Irish fans. Addazio was an assistant coach under Bob Davie from 1999-2001, overseeing – at different times – the offensive line, tight ends and special teams. Addazio is in his third season at Boston College, where he’s amassed a 17-19 record. Addazio has never coached against his former employer.

One final note about Addazio: He’s super fond of the word “dude.” If you haven’t already watched his 2013 Vines, do it now. You will not be disappointed. (Teaser: “Dudes to the left. Dudes to the right. Stuck in the middle with you.”

BC’s last game: The Eagles dropped their seventh game of the season, losing 24-8 to NC State on Nov. 7. John Fadule, making his first start of the season, was 23-for-37 for 257 yards. He threw a TD in the final 90 seconds of the game and converted the subsequent 2-point try. But Fadule was picked three times, fumbled once and was sacked five times.

BC’s 285 yards of total offense was their best showing of the season in ACC play.

The Eagles are now 3-7 on the season and winless in seven tries against ACC opponents.

Team talent: Looking strictly at recruiting rankings, Boston College’s team has almost exactly the same level of talent as Wake Forest. Boston College is ranked #61, having recruited 67 3-star players, while Wake Forest is #71, having brought in 64 3-star players. The Eagles’ seniors have had a rough go of it, going 19-29 since their freshman season (5-22 in the ACC). I’d say they were the doormat of the ACC, but that would be discounting Wake Forest’s senior class, which is 15-31 and 7-23 against ACC opponents.

Boston College’s recruiting has been marginally better since Addazio’s arrival, but questions certainly remain about his ability to recruit offensive talent. The two best offensive players of the Addazio era, Andre Williams and Chase Rettig, were both inherited from the previous regime.

The Eagles will start their freshman walk-on quarterback, John Fadule, for the second consecutive game. Fadule replaced redshirt freshman Troy Flutie, who is the nephew of Doug Flutie.

If you’re looking to find the difference makers, they’re on the defensive side of the ball. Senior linebacker Steven Daniels leads the team in solo and total tackles which includes 6 sacks. Junior linebacker Matt Milano has another 6.5 sacks. In fact, Boston College boasts 4 players who rank in the top 13 in the ACC in sacks this year. Boston College ranks 18th nationally in sack percentage with 8.43% of opponent drop backs resulting in a sack.

Johnson and Milano are complimented by linemen Harold Landry and Mehdi Abdesmad to create disturbances up front. Each of those 4 ranks in the top 7 in the ACC in total tackles for loss. Landry is also tied for second in the ACC having forced 3 fumbles this year.

Trends/thoughts/stats:

• The Irish are 16 to 16.5 point favorites, depending on what sports book in Vegas you’re looking at. The over/under is 42.5, which suggest odds makers think this game may shake out around 29-13. The favorite is 2-8 against the spread during these teams’ last 10 meetings, according to OddsShark, although I’m not sure if historical trends really mean anything.
• Here’s the weather report. It will be cool, with light winds and little chance of rain.

• Saturday’s game will be played about 4 miles from Boston College’s campus, making it the closest neutral-site game Notre Dame has played to their opponent’s campus.
• The Irish’s uniform outfitter, Under Armour, has designed special one-time uniforms for this Shamrock Series game. They look like this:

• Under Armour is also the supplier of Boston College’s uniforms. The Eagles have decided to “throw back” to their 1984 uniforms. Here’s a side-by-side comparison of the 1984 uniforms and the ones Boston College will sport on Saturday:

• The two teams first met in 1975, and Notre Dame holds the series advantage, 13-9. The Eagles have won 6 of the last 10, but lost each of the last four. Only nine players on the BC roster have ever played against the Irish.
• The Irish are 5-5 in their last 10 games when sporting jerseys that are predominately green. (One of those losses was to Boston College in 2002.) Notre Dame is 25-10-1 (.708) when wearing green jerseys since 1977.
• This is the seventh game in the Shamrock Series. The Irish have won the previous six.
• This series is called the Holy War by some because of each college’s respective ties to the Catholic religion. The two teams play for the Frank Leahy Memorial Bowl which, as it sounds, is an actual bowl.

• The Notre Dame Student Government also created an Ireland Trophy, which will go to the winner of this game. It’s sort of weird that there’s really no good image of this trophy on the Internet, just like one blurry screencap of a television screen.
• RTDB? Maybe not. Nearly 69% of all opponent offensive yards versus BC have come through the air this year. That may be misleading though as Boston College still ranks in the top 25 in passing yards allowed per game (195 yards/gm, 24th nationally). It’s just that the Eagles boast perhaps the nation’s top rushing defense. Boston College is allowing the second fewest yards per game on the ground and leads the nation in yards per carry allowed (just 2.4 ypc). The vulnerability for Boston College comes on yards per pass completion where they rank just 65th nationally. I wonder if Big Bill Fuller could help push that even farther down?
• Make no mistake, Boston College is far and away the worst offense in college football this year. I’d say their 240 yards per game, which is last by 25 yards/game, seems historic, but then you have to go back just one season to find a Wake Forest squad that averaged just 200 yards per game. Other categories BC currently ranks dead last in FBS: yards per play, punts per score, and third down conversion percentage. Their 117.9 passing yards per game is 125th. The teams below them: Navy, Army, and Georgia Southern. The team immediately ahead of them? Air Force. If this were an SAT question, I think you could figure out which team isn’t like the others. The Eagles have also only completed 41% of all pass attempts this year. It’s not just that they attempt to ground and pound, it’s that they’re horribly inefficient when trying to pass.

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Tom Hammond is back in the booth as NBC’s play-by-play commentator for #NotreDame #Navy. No Dan Hicks for second straight home game.

— Nick Ironside (@nironside247) October 6, 2015

Now, before you get all up in arms, just remember – the last time Tom Hammond called play-by-play, the Irish posted its best point total since 1996. Get used to another healthy dose of Amir Car-LYLE, CJ Pro-SISE, DeShone Ki-ZER…and hopefully an armada’s worth of Irish points.

The Opposing Coach:  Navy’s Commander in Chief is not much of a football man, so in his place stands Ken Niumatalolo. It’s shocking to think, but Niumatalolo is now in his eighth season as Navy head man. For comparison’s sake, Paul Johnson who many Irish fans still associate with the Navy program lasted just 6 seasons before moving onto Georgia Tech. While Johnson inherited a ship wreck of a program that had suffered 4 consecutive losing seasons prior to his arrival, it’s worth noting that Niumatalolo now has more absolute victories and a higher winning percentage as Navy head coach than Johnson. You have to go back to the mid-50’s through early 60’s to find a Navy program that managed to have 7 of 8 consecutive seasons at .500 or better prior to Niumatalolo’s tenure. At 4-0 already this season, he’s well on his way to achieving this impressive level of consistency for a modern military school.

The Naval Academy’s Last Game: In a battle harkening back to the glory dates of the triple option, Navy and Air Force clashed in a game that featured 22 total passing plays compared to 107 rushing plays. Navy won the contest 33-11 methodically salting the game away after getting out to a 21-0 first half lead. 4 turnovers doomed Air Force, but Irish fans should feel pretty comfortable with their knowledge of how 4 turnovers feels. The answer is “NOT GREAT.” Turnovers is a great way to lose any game. Their tragedy are magnified versus ball control teams like Navy.

Team Talent:  As I mentioned at the time of the UMass Preview, Navy from a recruiting talent standpoint is about as weak as Notre Dame’s schedule gets. Of course, the men of the Naval Academy are not singularly focused on football and the school rarely even makes a run at many evaluated-level players. What else should be obvious is that Navy has found a way to overcome that talent gap in previous seasons. The 2015 Irish team adopted “Culture Beats Scheme” as the team motto/mantra. Navy lives and survives as an above .500 program by believing “Culture and Scheme Beats Talent.” They’ll continue to play their physical, demanding brand of football. Fans and opponents will continue to gripe about that. It rarely seems to matter to what the perceived “talent” of Navy is. No better testament to this is Navy’s record-setting quaterback, Keenan Reynolds, that will be discussed in the next section.

Trends/Thoughts/Stats:

Keenan Reynolds: The senior quarterback has been a consistent riser throughout his career earning a Maxwell Watchlist inclusion coming into this season. So far he’s held up his part of the bargain. No quarterback at the FBS level has rushed for more yards this season than Reynolds’ 488. Reynolds was also the nation’s top rushing quarterback last year with 1,191 yards. You have to go back to 2006 with Darius Walker to find a season where any member of the Irish had at least that many yards (1,267). Reynolds is the all-time leader in rushing touchdowns by a quarterback (at 73 and counting) and is tied with Derrick Henry with 9 so far this season (6th nationally). It seems like a near forgone conclusion that barring injury Reynolds will surpass Montee Ball’s mark of 77 career rushing touchdowns to become the all-time career leader. I can spend a lot more words to re-cite his accomplishments, but I he think this can be summed up as: He’s very talented.

So far this season Reynolds has yet to throw more than 10 passes in a game. Obviously, given Navy’s scheme and Reynolds’ mastery as the facilitator, this shouldn’t be too big of a surprise. It’s usually a good sign for Navy’s opponent if Reynolds is passing more often. In 2014, Navy was 0-4 in games in which Reynolds passed the ball more than 10 times. One of those losses was the 49-39 contest to the Irish. In that game, the Irish defense was successful at bottling up Reynolds as he rushed for just 47 yards on 18 attempts. It was one of just four games last season where Reynolds failed to rush for 100. In 3 career games versus ND, Reynolds has rushed for a combined 97 yards on 43 carries. For a guy with 17 career 100 yard rushing games and 4 career 200 yard rushing game, this has been sheer dominance.

This game at its heart is about stopping Reynolds. Navy’s offense goes as he does. The Irish have successfully contained one of the best all-time rushing quarterbacks. Hopefully they’ve got one more in them.

Turnover Margin: I’m not going to waste too much of people’s time talking about the turnover battle. It’s pretty well established that this is a remarkably important factor. Navy’s been close to flawless in terms of turnovers surrendered. The result is that they currently rank 4th nationally with a +2.3 Turnover Margin/Game. The good news is correction favors the Irish. In most seasons, the absolutely best team in the country ends up around a +1.8/game for the season. On 10/8/2014, there were 4 teams with turnover margins/game above 2.0…none of them finished in the top 10 nationally by season’s end, the best of which was Florida International at 0.8/game. Fans have been waiting for the Irish defense to create a few more turnovers. I think this very well might be that game.

Looking Ahead?: This time a week ago I think more people were concerned Navy might be a “trap” game. Navy being sandwiched between 2 prime time games with Clemson and USC was less than ideal. However, after the events of last weekend, I am not concerned about a look ahead effect. The virtual pen quills have discussed whether this team is a clone of last year’s bound for a tail spin or something different with most favoring the “something different” side of the equation. If that’s true, the Irish should come out looking to impose their will and outpace a skilled but undersized Navy team. Coming off a difficult and error-filled loss, the team should be focused at home with a desire to take out some frustrations from a week ago.

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