Chuck is coming back. After 4 years as a Notre Dame assistant–the last 2 as offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach–Chuck Martin returns to South Bend for the first time as an enemy coach. Now in his 4th season with the RedHawks, he showed some promise late last season and is looking to build upon a recent run where Miami has won 8 out of their last 11 games.

Miami of Ohio (+21) at Notre Dame

Notre Dame Stadium
South Bend, Indiana
Date: Saturday, September 30, 2017
Time: 5:00 PM ET
Television: NBC Sports Network
Series: 1-0-0 Notre Dame

But wait! This isn’t the first game between these schools. The Irish (not yet known as the Irish) met Miami back in 1909 with the the Red & White (not yet known as the Redskins and not yet having changed to the RedHawks) coming off an undefeated season the prior fall. Miami wasn’t very good and lost 46-0 as Notre Dame marched to their 3rd full undefeated season of their own. There’s a quick history lesson for everyone.

***Remember the game is on NBC Sports Network and not NBC this weekend due to the Presidents Cup. Oh yeah, and the kickoff time is unusual too.***

3 Matchups to Watch

CB Heath Harding vs. WR Equanimeous St. Brown

Harding is one of the rare seniors (5th year at that) making an impact for Miami and is coming off a fantastic 2016 that saw him finish as an All-Mac 1st-team corner. He was tied for 3rd on his team in solo tackles and picked off 4 passes in addition to 11 pass break-ups last year. Harding leads a team defense that in raw numbers has been stingy to throw against giving up 768 yards on 130 attempts to just 3 touchdowns with 6 interceptions.

QB Gus Ragland vs. Mike Elko

Ragland came back from a season-ending knee injury in 2015 and didn’t become healthy until the middle of 2016 when he won Miami’s last 6 regular season games with some impressive numbers. This year his numbers are down (completion percentage has fallen off a cliff down to 52.1%) but he remains a very quality quarterback in the MAC. He’s thrown 28 touchdowns and just 3 interceptions on 324 pass attempts.

WR James Gardner vs. CB Nick Watkins

With great size at 6’4″ Gardner will offer an interesting matchup on Saturday. You’d think they will try to move him away from Watkins and his size as much as possible. Gardner missed a couple games last year and still finished with 750 yards and 6 touchdowns. He’ll be a major target down the sideline for jump balls, you can be assured of that.

2 Stats to Consider

4.69 YPP

The RedHawks defense has been quite stingy and remarkably consistent thus far. They haven’t allowed anyone to average 5.0 yards per play in a game this year. It might be a minor miracle if Miami holds the Irish under 6 YPP, though. That’s only happened twice by a non-Power 5 team under Kelly in back-to-back games in 2010 versus Navy and Tulsa.

One Run of 20+ Yards

Miami’s ground game isn’t very strong and definitely lacks explosiveness. They’ve been rotating a pair of juniors in Kenny Young and Alonzo Smith at running back and their stats are pretty meager. Miami has only scored 5 touchdowns on the ground (only given up 2 though to be fair) and Young’s 31-yard scamper is the only long run on the season. They are tied for second-to-last nationally in 20+ yard runs, yikes. Also tied for dead last is Mike Sanford’s Western Kentucky, by the way.

1 Prediction

There isn’t a whole lot going on with this game except for two simple issues:

1) Are the RedHawks an average MAC team?

Miami is currently the No. 86 team according to FEI (with last year still baked into the rankings) down 9 spots from their 2016 rankings of 77th overall. And it’s certainly not some golden era for the MAC conference, the RedHawks are the 5th best team in the conference according to FEI with Toledo the highest at No. 52.

On the other hand, Miami has won 7 straight league games stretching back to last year. Then again, they’ve only beat one team ranked ahead of them this year in FEI over that stretch–a 21-20 win over No. 75 Ball State last season.

Chuck Martin has done a nice job rebuilding their program from the ground up. The final verdict from me is that this is a slightly above average MAC team. Miami is in the weaker division which masks some of their deficiencies and while Martin seems to have things looking up they aren’t very close to becoming one of the best G5 teams in the country.

2) How crazy and aggressive will Martin get Saturday night?

This should be an interesting affair for Martin. Although I was never one of his admirers that thought he was on track to come back and become Notre Dame’s coach he did have his fair share of believers. That dream is probably dead at this point as he’s currently the same age as Brian Kelly was when hired at Notre Dame and Chuck Martin would still need at least another job in a Power 5 conference to even enter the discussion.

Realistically speaking, this game is meaningless for Miami and their coach. As the potential giant killers there could be room for onside kicks, fake punts, and trick plays. I have to think Martin will play things much more conservatively, hope his team plays well straight up, and get back to conference play next week.

We do have some let down possibilities for the Irish coming off a super emotional win against Michigan State. As such, it’s probably likely we see a sleepy and quiet first half.

Close at half, less close at the end.

  • WINNER: Notre Dame 34 Miami 17
  • VS. SPREAD (-21): Miami
  • OVER/UNDER (53.5): Under
  • SPECIAL, STEPHERSON CATCHES (2.5): Over