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Podcast: Big Bets On Campus Episode: College Football Offseason Update | Part 1 Segment: Notre Dame podcast segment **Team-Specific Podcast Notes** - **Notre Dame under 11.5 wins** — market was noted around **-200** on the under; over ranged **+170 to +180**. Duck also mentioned a **parlay angle**: **Notre Dame under 11.5 + Notre Dame to make the Playoff** for **-119**. - Notre Dame’s **11.5 win total** is being priced like an elite team, but Duck flagged **BYU at Provo** as a tough road spot and said the Irish are **not a must-lay at this number**. - **C.J. Carr** is being pushed into **Heisman-favorite territory**, but Duck called that **too much hype** and said the Irish offense still has to replace **Jeremiyah Love’s** production. - **Notre Dame:** Schedule should make them favored in every game; concern is whether they can replace **Jeremiyah Love** and avoid the kind of flat losses Marcus Freeman’s teams have had before. Duck likes the **under + playoff** parlay as a cleaner way to play the market. - **Navy:** Duck trusts the continuity, QB **Braxton Woodson**, and the schedule setup. He said the key is surviving the Notre Dame game by **less than three touchdowns** and beating UTSA. Transcript excerpt: You know, you can still count on us for a Tuesday or Wednesday morning release on a weekly basis. So we have some of those like early in the week kind of thoughts. But for the most part, it's going to be G6 at our soul, our core of the show. But with that in mind, I want to talk about a team that's outside of the G6 purview, at least the traditional one, and that's Notre Dame. Because when you look at their win total here, it is sitting at 11 and a half. And the over obviously, you know, pays out handsomely at plus 170, plus 180, depending on where you can get in the market. And then under is juiced to almost, you know, minus 200. So it's kind of this damned if they do, damned if they don't spot for, you know, the odds makers where Notre Dame's schedule obviously puts in a position where they're going to be favored throughout every single game. And the likelihood of them going 11 and 1 or, you know, potentially running the table, it's all out there for this Irish team that should be on a revenge tour. They obviously finished last season on a 10-game winning streak, sat out bowl season after getting snubbed in the college football playoff. But I want to kind of play devil's advocate. I want to see where you're at with the fighting Irish here, Duck. Because obviously they lose love, a generational running back. You know, he goes third in the NFL draft after running up 1,650 total yards last season in just 12 games, 21 touchdowns. That's a ton of production to replace. And obviously they have a very deep running back room. They've recruited that position well. But he was a special player. I mean, there's no two ways about it. Like this is somebody who could take a simple play, a swing pass, you know, just a run between the tackles, and all of a sudden he's breaking off a 50, 75-yard touchdown run. He's someone that is going to be difficult. Maybe they can replace him in the aggregate. I think there's still plenty of reasons because I think that this Notre Dame offense can keep humming without him. But I just want to put that there first. The second element I want to get into is I think we're giving a little too much credit to how they closed out last season and looking past some of the stumbling blocks that this Irish team have faced under Marcus Freeman. Let's keep in mind that they lost as 28.5-point favorites over Northern Illinois. They lost as three-touchdown favorites to Marshall, 17-point favorites over Stanford in 2022. So they've certainly, you know, shown in the past this unfortunate kind of pattern of overlooking teams coming out a bit flat and also being more of a defensive-minded team where it's put them in positions where it's a one-possession game late and they've lost to teams that are clearly below, you know, their pay grade. I also look at it in terms of their schedule. I mentioned that they're going to be favored throughout, but there's also some potential games, I would argue three, that they could go down. I don't think they're going to lose all three, but certainly to go 1-2 or 2-1 in that spot is conceivable because they play six straight games and they make Then Navy's backup quarterback in Braxton Woodson, Pitt's true freshman Mason Heichel, you know, freshman walk-on at Syracuse, Joe Falardi, in just his second career start, and then redshirt freshman Elijah Brown from Stanford in his fourth career start. So, putting that all together, I think a lot of pressure is actually sliding to C.J. Carr, who, by the way, is either co-favorite or second in the Heisman pecking order. I think that's getting out a little bit ahead of their skis here. I think this kind of feels to me like a Ron Paulus situation where they just anointed him as a Heisman hopeful earlier in his career maybe than he has earned. Carr has a lot of upside. He certainly played better and better as the season went on. But for him to be in that, you know, stratosphere of saying that he's going to be an All-American quarterback, that's a pretty big jump, in my opinion. Now, obviously, Denbrock is a quarterback whisperer. He's coached a Heisman-winning quarterback. He's put together quarterback-friendly systems in the past. But there's a big difference between, you know, when they're going to get stuff to just turn around and hand it to Love as opposed to you are now the guy who has to go out and win us games. And as I mentioned, there's some rocky portions of this schedule. There's a lot of games that they're expected to win by three and four touchdowns. But I'll kick it to you here, Duck. What are your thoughts on the fighting Irish? Do you think that the market has just overheated a bit on them to say that, like, you know, their floor is 10-2 and they really should go undefeated? Because as I said, there's going to be some good quarterbacks and some hostile environments that they're playing in this fall. Yeah, and that's a really dynamic question. You know, I think the schedule will call for Notre Dame to be favored in every game by at least a touchdown, and they have some time to kind of figure out what they're going to do offensively. You know, crowning C.J. Carr as the Heisman favorite, I'm not sure that I'm wanting to dive into that. That might be a little bit too much hyperbole here. And they're going to have to figure out some replacements in the running back room. I think they're really short up in the trenches. I think the defense is probably going to be able to kind of come into their own as the season progresses, and they do have some time to figure it out. The schedule provides a lot of winnable opportunities. These guys are going to be three-score favorites in every one of their first six games, but you mentioned it, the spot going to Provo is really going to be tricky. I have Notre Dame projected to be 7.5-point favorites, and I'm not really dying to lay it here in that situation. BYU regularly has this home environment that is conducive to them playing well. They've got the home voodoo, and