Deep Dive into Notre Dame's College Football Season

Introduction and Guest Welcome Welcome back to Newswire here on Sports Grid. I've known my next guest for decades. It's a really, reay long time of media, which is why I'm so excited every year to bring on Mike Berardino, who has done it all over the course of his career. And he's still doing it, covering the Notre Dame, fighting Irish right now for the South Bend Tribune. NBA insider. Com hosts a podcast as well and always fun to catch up with. Mike Berardino here on the show. Mike, great to see you. Always fun conversations as we enter another college football season. Thanks for coming on. Anytime, Craig. I'm always available, but Notre Dame Season Expectations it seems I only make it to the top of your very deep Rolodex. If there still is a Rolodex, I don't think there is. Around this time. It just when Notre Dame's starting its season expectations, number 17. Here we go. Yeah, don't say that. We're going to call you like every week. If you put that opening out there man. I try to take it easy on you. I retract that my time is valuable, as is yours. Mike's very good. He's should be in stand up comedy if I don't say so myself. All right. So? So. No. So Notre Dame plays Texas A&M to open up the season in this wild, wacky world of college football. I mean Notre Dame never scared to play anybody Riley Leonard is going to take the helm at quarterback this year. Let's let's get a quick breakdown of the Fighting Irish before we begin with the matchup. Well, you know, they fully expect to be one of those 12 teams in this expanded playoff at the end of the year. And the schedule sets up beautifully. Not to do any more schedule analysis than you would want, but because all of it's dreadful. But if they can get by this one, it does open up the road opens up because Florida State at home in November was supposed to be a big hurdle. And what we saw in Dublin on TV, looked like that wouldn't be quite the, the, the difficulty. But this is a team that's very experienced on defense. This is a top ten defense last year and they brought back a handful of guys who got an All-America consideration. Ben Morrison's at cornerback, likely a top ten overall pick at this stage in next year's draft. The safeties, Xavier Watts, won the Bronko Nagurski Award last year, which is, there's a very extreme mathematical formula for that. He had seven interceptions, so he was the best defensive player in the country. Howard crossed the third. We're old enough to remember Howard Cross. I remember, the second, the dad, the tight end. This is the defensive tackle who's unblockable at times. In fact, you know, strange turn of events. It was Howard Cross, the third, who landed on Riley Leonard last year at Duke and messed up his ankle. And now they're teammates. I would ask Mike before we get into, you Team Strengths and Weaknesses know, the specific matchup against A&M. This is what I've heard. You tell me if I'm right or wrong, that the strength of the Fighting Irish is the defensive backfield. As you mentioned, the potential weakness is the offensive line. Is that fair going into the season? Is that the view? Oh, absolutely. You've nailed it, Greg. You've gotten right to the heart of it. That is true. This is a little this is a little goofy and very unlike Notre Dame, which traditionally is well, Marcus Freeman will tell you at any at the drop of a hat. This is an offensive and defensive line driven program, defensive line loaded with experience, offensive line as it sits today on the season opening depth chart. And I'll believe it when I see it on Saturday night at Kyle Field, where I've never been. So I'm looking forward to that. But six career starts on this offensive line three at center, three at right guard, everybody else making the first career start. So they it's kind of asking for trouble against the Mike Elko coached team. That's known everywhere Elko goes. And one of his stops was Notre Dame in 2017 as a defensive coordinator. They blitzed the heck out of you. Very exotic. Marcus Freeman saying yesterday in the media session, the key is to stay out of third and long so they don't get super exotic. So anytime you're going into a situation with offensive line with six career starts, a true freshman at left tackle, a redshirt freshman at left guard, and you're just trying to stay out of the super exotic looks. Well, you know, there's a reason, Matchup Analysis: Notre Dame vs. Texas A&M perhaps that Notre Dame is the underdog in this game. Yeah. And what's interesting is this line like kind of opened up as a pick'em. It moved up to like three I saw and now it's like back down a little bit to two and a half. I think maybe that Mike isn't so much about Notre Dame, but flipping over to maybe what is about Texas A&M, a very tough place to play on Saturday night and potentially, if the Aggies were supposed to be better, they may even be a bigger favorite. But I mean, who would have thought Jimbo Fisher wouldn't succeed at A&M? Elko is in there. I mean, the home field is probably the key for A&M, but the line is telling me that Notre Dame is the better team talent wise going in. Yeah, I think I think Notre Dame will win this game, if they can protect Riley Leonard, his mobility is going to be a huge factor. You know, you have two quarterbacks Connor Weigman of Texas A&M also had his season shortened by a foot injury. So you know it's which quarterback standing at the end of the game will almost be the telltale. We hope both of them make it to the finish. It could be very entertaining, but protecting the quarterback, getting him outside the pocket and in Leonard's case and he can beat you with his legs probably equally as much as he can do so with his arm. He's not the most accurate, but he can throw a nice deep ball and he's still learning a receiving corps that has three transfers among it, three of the top six are transfers, one from Florida International Chris Mitchell, who I'm sure you had on the show before because the FIU program gets so much attention, but the fact that A&M has 28 transfers, I don't know that all of them are on the two deep, but 28 and maybe the best player they'll put out there on the field that the X factor. Is this the fastest guy in the field is a freshman named Terry Bussey. No relation to Barney Bussey I looked that up, but he's very Closing Remarks and Farewell fast and very he's going to play in all three phases. Perhaps he goes both ways. So it's a typical opener grab bag. Who knows. But if Notre Dame does what it should I think they'll get out of there. Yeah I mean based on what we saw Saturday with just some wild endings and close games, I can imagine what Saturday night is going to look like at Texas A and M. Enjoy the trip. Mike, I know this is going to be a fun one for you. Going to SEC country and certainly great to catch up with you as always. And now you're obligated to make another appearance later in the year. Thanks again for coming on. Thanks. All right. I did it to myself. Thanks, Craig. There it is. There it is. Mike Berardino doing a fantastic job covering Not