We’ve all heard it before. “NoTrE dAmE dOeSnT pLaY aNy OnE!” Fans from other programs around the country have convinced themselves for years that because Notre Dame is independent, there’s simply no way the Irish could play a tough schedule despite every schedule metric in the book continually rating the Irish schedule among the toughest every damn year. Even some lazy analysts in the college football media have piled on. Josh Pate from 247Sports, however, recently destroyed the notion that Notre Dame plays a week schedule.
Pate’s take on Notre Dame’s schedule and where the Irish fit into the current college football landscape, for that matter, is dead-on correct.