Red Flags: 5 college football teams on upset alert in Week 2
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- Will Colorado's magic run out quickly?
- Alabama will be truly tested, but is Texas back?
2. Notre Dame Fighting Irish
Opponent: at NC State | Time: Saturday, Sept. 9, Noon ET (ABC) | Spread: ND -7.5
If we're looking just at aggregate scores to open the season, Notre Dame's run over Week 0 and 1 is one of the most impressive as they're up 98-6 on the season. Of course, those victories came against Navy in Ireland and then Tennessee State in South Bend. Not exactly what you'd call signature wins.
On Saturday, though, Notre Dame will play its first true road game, making the trip to Raleigh to face NC State. Admittedly, the Wolfpack didn't do a whole lot on Thursday in Week 1 to really inspire a ton of confidence in this team, despite some preseason buzz about the reunion between offensive coordinator Robert Anae and quarterback Brennan Armstrong. After all, they made magic happen at Virginia.
Instead, NC State managed just a 10-point win over UConn. Coming off of that only to beat Notre Dame would be shocking -- but there are a couple of factors that seem to make it a possibility.
For one, the Wolfpack were playing UConn. While they may not have taken the Huskies seriously enough, it's also easy to understand looking ahead to the Fighting Irish and, more importantly, not putting too much on tape. Furthermore, we also don't truly know what Notre Dame is given the lackluster competition that we've seen Sam Hartman and this team face to this point.
There's a world where Notre Dame isn't as explosive or dangerous as we've seen and where the Wolfpack have more than they showed in Week 1. In that world, the Irish playing on the road on Saturday afternoon could find themselves in real danger of an upset.