Notre Dame vs Louisville Odds, Picks, and Predictions: Plummer Perishes Against Fighting Irish

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish face their third-straight unbeaten and ranked opponent in primetime in the Louisville Cardinals, and it’s fair to wonder if at some point those late-night moments of drama will catch up to Notre Dame. Louisville head coach Jeff Brohm has certainly engineered a headline-grabbing upset before (2018, Purdue over No. 2 Ohio State by 29 points).

Will he defy the college football odds this weekend to further springboard his debut season at his alma mater?

Here are our free college football picks and predictions for Notre Dame vs. Louisville on Saturday, October 7.

Notre Dame vs Louisville best odds

Notre Dame vs Louisville picks and predictions

JT Daniels has played Texas three times: once with USC in 2018, once with West Virginia in 2022 and once earlier this season at Rice. It feels safe to assume no other player in college football history has played the same opponent on three different teams. It’s a quirk of the universal pandemic eligibility waiver and the transfer portal, giving both added time and transient ability to players like Daniels.

On Saturday, Louisville quarterback Jack Plummer will play Notre Dame for the third time in three seasons on his third different team. If Daniels was a first, then Plummer’s feat should never be matched, first losing to the Irish while with Purdue, 27-13, in 2021 and then again at Notre Dame with Cal, 24-17, in 2022. At least this time, he’s not trekking back to South Bend, though that would have furthered this piece of trivia.

His first two meetings with Marcus Freeman’s defenses did not go so well, throwing for 187 yards on 25-of-36 passing in 2021, a paltry 5.2 yards per attempt before he was benched, and 184 yards on 16-of-37 passing in 2022, an even worse 5.0 yards per attempt. And those numbers do not even encompass how much Plummer struggled, also sacked eight times for 64 yards in the two meetings combined.

Admittedly, Cal did not have enough weapons to help any quarterback in that kind of matchup, but 2021 Purdue did. With Brohm as the head coach, the Boilermakers averaged 30.4 points in their other 12 games and threw for 360.4 yards per game. (With Aidan O’Connell replacing Plummer, Purdue threw for a total of 291 yards against Notre Dame in 2021.) Junior receivers David Bell and Milton Wright combined for 2,018 yards and 13 touchdowns on the season, averaging 13.5 yards per reception. King Doerue and Zander Horvath provided a stronger rushing attack than Brohm was prepared to use, but its competence warrants note here.

And yet, the Boilermakers scored 13 points against the Irish.

Brohm’s bringing Plummer to Louisville from Cal made sense. Brohm wants to get off to a strong start, as he has with a 5-0 record, in his first year as the head coach at his alma mater. The transfer portal makes these reunions more feasible, and Plummer saw a chance to play at more of a football school than Berkeley.

But here’s the dirty secret: This pairing didn’t work the first time. Plummer was benched at Purdue. That’s why he transferred to Cal.

In two games of this pairing against Top-25 defenses by a combined analytics measurement and adding that 2021 loss in South Bend, 2021 Notre Dame at No. 31 in this measurement, Plummer and Brohm have found their way to 13 points in each game, including last Friday night at North Carolina State.

Brohm’s offense is entertaining. When Rondale Moore and D.J. Knox are running free from defenders, it can grab an entire bar’s attention on Bourbon Street. (First-hand knowledge of this anecdote from that 2018 upset of Ohio State.) But when it works with a questionable offensive line and speedy threats that lack the agility of Moore and Knox, then it falls flat.

Notre Dame’s defense is better in 2023 than it was in 2021. Freeman still has a hand in it, while defensive coordinator Al Golden has found the balance between simplifying the playbook and trusting his veteran front-seven. The Irish have the cornerbacks to keep Georgia State transfer receiver Jamari Thrash in check, led by preseason All-American Benjamin Morrison and physical veteran Cam Hart.

Plummer will become a trivia answer this weekend. The follow-up point to that answer will be how much his offenses struggled against Notre Dame.

My best bet: Louisville team total Under 23.5 (-105 at DraftKings)
Picks made at time of writing may not reflect live odds.

Notre Dame vs Louisville same-game parlay

Louisville TT Under 23.5

Under 53.5

Rico Flores Jr. anytime touchdown

+964 at FanDuel

Notre Dame may well be worn out after the last two weeks of last-minute worries. Even if not, the Irish were down to three available receivers last week. Two starters are expected to return from hamstring concerns this weekend, but Freeman will still have incentive to shorten this game. Stressing his depleted receiver corps will harm Notre Dame’s offense next week, when it is needed most, against USC.

No, Freeman cannot coach this week to win next week, but he can still make some prudent decisions, just as he did while shorthanded at Duke. The Irish punted twice from plus-territory, and for the first time all season, Freeman actively turned down the chance to create an extra drive before halftime for quarterback Sam Hartman to try to engineer a quick score.

Shortening this primetime tilt will serve to cut well Under this total.

One of the remaining receivers last week, freshman Rico Flores Jr. became a last-minute star. Most notably, he caught the two-point conversion to give Notre Dame a seven-point lead with less than a minute left.

In a highlight reel released by the Irish, the offensive coaching staff is heard identifying Flores as its best short-yardage option near the goal line, the “best zone throw” against a zone defense. That was not entirely a result of Jaden Greathouse and Jayden Thomas being sidelined. The former is best in space, finding a seam to move downfield. The latter is a big body best used along the boundary.

Flores has moved up the priority list among Notre Dame’s skill players, emphasized by that conversion. And he has moved up the odds board, too, going from unlisted two weeks ago against Ohio State to +280 now for an anytime touchdown, but there’s still value in that number.

Learn how to bet a same-game parlay with these helpful tips and strategies.

Notre Dame vs Louisville spread and Over/Under analysis

Notre Dame opened as a 6-point favorite on Sunday, ticking up -6.5 for much of the week, while the total opened at 53.5 and flirted with 54.5 for much of the week before settling at 54 on Thursday.

The Irish have gone Under their last two totals rather handily, falling short of 55.5 two weeks ago by 24.5 points and short of 53 last week by 18 points.

Notre Dame vs Louisville betting trend to know

Notre Dame has won 30 straight regular-season games against the ACC, going 21-9 against the spread in those games dating back to the beginning of the 2018 season. The Irish have gone 10-0 ATS in their last 10 regular-season games against the ACC, beating bookmakers’ expectations by an average of 16.1 points per game. Find more college football betting trends for Notre Dame vs Louisville.

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