The old Catholics vs. Convicts rivalry renews on Sunday night for the first time since 2017 when the Notre Dame Fighting Irish travel to Hard Rock Stadium to take on the Miami Hurricanes on Sunday night.
Each team is starting a new quarterback with some familiar faces around them and a ton of talent on both sides.
Here are my favorite top Notre Dame vs. Miami player prop bets in my free college football picks for Sunday, August 31.
Notre Dame vs Miami props for Week 1
Faison Under 30.5 receiving yards (-114)
Beck Under 239.5 passing yards (-114)- Love Over 79.5 yards (-114)
Prop bet #1: Jordan Faison Under 30.5 receiving yards
Junior wideout Jordan Faison for Notre Dame had a mediocre sophomore season where he had 30 catches for 356 yards and a touchdown. He did have a couple big games in the first two rounds of the playoffs but then disappeared in the final two games with three catches for 31 yards in the two combined.
The Irish brought in Malachi Fields from Virginia and Will Pauling from Cincinnati to help bolster their receiving corps. Also, leading wideout Jaden Greathouse is returning. Faison may find himself a little buried in the receiver depth this season.
The Hurricanes defense is expected to be much improved from last season and they brought in several transfers in the secondary that will all be starting Week 1.
The Irish are also starting redshirt freshman CJ Carr for the first time and the former five-star recruit is likely going to ease into things. This will likely be a low scoring run heavy game and I like betting against a guy lower in the depth chart to stay Under his receiving yards.
Prop bet #2: Carson Beck Under 239.5 passing yards
Carson Beck transferred in from Georgia after a disappointing season last year. He is taking over for the number one draft pick that threw for 4313 yards and 39 touchdowns. However, Beck only had 3,485 yards last year for the Dawgs with 12 interceptions.
The Irish had the fourth ranked passing defense in the country last year, allowing only 169.4 yards through the air per game. They return some key guys from last year in the secondary as well as two transfers from Alabama and Virginia Tech. They will be a deadly pass defense again.
Last season, Beck struggled with low scoring defensive teams, and he is running into one of the best teams in the country at that here in Week 1 with his new team. He also has a lot of young guys at wideout that do not have a ton of experience.
Miami is likely to try and go run heavy and figure out ways to keep their defense fresh against a strong running team in Notre Dame. I don’t see a big game here from Beck.
Prop bet #3: Prop Bet #3: Jeremiyah Love Over 79.5 rushing yards
Last season, Jeremiyah Love ran for 1125 yards and 17 touchdowns. That was with splitting a ton of the run game with backup Jadarian Price and quarterback Riley Leonard. While Price is still on the roster, new quarterback Carr will take way less carries than Leonard.
Love never had a game with more than 16 carries last season and I am sure some of that was workload management but also a lot was splitting carries with three guys and one that was running run/pass options with Love in the game.
Despite the small workload, Love still averaged 6.9 yards per carry and 70.3 yards per game. He had eight games with at least 79 yards rushing.
I would expect him to see a few more carries per game this year and if he gets anywhere close to 20 in this contest, he should have absolutely no issue clearing this number.
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