USC vs Notre Dame Odds, Picks, and Predictions: Irish Put Up Fight in Wind

Wins and final scores do not tell the whole story. After the Notre Dame Fighting Irish lost at Louisville in Week 6, many casual fans assumed they would be underdogs against the USC Trojans. Instead, Notre Dame opened as a short favorite on Sunday and has remained a short favorite throughout the week.

The Irish loss at Louisville looked bad on the scoreboard, a 33-20 defeat that would have been a 33-13 result if not for a garbage-time touchdown in the final two minutes. Statistically, Notre Dame played more competitively than that, hence not getting downgraded much by college football odds.

How should that be factored in when considering the primetime matchup against USC? Let’s ponder that and more in our free college football picks and predictions for USC vs. Notre Dame on October 14.

USC vs Notre Dame best odds

USC vs Notre Dame picks and predictions

Ignore the spread here. Instinct will want to bet on the defending Heisman Trophy odds winner, but Notre Dame may have a defense geared to slow him, and the weather may lessen Caleb Williams’s effectiveness, as well. Furthermore, the Irish are a wounded animal, and betting against them at home before an idle week may be a losing strategy.

Then again, Notre Dame’s offense has been increasingly struggling the last three weeks, possibly covering up USC’s greatest weakness.

A spread within a field goal is troubling for an honest handicap here. But every piece of those previous two paragraphs suggests an Under here.

Notre Dame’s defense should get more credit than it has received, overshadowed by Sam Hartman both in the offseason and in September.

It has been well-established that the Irish held Ohio State’s potent offense in check for 59 minutes three weeks ago, the 60th minute costing Notre Dame a Top-10 upset. But the Irish held Louisville in check a week ago, no matter if the Cardinals scored 33 points. One of those touchdowns came because a questionable facemask call on a third down kept a Louisville drive alive. Nine more points came on a trio of three-and-outs leading to Cardinals field goals. Yes, Louisville began three drives in field-goal range.

Including all of that, the Cardinals gained only 0.05 expected points per offensive play, the type of number that fits into the 56th percentile of offensive performances, per gameonpaper.com. Louisville’s offense had plenty of hype heading into that game, ranked No. 15 in offensive EPA and No. 34 in the SP+ ratings a week ago. Notre Dame gave up only four explosive plays to one of the most explosive offenses in the country.

And it will have help from Mother Nature on Saturday night. Rain should have stopped before kickoff in South Bend a bit after 7:30 ET, but there should still be winds of at least 13 miles per hour. Aside from clear outliers, rain does not much matter in handicapping college football, but wind impacts the game.

Williams attempts 27.7 passes per game, a number deflated by USC regularly running up the score early on opponents. But the Trojans prefer to throw, do not be mistaken. Factoring in game state, they rank No. 4 in throwing frequency, behind only Washington, Georgia Southern, and Washington State. The wind will not help.

To take this a step further, Irish kickers have long said wind “swirls” in Notre Dame Stadium. And the wind will swirl all night, those 13 mph winds lasting until 11 p.m., per early Friday morning forecasts. To pile onto that, 50-degree temperatures will make slightly heavier footballs, making long field goals that touch more unlikely.

Bet against Williams having a field day through the air, bet against the kickers, and bet on Notre Dame’s defense.

And, if you do tail this play at FanDuel US, they have a 50% profit boost available on one bet for this game, boosting this Under from -110 to +136.

My best bet: Under 60.5 (-110 at FanDuel | +136 with 50% boost)
Picks made at time of writing may not reflect live odds.

USC vs Notre Dame same-game parlay

Under 60.5

Caleb Williams Under 298.5 passing yards

Mitchell Evans Under 4.5 receptions

50% boost available

+268 +402 at FanDuel

How much more needs to be said about betting the Under on Williams’s passing yards prop? Even if the wind doesn’t impact his performance, Notre Dame’s defense will. The Irish rank No. 2 in EPA per dropback against, No. 10 in success rate on dropbacks against, and No. 3 in defensive pass rating.

Good pass defenses do not give up 300 yards through the air.

Notre Dame may also try to shorten the game to lessen Williams’s impact. A side effect of that will be fewer routes run by Irish junior tight end Mitchell Evans. His role has increased in recent weeks while Notre Dame’s receivers room dwindled due to injuries, down to just three scholarship receivers two weeks ago at Duke and only nominally getting two back last week. But those two, junior Jayden Thomas and freshman Jaden Greathouse, should be closer and closer to 100% as they come back from hamstring frustrations.

Their genuine returns should take away from Evans’s targets, as will a shortened game in the wind.

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

USC vs Notre Dame spread and Over/Under analysis

This spread opened on Sunday with Notre Dame favored by 2 points, reaching a field goal Monday and waffling between -2.5 and -3 most of the week with juice wanting to set the line at -2.75 — if only this were the other kind of football.

The sportsbooks exercised caution in not overreacting to the Irish loss at Louisville. Looking through that game snap by snap, Notre Dame won 47.7% of the game’s snaps before garbage time. The Irish played poorly enough — or well enough, depending how you want to phrase this — to lose 16-13, not 33-20.

Take this as a lesson of how little wins and scores matter. Explosive plays, like the two that gave the Cardinals touchdowns, and turnovers, like Notre Dame’s four, are not predictive.

This total opened at 61.5 on Sunday before rising to 63.5 late that night. As folks noticed the coming weather, though, it began to fall, dropping to 62.5 on Tuesday and 60.5 on Wednesday morning.

USC vs Notre Dame betting trend to know

Marcus Freeman is 9-2 ATS when the spread is within seven points in his year-and-a-half as Notre Dame’s head coach. Find more college football betting trends for USC vs Notre Dame.

USC vs Notre Dame game info

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