For a slow week of college football one of the highlights on the schedule is the Notre Dame Fighting Irish hosting the Michigan State Spartans on Saturday afternoon at 3:30 pm from Notre Dame Stadium and Brian Kelly's 2-1 team will be looking for a win after barely getting past Purdue last weekend.
The team is coming off of a 31-24 victory last weekend and that came after a tough 41-30 loss to the Michigan Wolverines back on September 7 to knock the team to 1-1. The Irish started off their season with a 28-6 win over Temple that was their first game since losing the national championship against Alabama and now they face a 3-0 Spartans team before going on a tough stretch that sees games against Oklahoma, Arizona State and USC.
Check here for the Notre Dame and Michigan State coverage from NBC.
The defense has not been as strong as it was last season and it will have a tough test in Michigan State and they are already allowing nearly twice as many points as they did last season when they ranked in the top three of the nation. Notre Dame won the last matchup against coach Mark Dantonio's team and the team is looking for two in a row and it could be a tough game on Saturday after the team has started the season 3-0.
The Irish will need a solid game from Tommy Rees and he has been good enough through three games this season and he passed for over 300 yards in the close win last week. Reed has done a good job coming in for Everett Golson and he has passed for over 300 yards in all the games this season and he has also had two touchdowns in every game this season to go along with three in the Temple game to open the year. He threw two picks in the loss against Michigan and completed his lowest pass percentage of the season and in the other two games he completed over 60 percent of his passes.
Rees hasn't gotten too much help in the running game, but it has been enough for a 2-1 record, with the team averaging over 120 yards per game. Kelly has been impressed with the way Rees has stepped in and the team is already ranked 16th in the nation in passing yards per game with 326 yards. The team plays against the Spartans on Saturday before hosting number 14 Oklahoma and then the team has a tough game against Arizona State, who has been playing some good football for stretches this season and could be a tough opponent from the Pac-12.
Notre Dame always has a tough schedule to deal with since they aren't in a conference and they will play their annual game against USC after the Sun Devils game and if the Trojans finally go on a roll, the Irish could be in for a tough game. The team then has to travel to play against Air Force before hosting Navy and then the team has to go on the road against Pitt. The tough finish at the end of the season includes a home game against BYU and the toughest game of the year to end things with a road game against Stanford, which could have BCS implications.
Click here for the Notre Dame and Michigan State live stream from NBC.
