The undefeated Notre Dame Fighting Irish (3-0) go up against the winless Massachusetts Minutemen (0-2). Notre Dame defeated the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets last weekend to improve to 3-0 on the season by a score of 30-22. The Minutemen barely lost to the Temple Owls last week when they lost by a score of 25-23.

DeShone Kizer played well last week in his first career start against Georgia Tech, going 21-30 for 242 yards and a touchdown and giving up Notre Dame’s first turnover of the season, an interception in the end zone on a pass intended for Corey Robinson. C.J. Prosise carried the Irish in that game as he carried it 22 times for 198 yards and scored three touchdowns. Prosise’s last touchdown on the day was the longest run in Notre Dame Stadium history with a 91-yard run.  

The Irish were bitten by the injury bug once again when in the second quarter safety Drue Tranquil broke up a pass in the end zone to force fourth down, and then got up and celebrated with Joe Schmidt and promptly collapsed to the ground grabbing his right knee and screaming in imense pain. It was later announced that he tore his right ACL. In his place, Mathias Farely came into the game.

In Massachusetts' last five games dating back to last season, they have lost four of them. Their only win came against Ball State last November when they won 24-10. Notre Dame has won four straight games, including their Bowl win last year against LSU. Before that, the Fighting Irish lost four straight in what was a horrible end of a season.

The keys to the game for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish are to hold onto the ball and to not overlook their opponent. Yes, UMass isn’t a football power like Notre Dame, but they can’t let themselves get trapped by a team that barely lost to Temple last week. They have to play with the same defensive attitude that they played with last week, and when UMass makes a push they have to stand pat and smother the Minutemen. If Notre Dame gets long drives going and doesn’t turn the ball over, they are in good shape to run up the scoreboard over a much inferior UMass team and blow the Minutemen out at Notre Dame Stadium.

The keys for UMass are to force turnovers and limit their mistakes. If they can force the Irish into a few turnovers they have a chance to get Notre Dame rattled and force them on their toes, especially if they can put points up off those turnovers. If they limit their mistakes and they string drives together consecutively they have a good chance to take down the Irish, because mistake free football will beat almost any team in the country.  

Head coach Mark Whipple, who is in his eighth year at UMass, joked that the only thing that would change if they beat the Irish would be that they would improve to 1-2. He also said all he is concentrating on his getting a first down.

The player to watch for Notre Dame is DeShone Kizer. This opponent is much easier than Georgia Tech, so it will be interesting to see how Kizer plays today. It showed a level of maturity that most freshman quarterbacks thrown into the starters spot wouldn’t have when he took the blame for the interception against the Yellow Jackets.

He talked about his first start by saying, “It was my first week as a starting quarterback. That was my first bus ride over as a starting quarterback. It was my first week of school as a starting quarterback. To get all that behind me, to see how it feels to be a quarterback at the University of Notre Dame, it's going to help me immensely next week and when we continue to go into different atmospheres like Clemson in two weeks, have my first rivalry games, things like that.”

The camera will be on him all game to see how he reacts to a much different defensive scheme than Georgia Tech and even the Virginia Cavaliers two weeks ago.

The player to watch for UMass is Blake Frohnapfel. He is UMass' graduate quarterback, and he played well in the loss at Gillette Stadium to the Temple Owls. He threw for 393 yards and three touchdowns while recording zero turnovers. If he can pass successfully against the Notre Dame defense and put points on the board, UMass could pull off the upset against the sixth ranked Notre Dame Fighting Irish.