Notre Dame will host the University of Southern California this weekend. The Trojans are by my estimation the 35th ranked team on the AP Poll heading into Week 7 of the college football season.
Of all the story lines to follow it is the Midwestern weather has an that is at the center of discussion. To the benefit the Irish, expected game time temperatures are forecasted around 40° with a chance of rain. It will be a shock from the 80° temperatures in sunny southern California.
#IrishWearGreen
At the spring game this year the Fighting Irish announced that the game would be a green-out. Similar to the popular white and blackouts fans use to intimidate opposing teams. The athletics department has advertised to attending fans to dress in green.
Saturday night under the Irish lights!
For our only home night game of the season, the Irish will face the Trojans on 10/12 at 7:30 pm ET. #GoIrish #BeatSC #IrishWearGreen pic.twitter.com/Hwt6BiGZAN
— Notre Dame Football (@NDFootball) April 13, 2019
It is unclear if they will be donning the infamous green jersey. The green jersey debuted under Knute Rockne, but are most famously known by head coach Dan Devine.
Trojan Horse
In fact, it was an October home slate against USC back in 1977 when the Irish came out in their traditional blue and gold for warm-ups. However, when they came out of the tunnel for the game, they were pulling a Trojan horse and wearing green jerseys for the first time in 12 years.
Notre Dame beat USC 49-19 and went on to win the national championship with a record of 11-1. It is worth noting that Notre Dame’s next toughest game that year was against the Clemson Tigers.
“Rubber” Match
In 2017, 20 years after the Green Jersey Game USC traveled to Notre Dame for our yearly battle. The Irish absolutely demolished the Trojans 49-14. This year’s Trojans defense is allowing 24.8 points per game, while the offense is averaging 29.4 points.
Rivalries typically come down to heart, not the teams on paper. One statistic that is hard to ignore is discipline. Penalties have become a layer of the game that often decides the outcome. Pass interference, roughing the passing or holding – they keep drives alive and kill momentum.
The best case of this was against Louisville when both times Notre Dame had a third down penalty, the Cardinals were able to cash in for a touchdown. As you could have guessed, we only gave up two touchdowns.
Notre Dame has averaged 42.6 penalty yards per game on 6.6 penalties. The season high was at Georgia when the Irish committed 12 penalties for 85 yards in a narrow loss. Penalties have been more of an issue though, for USC who has given up an average of 73.8 penalty yards per game on 7.2 penalties.
The Irish have the edge with the penalties committed at home being about 36 yards per game. This shows us Notre Dame has been slightly above average at home when it comes to the discipline factor.
Beat SC
☘️ Rivalry Week ☘️
No. 9 Notre Dame 🆚 USC
📆 October 12, 2019
🕗 7:30pm EST
📍 Notre Dame Stadium
📺 NBC#GoIrish ☘️ #BeatSC ☘️ #IrishWearGreen ☘️ pic.twitter.com/L8g8Ke4nqr— Notre Dame Football (@NDFootball) October 7, 2019
