Testing young RBs and DTs key to Notre Dame deeming it a successful weekend

The easy and dismissive response will be something along the lines of, “Notre Dame never blows out teams. The Irish will fail once again to get their young reserves playing time.”

This convenient narrative forgets romps of Wake Forest, Virginia Tech and Florida State last season. It ignores 2017’s utter demolitions of Temple, Boston College, Miami (OH), USC and North Carolina State, the latter two of which were top-15 teams at the respective times.

Notre Dame is capable of removing the competitive nature from a game within the first half, and this weekend against New Mexico should be a chance to do so (2:30 ET; NBC). The obvious benefits to such are resting the veterans and playing the…