College Football: Stanford-Notre Dame Preview and Prediction

It's time for another weekly dose of college football. This Saturday Notre Dame welcomes an impressive Stanford team to South Bend.

Notre Dame have started slow and will be hoping for better results than they've had the last two weeks. They could be 3-0, but instead, they're 1-2. Those two losses both came down to one play, as most close games usually do. This week Notre Dame will hope to build some momentum for their upcoming clashes with Oregon and USC, but a win will be no easy task.

Stanford's defense is a force to be reckoned with. The Cardinal have switched to 3-4 defense with a lot of man-to-man coverage, and it's working wonders. Their pass defense is number one in the country and they are sixth in overall defense. It will not be easy to be easy to put points on the board against this defense.

Notre Dame has gone through some tough games already this season, and they've learned a lot for being a young team. But this is their hardest game to date, and it'll be a great test to see if the guys can play well against a heavily favored opponent.

Norte Dame's offense is ran around Quarterback Dayne Crist so it's no surprise that the responsibility will fall on the junior's shoulders this week. Crist has hit the long balls, but has been very inaccurate in the short passes, throwing many of these incompletions high.

I've seen much improvement in the Irish's defense this season compared to last year's. They've been able to keep the damage to a minimum, but they've yet to show the skill and talent necessary to keep a powerful offense at bay. They may not need to if Notre Dame's offense is clicking, but they can't rely on the offense all the time.

It's going to be a good football game to watch, and I always love upsets, but I am staying with the favorite and picking Stanford to win 28-21