Notre Dame Football: Fighting Irish Must Blow out Air Force with USC Lurking

For the first time this season, Notre Dame sits at above .500. While their play hasn't always been consistent, the Fighting Irish have bounced back from their 0-2 start with wins against Michigan State, Pittsburgh and Purdue. Considering the latter two games were on the road, they really couldn't have asked for anything more.

Now, they return home to South Bend. The next two games will tell us a lot about what we can expect from the Irish as it relates to the remainder of their season.

Notre Dame hosts Air Force on Saturday in a game where Bodog has them favored by 15 points. Air Force is not a bad team by any stretch, but Notre Dame needs to beat them. For the sake of their sanity, Notre Dame needs to come close to doubling that spread.

After Air Force comes a bye week, and then USC. For the first time since 2002, USC will be entering their game against Notre Dame coming off of a loss. On paper, this is a game that Notre Dame should win. They are more talented and playing in South Bend. But despite close losses in 2005 and 2009, Notre Dame hasn't beaten USC at home since 2001. 

The last thing Notre Dame needs heading into a two-week prep period for USC is a loss to Air Force. The second to last thing they need is a sloppy win. Notre Dame needs to be sound. They need to shut down the triple option on defense and continue to dominate on offense.

In the last few weeks, Michael Floyd has been one dominant player. But the offensive line has opened up numerous holes for Cierre Wood on Jonas Gray. That will need to continue.

Lastly, the turnovers and stupid penalties need to stop. The Fighting Irish didn't turn the ball over against Purdue, but they made far too many terrible, sloppy penalties.

When they face better teams, two things will happen:

1) Those teams won't commit the amount of bad penalties that Purdue committed, letting Notre Dame off of the hook.

2) When Notre Dame makes mistakes, they won't allow the Fighting Irish to make up for them.

Mentally, Notre Dame needs to beat Air Force convincingly. They don't need to run the score up, but when the game is over, there can be no grumblings that they were lucky.

If that happens, then their chances against USC aren't as great as they should be.