Notre Dame will try to build on its first win of the season when it travels to North Carolina on Saturday afternoon. The Fighting Irish finally picked up a win under first-year head coach Marcus Freeman last week, sneaking past Cal at home. North Carolina is coming off consecutive road wins at Appalachian State and Georgia State in its last two games.
Notre Dame could be feeling a lot worse about itself if it had come up short against Cal last week, but Freeman was able to record his first win since taking over as head coach. The Fighting Irish played a competitive game at No. 2 Ohio State in their season opener before losing to Marshall in one of the biggest upsets in school history in Week 2. They trailed Cal 17-14 in the fourth quarter last week before scoring 10 points in a six-minute stretch to take the lead. Cal had a chance to tie things up on the final play, but it was unable to come up with a catch in the end zone.
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The Fighting Irish will now hit the road for the second time this season before facing No. 19 BYU next week. Quarterback Drew Pyne completed 17 of 23 passes for 150 yards and two touchdowns against Cal, while running backs Audric Estime and Chris Tyree combined for 140 rushing yards on 35 carries, good for an average of four yards per attempt. Notre Dame has dominated North Carolina historically, going 20-2 in the all-time series. The Fighting Irish are on a four-game winning streak in the series, which started with a win in 2014. They are facing a North Carolina defense that is No. 119 out of 131 FBS teams, allowing 37.7 points per game.