Notre Dame vs. Army prediction: College football picks, odds, bets

One hundred years ago, Notre Dame edged out Army, 13-7, at the Polo Grounds.Grantland Rice, working for the New York Herald Tribune at the time, turned a consequential Irish victory into the most famous lede in sportswriting history.Rice wrote, “Outlined against a blue-gray October sky the Four Horsemen rode again.

In dramatic lore they are known as famine, pestilence, destruction and death.These are only aliases.

Their real names are: Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley, and Layden.”Those Notre Dame running backs would forever be known as the “Four Horsemen,” and the Irish would go on to a perfect 10-0 season, complete with a victory in the Rose Bowl and Knute Rockne’s first national championship.Given the lead-up to this game, if Army were to pull the upset, their quarterback, Bryson Daily, could end up being a folk hero on the level of those Irish running backs.To put it lightly, this is Army’s biggest game against the Irish in 66 years.The game played between the Irish and Cadets in 1958 was a top-five showdown in South Bend.

Army won, 14-2, and finished the season 8-0-1 and third in both major polls.Undefeated and ranked 19th in the CFP rankings, Army is back on the college football map.Awaiting them is an Irish team that has been playing at an elite level for two months.

Notre Dame has real national title aspirations and a roster to make noise deep into January.The Irish have won eight straight and decimated their last five opponents by 33 points per game.That included a dismantling of Navy at MetLife Stadium, 51-14.

But that blowout win over a service academy was presented to the Irish on a silver platter.Navy turned the ball over six times, which was nearly half of the Midshipmen’s giveaways for the entire season.

Army is incredibly buttoned up in this regard.With Daily piloting the offense, the Cadets have just three giveaways this fall (second).Speaking of Daily and the Army offense, the Cadets have hit the rushing trifecta — ranking first ...