I like Texas in this spot to do a little revenge against Notre Dame who opened up last season with a 38-3 victory. This time it will be a lot closer as most of Texas team is back, and those freshman and sophomores that Charlie Strong recruited are now sophomores and juniors. Notre Dame, loses a ton on both sides of the ball including their best play maker in CJ Prossie, 3 offensive lineman. Their 3 best defensive players in the front 7 in Sheldon Day and Jaylon Smith. I think this Notre Dame defense is extremely questionable which just really makes like what Texas is doing that much more.
Texas will change their offensive identity. Finally! They bring in Sterling Gilbert, who I think is simply a great hire. Gilbert was at Tulsa last year under Phil Montgomery (previously of Baylor), and that offense improved from 93rd in yards per play in 2014 to 37th a year ago. This will be an uptempo attack, and I think Notre Dame could have some issues playing defense here on the road.
I also think we are getting value on Texas, because of how their season went the last two years. I think they are a season away, but they showed glimpses a year ago, and their 3 loses at home were by a combined score of 7 points. This is a team that beat Baylor on the road to close out the year as a 21 point under dog, and also beat Oklahoma as a 16 point under dog. I'm not a big fan of backing Big 12 teams if I can avoid it, but Texas should be in better position to pull the upset here.
