Caleb Wilfinger
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The 2023 college football season gets underway this weekend and Saturday will provide us with an entertaining nonconference matchup. This battle will take place on Saturday afternoon in Dublin, Ireland when Navy travels overseas for a matchup against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. This contest kicks off at 2:30 pm ET and will be televised on NBC.
But before we get started, be sure to check out all of our NCAAF previews for this weekend. Let’s get into our same game parlay for one of the first games of the season.
Navy +21.5 & Navy team total over 13.5 (+227)
Under 49 (-110)
Parlay odds: +394
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Navy +21.5 & Navy team total over 13.5 (+227)
If you’ve followed my write-ups over the past couple of seasons, you’ll know that I love backing service academies when they’re catching more than 2 touchdowns, especially against a program like Notre Dame. Navy is a difficult team to handicap and the Mids can often create a bit more variance in a game due to their unique style of play. Add in the fact that this is the first time anyone is seeing Navy’s brand new scheme under new offensive coordinator Grant Chesnut, and I expect this contest to have more variance than the market is accounting for. This is still a triple-option oriented attack, passing plays and new concepts to keep what is a relatively unproven Irish defense on its toes.
On the other side, the Irish are welcoming in a new offensive coordinator of their own, along with Sam Hartman (Wake Forest) at quarterback. Given how new things should be for Hartman and company, I’d expect the Irish to struggle a bit out of the gate against a veteran-laden Navy defense that brings back a ton of production from a season ago. Ultimately there isn’t much data we can point to on either side, but the spot is one that has consistently favored the service academy over the years. I’m expecting a Notre Dame victory, but Navy covering this number coincides well with the Midshipmen scoring at least 14 points, so I’ll back them to clear their team total as well for a bit of extra value.
Check out our full Navy vs Notre Dame predictions
Under 49 (-110)
Honing in on correlating results is typically helpful when betting a same game parlay. In this instance, I think a Navy cover while scoring at least 14 points does not interfere with the game also going under the listed total. It’s apparent to anyone that has watched a triple-option team in college football that Navy will want to run the ball and shorten the game, and you have a serious recipe for this game being played at a slower pace and with less possessions for both teams. That alone should point in the direction of an under, but the Midshipmen also should do an effective job of slowing down the Irish on the ground, despite having a talent disadvantage in the trenches. If Notre Dame struggles with finishing drives early on, this game should finish in the mid-40s.
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