You can’t successfully win a game with only ten players on defense and Notre Dame found that out as they only had ten players on defense for the last two plays of the game against Ohio State. Duke has been one of the surprise teams this season in college football and will be looking to start the season off 5-0 for the first time since the 1994 college football season. Will the Duke Blue Devils improve to 5-0 when they host the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in week 5 of the college football season? Let’s take a deeper dive into how these teams are performing this season.

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish enter this game ranked 17^th in the AP Poll and 16^th in the Coaches Poll with a record of 4-1 following a 14-17 loss at home against the Ohio State Buckeyes while the game ended in a push in week 4 of the college football season. Notre Dame scored 14 points while compiling a total of 351 total yards offensively which included 175 passing yards and 176 rushing yards while allowing 17 points and 366 total yards defensively which included 240 passing yards and 126 rushing yards. Sam Hartman led the team in passing, completing 17 of 25 attempts for 175 yards and a touchdown. Audric Estime led the team in rushing with 14 carries for 70 yards. Mitchell Evans led the team in receiving, catching all seven targets for 75 yards.

Duke enters this game ranked 11^th in the AP Poll and 13^th in the Coaches Poll with a record of 4-0 following a 41-7 win on the road against the UConn Huskies while compiling a 22-point favorite on the road against the UConn Huskies in week 4 of the college football season. The Blue Devils scored 41 points while compiling a total of 322 total yards offensively which included 248 passing yards and 74 rushing yards while allowing 7 points and 203 total yards defensively which included 114 passing yards and 89 rushing yards. Riley Leonard led the team in passing, completing 23 of 34 attempts for 248 yards and a touchdown while also leading the team in rushing with 30 yards and a touchdown. Jordan Moore led the team in receiving, catching eight of 14 targets for 86 yards and a touchdown.

BookMaker has the Notre Dame Fighting Irish listed as 5.5-point favorites on the road against the Duke Blue Devils on Saturday evening in week 5 of the college football season. Notre Dame has won three of the four games all-time and two of the last three games while the Blue Devils are 2-1 ATS in the last three games in the series. Notre Dame is 3-1-1 ATS overall, 1-0 ATS on the road, and 3-1 ATS as a favorite this season while the Duke Blue Devils are 3-1 ATS overall, 2-1 ATS at home, and 1-0 ATS as an underdog on the year.

Notre Dame is the more talented team and enters this game as the higher-ranked team while also being the better team in the series, winning three of the four games all-time. However, Duke has been the better team at covering the spread most recently in the series, going 2-1 ATS in the last three matchups. As a result, I am buying the .5 point and taking the Duke Blue Devils +6 on BookMaker for this matchup on Saturday night.