Whoa, Look Out! Notre Dame May Now Want to Win After Seeing Enormous Ohio State Spread

Notre Dame's visit to the Horseshoe is one of the marquee games on college football's true opening-weekend slate if you go by brands. If you go by what the Vegas line-setters think, it will be a lopsided affair leaving viewers seeking intrigue to look elsewhere. Ohio State is currently a 17.5-point favorite against the Irish and their first-year head coach Marcus Freeman. Who has noticed the hefty spread and intends to use it for some in-house motivation.

It's always exciting to find out whether a new football guy is going to be the type that combs through the college football industrial complex to find a kernel of disrespect to use as ammunition or if they're going to feign obliviousness to it all. Freeman playing it as though he was just learning that his top-five team is three-score dog in Week 1 suggests he's the latter.

Impossible to tell what will happen now that Notre Dame will be motivated to win as opposed to before when they were just going to go out and play to have fun.