Tennessee State comes to town to start their season in South Bend. They are led by Eddie George in his third year; to date, he's compiled a 9-13 record, which is a solid improvement based on the previous two years before his arrival, in which TSU won a combined 5 games. They compete in the Ohio Valley Conference at the FCS level, and they are the first FCS opponent ND has ever played.
Tim O'Malley provided a high level overview of TSU, which you can read here:
Notre Dame looks to build upon its sterling 2023 debut with what should be a lopsided home opener against the Tennessee State Tigers. Mike Organ, veteran reporter for The Tennessean, has Irish Illustrated subscribers covered with this breakdown of the first FCS foe to challenge Notre Dame in its...
247sports.com
Spark notes:
Based on the 2022 season, they are much better defensively than they are offensively. Their offense was ranked 104/130 overall in the FCS in PPG, and 98th in YPG. They were 78th and 90th in running and passing offense, respectively. They are led offensively by returning starter QB Draylen Ellis, who transferred from Austin Peay in 2022. The weakness of TSU was up front on the OL in 2022, which was evident from their lackluster running attack and a poor 54.8% completion percentage for Ellis. They do feature a revamped OL in 2023, with only one starter returning up front, so they can't be much worse than they were a year ago. Ellis reportedly has scrambling ability as he had to run for his life frequenltly last year, but he's not known to be a serious running threat who's going to kill us with his legs. Look for him to improvise a bit and scramble out of trouble early and often, and hopefully ND can convert these broken plays into TOs. On that note, their one positive from offense last year was their ability to take care of the football, with only 13 total TOs in 2022, good for 20th in the FCS.
Defensively, they were much more respectable as a unit, ranked 39th in PPG and 50th in YPG, at 24.7 and 364 yards, respectively. They're much better in pass defense, ranked 19th overall, but were pretty vulnerable against the run, ranked 79th. They do have a very impressive red zone history, ranked 2nd in RZ TD rate at 65%, which was 2nd in the FCS.
Their last five games against FBS opponents are as follows, with a 1-4 record.
2022: Middle Tennessee St.: L, 6-49
2021: Mississippi St.: L, 10-55
2020: N/A (COVID)
2019: Middle Tennessee St.: L, 26-45
2018: Vanderbilt: L, 27-31
2017: Georgia St.: W, 17-10
They are 14-22-2 (0.395%) all time against FBS competition.
Look for ND to run rampant early and often, and feast on play action and quick passes in space, allowing their athletes to make plays after the catch. I predict Merriweather has two TDs in this game, with ND trying to force feed him to get his confidence rolling. Defensively, I don't see many issues keeping TSU in check.
TL;DR
My prediction: ND 65, TSU 7.
