Notre Dame Proposition

Background: Every team playes a team like Duke, Stanford, or Eastern Carolina. But only Notre Dame would schedule five such schools in the same season and still claim to be a national power.

This year, Notre Dame has played Stanford and will play North Carolina and all three service academies.

The Challenge: One of these years, a service academy will beat Notre Dame. Will this be the year?

The Propositions: There are three options you can choose as an extra in this week's VHTRC football contest.

• For Notre Dame: If Notre Dame runs the table against Navy (Oct 28 in Baltimore), Air Force (Nov 11 in Colorado Springs), and Army (Nov 11 at South Bend), you get three bonus wins for the season rankings. If Notre Dame loses any of these three games, you don't get any bonus points and you loose a point for each Irish loss to a service academy. (You could lose three points, but cows could fly too.)
• For the Service Academies: If either Navy, Air Force, or Army beats Notre Dame, you get five bonus points. (No extra points if two or three academies win. In that unlikely event, the joy of gloating will be priceless, and you won't need any more bonus points.) If Notre Dame beats all the service academies, you lose one point.
• Opt Out: You don't lose or gain any points. [These three games will not be on the regular picks. So you won't have to worry about Notre Dame until it plays USC. That game will be in the contest.]

[The North Carolina game is not in this. The Tar Heals are not going to win.]