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The Notre Dame Fighting Irish are back, and the 90th Annual Blue-Gold Game takes place at Notre Dame Stadium on Saturday afternoon in South Bend, Indiana. Notre Dame is coming off a 12-1 season, earning a No. 3 seed in the 2018-19 College Football Playoff before ultimately losing to the eventual National Champion Clemson Tigers, 30-3, in the Cotton Bowl on December 29.
The game is scheduled to start at 12:30 p.m. ET and will be televised on NBC Sports Network. If you don’t have cable, you can watch a live stream of NBCSN via one of the following live-TV streaming services:
NBC Sports Network Network is one of 85-plus live TV channels included in the main FuboTV bundle, which is largely tailored towards sports.
You can start a free 7-day trial of FuboTV right here, and you can then watch a live stream of the game on your computer via the FuboTV website, or on your phone (Android and iPhone supported), tablet, Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast or other supported device via the FuboTV app.
If you can’t watch live, FuboTV comes with 30 hours of cloud DVR space, as well as a 72-hour lookback feature, which allows you to watch the game within three days of its conclusion even if you don’t record it.
PS Vue — which doesn’t require an actual PlayStation console to sign up or watch — offers four different live-TV channel packages, all of which include NBC Sports Network.
You can start a free five-day trial of PS Vue right here, and you can then watch a live stream of the game on your computer via the PS Vue website, or on your phone (Android and iPhone supported), tablet, Roku, Amazon Fire TV, Apple TV, Chromecast, PlayStation (3 or 4), or other supported device via the PS Vue app.
If you can’t watch live, PS Vue comes with cloud DVR.
In addition to a Netflix-like on-demand streaming library, Hulu also offers a bundle of 60-plus live TV channels, including NBC Sports Network.
You can sign up for “Hulu with Live TV” right here, and you can then watch a live stream of the game on your computer via the Hulu website, or on your phone (Android and iPhone supported), tablet, Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, Chromecast, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Echo Show, or other streaming device via the Hulu app.
If you can’t watch live, Hulu With Live TV comes with 50 hours of cloud DVR space, as well as the option to upgrade to “Enhanced Cloud DVR,” which gives you 200 hours of space and the ability to fast-forward through commercials.
2019 Notre Dame Spring Game Preview
Head coach Brian Kelly enters his 10th year with the program this season. Kelly’s official record stands at 60-34; Notre Dame was forced to vacate its wins from the 2012 and 2013 seasons. The Fighting Irish are coming off back-to-back 10-win seasons and are looking for a third straight for the first time in 26 years (1991-93; 10-3, 10-1-1, 11-1 respectively).
Last season, there were questions entering the season about the quarterback position in South Bend. Senior Brandon Wimbush (52.9 completion percentage, 719 yards, four touchdowns, si interceptions in three games) started the season under center, eventually giving way to sophomore Ian Book.
Book started against Wake Forest, leading Notre Dame to a 56-27 victory, throwing for 325 yards and two touchdowns. Book finished 2018 completing 68.2% of his passes for 2,628 yards, 19 touchdowns and seven interceptions as Notre Dame beat ranked Stanford, Virginia Tech and Syracuse en route to an unbeaten regular season.
On the passing side, Notre Dame is set, but the running game will be somewhat of a work in progress. Senior Dexter Williams (995 rushing yards, 12 touchdowns) will be missed. The workload will be taken over full-time, or expected to be, by senior Tony Jones Jr, who totaled 392 yards and three touchdowns after playing in all 12 games last season as the primary backup.
This year’s Blue-Gold Game is special for other reasons well. Because of Notre Dame’s long-standing partnership with NBC Sports, there are several agreements in place to try new — potentially exciting — broadcasting techniques for this weekend, some of which are outlined here.
Notre Dame’s offensive line this season should be better than it was in 2018. Following the loss of Quenton Nelson to the Indianapolis Colts as the No 6 pick in the 2018 NFL Draft, Notre Dame’s offensive line reloaded for last season. The defense was the team’s strong point, and remained so throughout the year from a season-opening 24-17 win against rival Michigan until a hard-fought victory against USC.
The Fighting Irish defense should remain potent this season, but will be without star cornerback Julian Love. Last season, Love, the 5-foot-11 junior out of Westchester, Illinois, had standout performances the past two seasons in South Bend and is a candidate to go early in the 2019 NFL Draft, possibly in the late first or early-to-mid second round. Love finished with a school-record 20 pass breakups in 2017, and followed that up with 16 in 2018, which ranked in the top 10 in the nation.