SOUTH BEND, Ind. (WNDU) – Notre Dame will face its biggest remaining test of the regular season on Saturday when the ninth-ranked Fighting Irish travel to face No. 22 Pittsburgh in a noon kickoff.<\/p>\n
The Irish enter the game riding a seven-game winning streak, while the Panthers have won five straight games. Both teams are starting freshman quarterbacks.<\/p>\n
Notre Dame sits at No. 9 in the College Football Playoff rankings<\/a> following last Saturday\u2019s win over Navy<\/a>. If the playoffs started today, the Irish would travel to Oregon in the first round. The team is positioned to potentially host a first-round playoff game with strong finishes in their remaining games.<\/p>\n Freeman emphasizes focus on Pittsburgh challenge<\/p>\n Earlier this week<\/a>, Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman dismissed any notion that Saturday\u2019s game represents a trap game for his team.<\/p>\n \u201cSomebody texted me is this a trap game? I said this is not a trap game. This is a challenge. This is a real challenge. A great challenge,\u201d Freeman said. \u201cWe have to understand the challenge we have ahead of us on Saturday and use that again as a reminder to prepare the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n The Irish will face Pittsburgh quarterback Mason Heinschel, who got his first start Oct. 4 against Boston College where he threw for four touchdowns and no interceptions. Since then, Pittsburgh has continued winning with Heinschel under center. He has thrown for over 1,500 yards with 12 touchdowns and five interceptions.<\/p>\n The No. 9 Irish look to extend their seven-game winning streak against the No. 22 Panthers.Pittsburgh in ACC Championship hunt<\/p>\n Pittsburgh enters the game at 7-2 and in contention for the ACC Championship. If the Panthers win the conference title, they would likely earn a College Football Playoff berth.<\/p>\n Since Saturday\u2019s game is non-conference, Pittsburgh doesn\u2019t need to beat Notre Dame to keep their playoff hopes alive through the ACC.<\/p>\n \u201cAbsolutely not. It is not an ACC game. I\u2019m glad you brought that up,\u201d Pittsburgh head coach Pat Narduzzi said earlier this week. \u201cI would gladly get beat 103 or 110-10 in that game. They can put 100 up on us as long as we win the next two after that.\u201d<\/p>\n Freeman acknowledged the challenge his defense will face against Pittsburgh\u2019s offense.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s going to be a great challenge. We know that. They\u2019re 7-2 and on a five-game winning streak and playing with a lot of confidence and momentum and rightfully so,\u201d Freeman said. \u201cOn offense, they\u2019re an explosive-play, fast, shifts, motions, tempo\u2026 I think they\u2019re in the top 10 in scoring offense right now.\u201d<\/p>\n The game kicks off at noon and will be televised on ABC.<\/p>\n Since Saturday’s game is non-conference, Pittsburgh doesn’t need to beat Notre Dame to keep their playoff hopes alive through the ACC.<\/p>\n Stay up to date on local news with WNDU<\/a> on-air and online. Be sure to download the 16 News Now App<\/a> and follow our YouTube<\/a> page as we continue to bring you the latest coverage on this developing story.<\/p>\n Copyright 2025 WNDU. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SOUTH BEND, Ind. (WNDU) – Notre Dame will face its biggest remaining test of the regular season on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34713,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[19776,303,19775,20089,4710,3746,6734,21703,3398,73,75,74,9671,19774],"class_list":{"0":"post-34712","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh","8":"tag-fighting-irish","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-irish","11":"tag-marcus-freeman","12":"tag-matchup","13":"tag-notre-dame","14":"tag-panthers","15":"tag-pat-narduzzi","16":"tag-pitt","17":"tag-pittsburgh","18":"tag-pittsburgh-headlines","19":"tag-pittsburgh-news","20":"tag-top-25","21":"tag-wndu"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34712\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34713"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}