A raucous crowd of 107,315 was at the Notre Dame game for the 4th largest Kyle Field attendance and largest for a nonconference game, breaking the previous nonconference game record of 107,245 against Miami on 9/17/22. Because of the home field advantage in a night game, we were 2.5-point home favorites. Notre Dame had 11 penalties for 99 yards, but they outgained us 356 total yards (158 passing and 198 rushing) to 246 total yards (100 passing and 146 rushing) and won the turnover margin 2 to 0.
I hope we win 2 of our 3 SEC home games against Missouri, LSU, and Texas, 3 of 4 true SEC road games, and our annual neutral site game against Arkansas. If we can achieve these goals, we would finish 9-3 and 6-2 in SEC games. Even an 8-4 finish would mean a 5-3 SEC record for just our 4th winning SEC record in 13 years in the conference.
Kevin Sumlin went 8-14 in SEC home games and 9-14 (31-24 overtime win over UCLA in 2016) in Power 4 home games. In contrast, Jimbo Fisher went 16-6 in SEC home games and 17-7 (28-26 loss to Clemson in 2018 and 17-3 win over Miami in 2022) in Power 4 home games. Mike Elko will likely go 2-1 or 1-2 in SEC home games and 2-2 or 1-3 in Power 4 home games this year.