The Notre Dame Fighting Irish are set to take on the Penn State Nittany Lions in the Orange Bowl on Thursday night as part of the College Football Playoff semifinal games this week.
The game will be a hard-fought battle, but it sounds like Notre Dame is battling something else too – the flu.
According to Notre Dame beat writer Tyler Horka of On3 Sports, several players on the Notre Dame football team were battling flu symptoms leading up to the game.
Horka reports that the outbreak was limited to “mostly backups and special teams players,” but it’s obviously still a concerning situation for the Fighting Irish.
“Been told the flu is going around the Notre Dame locker room. Those who have it have it bad, but it sounds like that’s mostly backups and special teams players. Still something to monitor for the Fighting Irish going into the Orange Bowl vs. Penn State tonight,” Horka said in a post on X, the social media website that was formerly known as Twitter.
It’s been a long road to the College Football Playoff for Notre Dame. The team suffered a major early-season loss to the Northern Illinois Huskies that seemed to put a major damper on their national title chances, but they’ve bounced back and emerged as one of the top teams in the country.
The Penn State Nittany Lions, meanwhile, had just two losses before the playoff, falling to Ohio State earlier in the season and Oregon in the Big Ten Championship game.
The winner of Thursday night’s game will take on the winner of Friday night’s showdown between the Ohio State Buckeyes and the Texas Longhorns in the College Football Playoff title game on Jan. 20.
We’ll have to see whether or not Notre Dame can overcome the illness spreading through the team and clinch a spot in the title game for the first time since the 2012 season.
