28-point underdog stuns Notre Dame, pulls off shocking upset

Notre Dame paid Northern Illinois $1.4 million to play in South Bend, Indiana.

The Huskies thanked the Fighting Irish by handing them a stunning 16-14 upset loss on Saturday as 28-point underdogs at Notre Dame Stadium. Northern Illinois was a 20-1 underdog on the money line.

Kanon Woodill made a go-ahead 35-yard field goal with 31 seconds left, and Northern Illinois blocked and recovered Mitch Jeter’s potential game-winning 62-yard field goal for Notre Dame as time expired.

The massive upset didn’t translate to a massive decision for sportsbooks.

BetMGM reported a small five-figure win in Nevada, as most bettors shied away from backing the Irish as prohibitive money-line favorites of -6,000 or more, meaning a bettor would have to wager $6,000 to win $100 on Notre Dame.

“That’s too big of a favorite for even the money-line parlay guys to get involved,” Westgate SuperBook director John Murray said. “It didn’t really do much for us.”

Northern Illinois paid 20-1 on the money line at BetMGM and 18-1 at Station Sports. But the books reported that there were only a small amount of small money-line wagers on the Huskies.

“It was a small decision for us. It wasn’t heavily bet,” MGM Resorts director of trading Lamarr Mitchell said. “I was definitely very surprised that they ended up losing that outright after their showing last week at Texas A&M.”

The Irish beat the Aggies 23-13 on the road in their season opener before losing their home opener as four-touchdown favorites.

The best decision for BetMGM on Saturday was Penn State beating Bowling Green 34-27 but not covering as a 34-point favorite. The Nittany Lions were booed off the field at halftime, when they trailed 24-20. But they outscored the Falcons 14-3 in the second half to avoid an upset.

“We took a couple six-figure bets on Penn State, so that was a really, really good decision for us with Penn State not covering,” Mitchell said.

A BetMGM bettor won a large six-figure wager on Pitt, which rallied from 21 points down to beat Cincinnati 28-27 and cover as a 1½-point underdog. Ben Sauls kicked a 35-yard field goal with 17 seconds left for the win and cover.

“That hurt us a little bit,” Mitchell said.

Books also lost on Texas, which whipped Michigan 31-12 in Ann Arbor as a 6½-point favorite.

“Everybody was on Texas,” Mitchell said.

UNLV covered as a 41-point favorite in a 72-14 romp past Utah Tech, and the game flew over the total of 55½.

Contact reporter Todd Dewey at tdewey@reviewjournal.com. Follow @tdewey33 on X.