ESPN’s Chris “The Bear” Fallica believes in Notre Dame this week against Cal.

The Fighting Irish are 11-point favorites over the Golden Bears as they look for their first win of the season. Notre Dame also has the added difficulty of doing it without their starting quarterback, Tyler Buchner.

With Buchner out for the next 4 months with an injury, Drew Pyne will take over the starting quarterback duties in South Bend.

The Bear, on an episode of Always College Football with Greg McElroy, said Pyne — and Notre Dame’s defense — should be enough to earn a comfortable win over Cal this weekend.

“It kind of feels like this might be the time to jump on Notre Dame,” Fallica said. “Defensively, they’re still very, very good. Pyne is not a thrower, they’re going to have quarterback problems, but you would think between [tight end Michael] Mayer and some of the running backs, they should be able to score 24, 27 points … you would think.”

McElroy said he believes in Pyne enough to get Notre Dame to where it needs to be offensively in order to beat Cal.

“Pyne can give you enough,” he said. “Now that he’s had a week of work with the 1s, he can give you enough. He’s not going to be a star. I think he’s a poor man’s Ian Book, but Ian Book won a lot of games and was pretty good. If [Pyne] can just be serviceable, smart, not turn the ball over … I think he can give them a chance.”

Here’s full analysis from Fallica and McElroy: