Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman is looking to turn Las Vegas’ doubts about the Fighting Irish into something positive for his team.

Freeman was informed of the massive — and potentially still growing — point spread in Notre Dame’s season-opener at Ohio State on Saturday. The Irish are 17.5-point underdogs at some sports books.

“You said 17.5 points,” Freeman said at his weekly press conference on Monday afternoon. “We’ll use that in the team meeting today.”

It’s exceptionally rare for Notre Dame to be this big of an underdog, even on the road. It’s only happened 6 times since 2000. However, the Irish have just 1 outright victory in those 6 games — against UCLA in the midst of a nightmare 3-9 season in 2007.

Since then, Notre Dame has been a 17-point underdog on the road just twice. The Irish failed to cover the spread on both occasions. It hasn’t happened at all since 2016.

Notre Dame is facing a stacked Ohio State team that is one of the favorites to win the national title. Kickoff is at 7:30 p.m. ET in Columbus on Saturday night.