Here’s what ESPN’s analytics say about Notre Dame right now, and what they tell us about what the Irish could do in 2025.
On Wednesday, ESPN released the final preseason update of its SP+ projections. Notre Dame will begin the 2025 season at No. 6, with an SP+ rating of 22.0 and the third-highest average projected win total in college football.
Here’s what ESPN’s analytics say about Notre Dame right now, and what they tell us about what the Irish could do in 2025.
SP+ ranking
Here is the full top 10, with some movement from the post-spring edition:
| School (diff. from post-spring rankings) | SP+ rating | Offense (Rk.) | Defense (Rk.) |
| 1. Ohio State | 26.1 | 38.0 (8) | 13.0 (3) |
| 2. Alabama | 25.5 | 39.3 (3) | 13.7 (6) |
| 3. Georgia (+1) | 24.2 | 37.7 (10) | 13.5 (5) |
| 4. Penn State (-1) | 24.2 | 38.8 (4) | 14.8 (8) |
| 5. Texas | 23.1 | 33.7 (24) | 10.7 (2) |
| 6. Notre Dame | 22.0 | 36.8 (12) | 14.8 (9) |
| 7. Oregon | 22.0 | 38.5 (5) | 16.6 (13) |
| 8. Michigan (+2) | 20.9 | 31.5 (37) | 10.6 (1) |
| 9. Ole Miss (+2) | 20.7 | 35.2 (18) | 14.5 (7) |
| 10. Clemson (-2) | 20.2 | 38.4 (6) | 18.2 (20) |
Dropped out: LSU (-2)
SP+ is based on three primary factors: Returning production, recent recruiting and recent history. ESPN’s Bill Connelly describes SP+ as the following:
“SP+ is a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. It is a predictive measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football, not a résumé ranking, and, along those same lines, these projections aren’t intended to be a guess at what the AP Top 25 will look like at the end of the year. These are simply early offseason power rankings based on the information we have been able to gather to date.”
Basically, SP+ is hypothesizing that Notre Dame would beat the average college football team (somewhere between No. 68 UTSA at 0.3 and No. 69 Army at -0.2) by 22.0 points in a given game.
Projected win total and strength of schedule
Projected win totals went down across the board — Connelly wrote that he “ended up tamping down the overall top-to-bottom spread of points,” meaning that the top teams’ ratings dropped from what they were in May. The Irish fell from first to third in the rankings, though.
Here is the full top 10 (Power Four teams + Notre Dame only):
| School | Proj. win total | Strength of schedule rk. |
| T1. Ohio State | 10.0 | 21 |
| T1. Penn State | 10.0 | 29 |
| 3. Notre Dame | 9.8 | 44 |
| T4. Oregon | 9.6 | 32 |
| T4. Michigan | 9.6 | 38 |
| 6. Alabama | 9.4 | 11 |
| T7. Georgia | 9.3 | 13 |
| T7. Clemson | 9.3 | 34 |
| 9. Texas | 9.1 | 13 |
| T10. Ole Miss | 9.0 | 23 |
| T10. Miami | 9.0 | 36 |
Notre Dame — which also opened the AP Top 25 at No. 6 — has the worst strength of schedule of any team in the top 10, with Michigan being the closest. As a result, the Irish are expected to win a lot of games.
They do, however, open at No. 10 Miami. Connelly wrote that his model projects the Irish to beat the Hurricanes by 1.4 points in a game for which they’re currently favored by 2.5.
Category: General Sports
