As quickly as it came, the 2025 college football regular season has come to a close, and before one of the final playoff rankings are released tomorrow, we wanted to take a look at the teams that are, or are perceived to be, on the bubble of making the second 12-team college football playoffs. We're going to look at Notre Dame, Alabama, Oklahoma, Miami, BYU and Ole Miss and talk through what's working in their favor and what's working against their final push to the playoffs. Let's first take a look at the Notre Dame Fighting Irish who are sitting at 10-2 on the season and are currently ranked 9th by the playoff committee.
What's Working In Their Favor?
The Irish are one of the hottest teams in college football. After dropping their first two games of the regular season, they ripped off 10 straight wins and won all of their games by double digits. Notre Dame's average margin of victory was 29.7 points. Along the way, they picked up several quality wins in the eyes of the committee including wins over 8-4 Boise State, 7-5 NC State, 9-3 USC, 9-2 Navy and 8-4 Pittsburgh. They currently rank 5th in the country in points per game, 3rd in the country in yards per play, 2nd in the country in rushing touchdowns, 4th in the country in yards per pass attempt and 5th in the country in passer rating.
The computers also love this Notre Dame squad. The Irish are No. 2 in the Sagarin, No. 4 in the FEI and No. 3 on ESPN's FPI. They also have the No. 13 strength of record in the country and the No. 42 strength of schedule according to ESPN. Over the last two years, 20 of their 21 victories in the regular season have been by double digits; Louisville was the only team to lose to Notre Dame in the regular season by less than 10 points. After their run last season, the Irish proved they belong on the big stage and their pure dominance over the last 10 games have given them a lot of leverage in the playoff conversation.
What's Working Against Them?
The biggest blemish on Notre Dame's resume is what happened in week one and week three of the college football season. The major argument working against the Irish is that they 'lost to the two best teams they played.' Some of the opponents the Irish faced down the stretch were quality opponents, headlined by USC, Pitt and Navy who Notre Dame beat by 10, 22 and 39 respectively but they weren't the Hurricanes or the Aggies especially in the eyes of the committee.
Unfortunately for Marcus Freeman's squad, they weren't able to handle business against Miami in week one and Texas A&M in week three and lost by a combined four points in both of those contests. I don't consider the strength of schedule argument to work against the Irish as much some think. Ohio State has the 46th SOS, Indiana has the 45th SOS, Texas Tech has the 59th SOS and Ole Miss has the 40th SOS, all teams ranked ahead of Notre Dame. Their biggest argument working against them is what happened back in September of the regular season.
My Thoughts: Notre Dame should, and probably will be, in this year's College Football Playoffs. They check almost every box you want to see from a playoff team. The computer models between the FEI, FPI and Sagarin love this Freeman-led squad, they're extremely well balanced and pass the eye test with flying colors and yes, that is also a metric that I believe should be weighed in the playoff conversion. If the ultimate goal of the playoff committee is to get the 12 best teams in the country in the playoffs, then Notre Dame should be amongst one of those 12. Now, since they didn't handle business in their first two matchups, I don't know how likely it is they will host. But this Notre Dame team is playing as good as anyone in the country and should be in the playoffs.
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