Most expect Notre Dame football to have a big year, but as we have seen over the last few seasons, more than a few teams that have been ranked in the preseason US LBM Coaches Poll top-10 have eventually dropped out (Penn State and Clemson last year).
While I don’t think that will be the case for the Irish, you just never know with college football. There are plenty of things that could go wrong to derail a season, and for Notre Dame there are a few that are fairly glaring for this coming season. Any team that has stars would find it hard to replace any of them, as with the Irish have multiple, that would be a tough task.
One of them stands over the rest, and I’ll start of with that one as we look at three reasons how Notre Dame’s season could end up with it missing the College Football Playoff.
Notre Dame’s starting QB CJ Carr gets hurt
This would be the worst case scenario for Notre Dame, losing Carr for any significant amount of time. There is plenty of talent behind him, but none of those players have yet to set up and take the open QB2 job. If the running back situation was a bit different, you could lean on them until Carr would return, but that’s not the case. Like the backup quarterbacks, the running backs have plenty of talent but lack experience. Losing Carr would be a massive blow to the Irish’s ability to make the CFP.
Marcus Freeman’s early season struggles appear again
It’s an open secret, under Freeman, Notre Dame has had multiple issues with early season games. His first full season in 2022 saw back-to-back season opening losses to Ohio State and Marshall with a false hope of 2023 which didn’t see one. The struggles reared its ugly head in 2024, with loss to Northern Illinois during the second game. Last year it was back-to-back again, albeit much tougher competition in Miami and Texas A&M. The opener against Wisconsin won’t be a cakewalk, then a fairly easy game against Rice and then Michigan State visits. A loss to any of these teams could spell doom for the Irish.
Notre Dame’s loses only to its ranked opponents
An argument can be made that Notre Dame being an independent hurts its bottom line, something we saw last year as the CFP opted for other teams instead of a more-than-worthy team. Perception plays a big role into this, and if the Irish are to lose each of its three big games (BYU, Miami and SMU), it could lead to the committee looking elsewhere once again. Notre Dame needs to have the national media fully behind them, and the only way that happens is to, at minimum, win two-of-three of those games to make the CFP.
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This article originally appeared on Fighting Irish Wire: Three reasons why Notre Dame’s season gets derailed and misses the CFP