Notre Dame had a case to be the preseason No. 1 and here’s why the AP polls missed the mark on the Fighting Irish
Notre Dame came in at No. 1 on the AP Top-25 preseason college football rankings, the program’s highest ranking since 2026. Yet, there’s a strong argument Fighting Irish should have been ranked even higher.
Notre Dame had a real chance to enter the 2026 college football season as the No. 1 team in the country, and the case for the Fighting Irish has little to do with quarterback CJ Carr.
With the preseason top 25 now released, Notre Dame came in at No. 4, the program’s highest preseason ranking since 2006. The Fighting Irish also received six first-place votes, the second-fewest among the five teams that had first-place votes.
Notre Dame’s proven roster production, coaching continuity, and transfer portal additions should have made them a more legitimate contender for the top spot in college football’s preseason rankings and it’s clear the AP missed the mark here.
Now I want to be clear again. This argument is not rooted in CJ Carr. If you’ve followed my work, you know I think Carr is a little bit overrated. I would not have him as the preseason Heisman favorite, and I think he’s a solid enough quarterback to compete for a national championship, but he’s not this crazy superstar that people are propping him up to be. He’s fine. He’s capable. But he’s not the reason Notre Dame should belong at No. 1.
The entire roster is what makes this Notre Dame team elite
The reason I’m leaning toward the Fighting Irish is the overall roster. This team has proven production paired with a ton of upside in some of the transfers they brought in, especially within their front-seven and their wide receivers. That combination of returning talent and high-ceiling additions is something most programs in the country would kill for.
And then you have the coaching staff, which I think is fantastic. More importantly, you have continuity there, and that’s not something you can say for a lot of the other contenders right now.
Outside of Indiana, look at the landscape. Oregon is replacing both of their coordinators. Ohio State is replacing their offensive coordinator. Texas is replacing their defensive coordinator. And though I like the hires those programs made, they’re still question marks. Notre Dame doesn’t have that problem. Marcus Freeman’s staff is intact, experienced, and familiar with the personnel. That matters more than people want to admit.
The schedule argument doesn’t hold up the way you think it does
And you may say, their schedule is light. It absolutely is. I’m not going to sit here and pretend Notre Dame plays a gauntlet. But you have to make the fair point that a schedule does not dictate the quality of a team.
It can make the record look better than they potentially are, sure, and Notre Dame may not be as tested as some of the other teams playing in actual conferences. That’s a legitimate concern. But the quality of what this roster is, combined with the experience they have, could easily put them in contention to be the best team in the entire country.
A light schedule doesn’t make a team any less talented. It just means they’ll have fewer opportunities to prove it before the playoff, which something you can consider and weight during the mid-season rankings, but not the preseason one.
The other Marcus Freeman factor nobody is talking about
Here’s the underlying pressure that I think people are glossing over: Marcus Freeman could potentially leave for the NFL sooner than later. There was legitimate interest with that Giants job. Maybe the right opportunity opens up for him next cycle, and suddenly this window isn’t as big as Notre Dame fans originally thought. That should add urgency to this season, not just for the coaching staff but for a roster that knows this particular group might have one last crack at it together.
I know Notre Dame fans think I’m just a giant hater of them. I’m not. I really do think this team is elite, and there are so many different aspects of this roster that rank among the best in the entire country. The returning talent, the coaching stability, the portal additions, and the Freeman NFL factor all point in the same direction: Notre Dame had just as strong a case as anyone to sit at No. 1 heading into the season and the AP might have just given this team even more bulletin board material heading into the season.
