Desmond Howard explains why Notre Dame is an overlooked College Football Playoff contender

Notre Dame kicks off the 2023 college football season Saturday in Dublin, Ireland, and ESPN analyst Desmond Howard likes where the team is heading into the season.

The former Heisman Trophy winner was on Friday’s episode of Get Up talking college football and gave high praise for the Fighting Irish.

“I expect they’ll be really good,” Howard said. “They have this offensive tackle named Joe Alt. He’s probably the first tackle off the board in the 2024 draft. He’s the guy who said we’re going after that Joe Moore Award. He said we want to take all comers.”

Per usual, Notre Dame has a schedule that features some of the biggest names in the sport. One matchup that particularly caught his eye is a Week 4 matchup versus Ohio State in South Bend, Ind.

The two teams faced off last season in Columbus, Ohio, in the first week of the year in Marcus Freeman’s first game as a head coach. The Buckeyes won 21-10.

“They’re going to have a big game against Ohio State,” Howard said. “When they play Ohio State, Notre Dame will have four games under their belt when they go up against the Buckeyes as opposed to last year in coach Freeman’s first full year as a head coach, they only had zero games. It was their first game out of the gate in Columbus. I think this team is gonna be better prepared.”

The Fighting Irish won’t have a bye week heading into the game versus the Buckeyes. They will have their bye weeks following their games against USC in October and Clemson in November.

Howard also thinks the team will be better on offense. Transfer quarterback Sam Hartman comes in with high expectations after a great career at Wake Forest.

But Howard also likes a positional change the team made with one of their key playmakers in Chris Tyree.

“They have Sam Hartman at the quarterback position,” Howard said. “That’s an upgrade for Notre Dame. But they still need some skill, some explosives out on the perimeter. So they moved their running back Chris Tyree to wideout to hopefully get a little more vertical, a little more explosive downfield plays on the perimeter. I expect this team to be a really, really good team and compete so I’m excited about this Notre Dame team. You talk about flying under the radar, that’s the Fighting Irish right now.”