Notre Dame remains in top 10 of final ESPN SP+ preseason projections
The voter-based preseason rankings are out. One of the prominent computer rankings has followed with its final output before games start. And with Notre Dame firmly in the top 10.
The Irish are the No. 7 team in the final 2022 SP+ projections, which were released Sunday. That’s the same spot they occupied in the previous offseason edition. SP+ projects them to win 9.4 games, the seventh-highest predicted number of victories for any Power Five team.
Notre Dame’s overall SP+ is 21.0. It is 18th in offensive SP+ (35.7) and seventh in defensive SP+ (14.7). The 21.0 overall number is a 1.4 increase from May’s rankings.
Alabama is the No. 1 team in the final preseason SP+ rankings, followed by Georgia, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Clemson and Michigan. Texas A&M is behind Notre Dame at No. 8, with Ole Miss and Kentucky comprising the rest of the top 10. The Buckeyes (projected 10.4 wins) and Tigers (9.6) are the two-highest-rated Notre Dame opponents in SP+. BYU (25th, 8.4 projected wins) is the only other team on the Irish’s 2022 schedule in the SP+ top 25.
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North Carolina (No. 38, 7.3 projected win total) and USC (No. 46, 7.2) are the other Irish opponents in the top 50. Syracuse (64th, 5.2 projected win total), Marshall (67th, 7.7), Boston College (70th, 5.5), Stanford (74th, 4.4), Cal (78th, 5.4), Navy (105th, 3.3) and UNLV (117th, 4.2) are the seven Notre Dame opponents ranked outside the top 60.
ESPN college football analyst Bill Connelly created SP+ and describes it as “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.”
RELATED: More Notre Dame football:
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• Notre Dame football fall camp practice No. 15 observations: defense and special teams
Preseason and offseason SP+ projections are based on recent history, recent recruiting and returning production. The final one is the only variable in SP+ that could have change since the last SP+ refresh.
Notre Dame had little movement there, bringing in zero players from the transfer portal. Its lone departure was freshman offensive lineman Joey Tanona, who retired due to lingering effects from an offseason head injury. Grad student wide receiver Avery Davis, though, tore his right ACL earlier this month and will miss the season. Davis had 27 catches for 386 yards and four touchdowns in eight games last year.
Notre Dame is ranked No. 5 in the preseason Associated Press top 25 and in the USA Today Sports Coaches Poll.
