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Where Notre Dame ranks in Phil Steele’s prediction of the preseason AP Top 25

IMG_9992by:Tyler Horka•07/07/23•

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Notre Dame HC Marcus Freeman
(James Gilbert | Getty Images)

We’re weeks away from the release of the first official Associated Press Top 25 Poll of the 2023 college football season. For Notre Dame, it’s a question of if the Fighting Irish will sit inside the top 10 for a fifth consecutive preseason poll.

College football magazine mogul Phil Steele believes they will.

Steele’s prediction of the top 10 teams in the preseason AP Top 25 dropped Friday. It’s not Steele’s own top 10; it’s what he thinks the top 10 will look like when the poll is released next month.

Phil Steele AP preseason top 10 projection

  1. Georgia
  2. Alabama
  3. Michigan
  4. Ohio State
  5. LSU
  6. Penn State
  7. Florida State
  8. Clemson
  9. USC
  10. Notre Dame

Steele has named all 10 of the preseason top 10 teams in eight of the 14 years he has put out his projection. In that span, he has hit on 134 of the 140 top 10 teams. Last year, Steele predicted Oregon to be No. 10. The pollsters ultimately put Baylor in that slot. The Ducks came in at No. 11.

Notre Dame is the bubble team this year. And for the first time in the last half decade, there is a strong argument not to include the Fighting Irish in the preseason top 10. They started out as No. 5 in last year’s preseason poll only to finish with a 9-4 record and as the No. 18 team in the AP poll. That was Notre Dame’s worst postseason AP Poll ranking since finishing unranked in 2016. From 2017-21, Notre Dame did not finish worse than 12th in the poll.

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The best argument to put the Irish in the preseason top 10 is the addition of former Wake Forest quarterback Sam Hartman to the roster. Yes, one player can make that much of a difference. Notre Dame might have been an elite quarterback away from seriously competing with Ohio State and USC last year. An elite quarterback almost assuredly would have beaten Marshall and Stanford at Notre Dame Stadium, too.

Ohio State, Clemson and USC — all Notre Dame opponents in 2023 — feel like locks to appear in the top 10 next month. Notre Dame faced all three while they were top-10 teams in 2022, so that would not be anything new for head coach Marcus Freeman and company.

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