Notre Dame moves up in latest preseason SP+ rankings
Notre Dame watched from the sideline during a hectic spring of player movement and headline-grabbing transfers across college football.
The quarterback transfer derby rolled on at full speed. Wide receiver Jordan Addison, the reigning Biletnikoff Award winner, bolted to USC from Pitt – sparking allegations of tampering and rumors that a lucrative NIL deal prompted the move. Other teams with new head coaches have brought in double-digit transfers while their portal losses pushed 20.
All remained relatively quiet in South Bend, though. Just three Notre Dame players have entered the portal since February and one since March. The most recent departure, running back C’Bo Flemister, was not on the spring roster. The lone addition for 2022 since February is Cincinnati La Salle four-star running back Gi’Bran Payne.
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Not much has changed with the Irish roster since the wave of January transfers and fifth-year announcements. As a result, their position in ESPN’s latest SP+ rankings barely moved. The Irish jumped to No. 7 in Monday’s updated rankings, up from No. 8 in February’s initial version, with a projected SP+ of 19.6. The 0.6 jump from February pushed them above Texas A&M (which had a 1.6 drop in projected SP+ and fell two spots to eighth).
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SP+ is a predictive metric created by ESPN’s Bill Connelly. It’s a “tempo and opponent-adjusted measure of what college football teams can most consistently do to win football games.” It’s designed to track a team’s efficiency and has five major components: success rate, explosiveness, field position, drive finishing and turnovers.
Those aren’t available in the offseason, though. Connelly’s preseason SP+ is derived from three main factors: returning production, recent recruiting and recent history. Transfers in and out are included in returning production, making it the most likely of the three to fluctuate in the offseason.
But in Notre Dame’s case, the returning productionfigure is unlikely to move much in its next update from the 59 percent Connelly computed in February. That’s due to the Irish’s lack of additions since the original returning production release, in which 59 percent was tied for 93rd.
Notre Dame is 26th in projected offensive SP+ and eighth in projected defensive SP+.
Notre Dame 2022 opponents’ SP+ ranking
1. Ohio State
6. Clemson
25. BYU
34. North Carolina
51. USC
57. Syracuse
63. Marshall
74. Cal
76. Boston College
77. Stanford
110. UNLV
113. Navy
