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Notre Dame carries the highest win total in the country, and eleven and a half over twelve games means the Over needs a perfect season. Miami visits South Bend in November. I am taking the Under.
Key Storylines
- This is a perfection bet and nothing else. Notre Dame plays twelve regular-season games and the line is 11.5. Bowls and playoff games do not count toward a win total. The Over needs twelve wins; the Under needs a single loss. One slip against Wisconsin at Lambeau, one bad afternoon at Purdue, one cold night in Provo, and the Over is finished in October with two months left to watch.
- It is also the most experienced roster in the country, and that is not a figure of speech. Bill Connelly’s returning production has Notre Dame first nationally. Nine of the defense’s top ten tacklers are back, and SP+ projects that unit ninth behind an offense it rates third. This is the strongest case anyone can make for the Over and it deserves saying first.
- CJ Carr returns off a school record. The quarterback threw for 2,741 yards with 24 touchdowns and six interceptions as a redshirt freshman, and his 168.06 passer rating is the best in Notre Dame history. He is widely rated among the top three returning quarterbacks in the country. Jeremiyah Love and the rest of a backfield that ran for 2,046 yards and 29 touchdowns are gone, which is the one genuine hole. Ohio State receiver Quincy Porter arrives to help replace the production.
- Chris Ash is in year two, and the line in front of him mostly stayed. The defensive coordinator, a former Rutgers head coach who ran Ohio State’s defense on a national title team, gets a second season with continuity behind him: that group produced 2.83 sacks a game last year, 16th in the country. Up front on offense, Anthonie Knapp, Guerby Lambert, Charles Jagusah and Ashton Craig are all back, with Billy Schrauth gone to Tampa Bay at 150th overall and Aamil Wagner departed. A settled line, a settled defense, a returning quarterback. None of that is an argument for the Under, and I would rather put it in front of you than hide it.
- The entire kicking operation is new, and one of them has never played this sport. Kicker Noah Burnette, punter James Rendell and holder Tyler Buchner all graduated in the same offseason. Spencer Porath arrives from Purdue to kick. The punter is Jasper Scaife, an Australian who came out of Hawthorn in the AFL and has never played American football. He may be excellent; several Australians have been. But a bet that needs precisely one loss in twelve games is a bet on something going wrong once, and a brand-new kicker, punter and holder is exactly the kind of thing that goes wrong once.
- Last season was 10-2, and then they went home. Notre Dame lost to Miami by four and to Texas A&M by one, missed the playoff while both of those teams got in, and on December 7 withdrew from bowl consideration entirely rather than play in Orlando. Nearly all of that team is back and angry. Nearly all of that team also lost two games.
Win Total Analysis
The number is 11.5, with the Under at -185 and the Over at +150. It is the highest win total on the board in college football.
Notre Dame is fourth in the preseason AP poll and third in SP+, its best preseason projection on record. I am not arguing this team is overrated. I am arguing about what twelve-and-oh actually costs.
Run the arithmetic the way the bet works, which is multiplication rather than addition. To be roughly 40 percent to run the table, as +150 implies, a team needs to average about a 92 percent win probability in every one of twelve games. Ninety-two percent is a three-touchdown favorite. Notre Dame is not a three-touchdown favorite against Miami, and it is not one in Provo either.
Strip the schedule down. Rice, Stanford, Boston College, SMU, Syracuse, Purdue and Michigan State are games the Irish should win, most of them comfortably. Navy at Gillette and Wisconsin at Lambeau are neutral-site games against opponents who will not be favored but will be organized. A trip to North Carolina is a road game against a program with money and ambition.
Then there are the two that matter. A trip to BYU on October 17, against a team the market lists at eight and a half wins of its own, and Miami at home on November 7, against a top-ten opponent that beat Notre Dame by four last season.
Honest disclosure, and it is the reason this is a four rather than a six. Prediction markets price a perfect season nearer thirty-five percent, so the number I am fading is not a soft one, and laying -185 needs to be right about sixty-five percent of the time. My estimate lands in the high twenties, and the gap between those two figures is all of the value in this ticket. It is a real edge and a thin one. If you think Notre Dame beats Miami comfortably, take the Over instead. This bet is largely that one game.
Take the Under at -185.
Playoff Picture
Notre Dame is an independent. There is no conference to win, no title game to reach, and no path to the playoff except being good enough that the committee cannot leave them out. Last season the committee did exactly that at 10-2.
BetMGM has the Irish at -700 to reach the playoff and +500 to miss it. That is a market saying Notre Dame is close to certain to be in the field, which sits comfortably alongside everything above rather than contradicting it.
You can back this Under and still think Notre Dame wins the national championship. Those are not opposing views. An 11-1 team goes to the playoff and loses this bet by one game, and that is the single likeliest outcome of the season.
Best Futures Bets
- Under 11.5 wins (-185): The play. It needs one loss across twelve games from a schedule containing a top-ten opponent, a road trip to a ranked BYU side, two neutral-site games and a kicking unit nobody has watched yet. Laying -185 is steep and I would not do it if the Over were asking for eleven wins instead of twelve.
- Over 11.5 wins (+150): The genuine counterargument. The country’s most experienced roster, a record-setting quarterback, six true home games, four returning offensive linemen and a schedule with no second top-ten opponent on it. If Carr takes another step this is a very live ticket, and the market is closer to your side than mine.
- To reach the playoff (-700): Pass. I agree with the opinion and will not lay seven to one to express it.
Schedule Landmines
Weeks 1-4: The Shamrock Series opener against Wisconsin is at Lambeau Field on September 6, a neutral site rather than a home game. Rice and Michigan State follow under the Golden Dome, then a short trip to Purdue. The Over needs all four and probably gets them, but an opener at a neutral venue against a Big Ten opponent is a strange place to start a perfect season, and it is the first live look at the new kicking game.
Weeks 5-7: A trip to Chapel Hill on October 3, Stanford at home, then Provo on October 17. BYU is the first real hazard. It is a genuine road environment, altitude included, against a team with its own eight-and-a-half win total, and it arrives immediately before the bye.
Weeks 8-10: The bye on October 24, then Navy at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough on Halloween, another neutral site. Then Miami on November 7, and this is the game. The Hurricanes are a top-ten team who won this fixture by four last season and cost Notre Dame a playoff place doing it. Touchdown Jesus has watched worse afternoons, but not many that mattered more to a win total.
Weeks 11-13: Boston College and SMU at home, then Syracuse in the dome to close. All three are winnable and none is free, and by this point the Over has either survived Miami or it has not.
Bottom Line
The most experienced roster in the country, a record-setting quarterback and the highest win total on the board. The Over still needs twelve wins from twelve games, including a top-ten Miami team in South Bend, a road trip to BYU, and a kicker, punter and holder who have never done this here. One loss is the likeliest single outcome of this season. Take the Under at -185.
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