ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI) making a strange projection regarding Notre Dame’s College Football Playoff (CFP)
As the 2025 college football season draws closer, anticipation is reaching a fever pitch across the country. Rankings, projections, and predictions are flowing from every corner of the media landscape, but one surprising development has sparked significant conversation and even confusion among fans and analysts alike. ESPN’s Football Power Index (FPI), a metric designed to forecast team performance and postseason odds, recently released its latest update — and in an unexpected twist, it made a rather bizarre call about the Notre Dame Fighting Irish’s chances of making the College Football Playoff.
According to the FPI, Notre Dame, despite a strong returning roster, an elite quarterback, and a favorable schedule, has been given curiously low odds to reach the four-team playoff. The projection was immediately met with skepticism and backlash. Across message boards, social media platforms, and national sports talk shows, fans and analysts alike are asking the same question: what exactly is the FPI seeing — or failing to see?
Notre Dame enters the 2025 season with considerable momentum. Under head coach Marcus Freeman, the program has reestablished its physicality on both sides of the ball, tightened its recruiting footprint, and sharpened its identity. The Fighting Irish were competitive last season, finishing with a double-digit win total and a statement bowl victory that served as a launching pad into the offseason. More importantly, Notre Dame returns several key starters, including a top-tier quarterback who many believe could be in the Heisman conversation by midseason.
On paper, the ingredients are all there: continuity in the coaching staff, emerging offensive firepower, an elite defense with NFL-caliber talent, and a schedule that offers both opportunity and flexibility. Yet somehow, ESPN’s FPI sees fit to assign Notre Dame only a marginal probability of reaching the playoff. The algorithm-based forecast slots several teams with weaker resumes or more challenging schedules ahead of the Irish, including some with new coaching regimes or quarterback uncertainties. To say that this has raised eyebrows would be an understatement.
Understanding why FPI made such a call requires diving into how the metric works. ESPN’s FPI is designed to be predictive, not reactive. It uses a blend of statistical modeling, including prior performance, returning production, strength of schedule, and expected scoring margin, to assign probabilities to various outcomes. The problem, as many critics point out, is that FPI tends to undervalue teams that are not part of a Power Five conference—or in Notre Dame’s case, not affiliated with a conference at all.
Notre Dame’s status as an independent has long been a double-edged sword. On one hand, it gives the program scheduling freedom and national reach. On the other, it often places them outside of the algorithms that favor conference affiliation and championship game appearances. While Notre Dame has agreements with the ACC and annually schedules marquee games, the absence of a conference championship game can sometimes be a strike against them in models like the FPI, which weigh conference title odds heavily in CFP forecasting.
But even with that caveat, the FPI’s projection still feels off. Notre Dame is slated to play a balanced and high-profile schedule, with matchups against powerhouses like USC, Clemson, and Texas A&M. Win two of those three—and take care of business elsewhere—and the Irish will almost certainly be in the thick of the CFP discussion. The strength of schedule component should, in theory, be working in their favor. That it doesn’t appear to be has puzzled many analysts.
Another point of contention is the undervaluing of returning talent. Notre Dame’s quarterback, entering his second year as a starter, showed flashes of brilliance in his debut season and finished the year with one of the lowest interception rates in the country. The offensive line is anchored by future NFL talent, and the receiving corps has added both experience and depth. Defensively, the team is stacked at all three levels. Linebackers are fast and physical, the secondary is versatile, and the defensive line is deep. Analysts have repeatedly called it one of the most complete rosters Notre Dame has fielded in the past decade.
And yet, FPI does not reflect that reality. It places multiple SEC and Big Ten teams ahead of Notre Dame, even those with glaring question marks and unproven rosters. Critics argue this reveals a bias in the system—a preference for conferences over context, for perception over performance. FPI may be statistically sound in its construction, but it often lacks the nuance that a human eye can bring to team evaluation. Numbers may be objective, but the interpretation of those numbers is not always immune to systemic assumptions.
The Irish fanbase, ever passionate and quick to defend their team, has taken the FPI snub personally. Social media has been ablaze with counterarguments, breakdowns, and comparative statistics showing why Notre Dame’s odds should be far higher than the model suggests. Some have even gone so far as to call the FPI “irrelevant” and “rigged” in favor of television contracts and conference allegiances. While those claims may be exaggerated, the frustration is real.
Even within ESPN, not all analysts agree with the FPI projection. Personalities like Kirk Herbstreit and Greg McElroy have expressed support for Notre Dame’s chances this season, citing improved quarterback play, discipline on defense, and a manageable schedule. In live discussions, several analysts have openly said that they believe Notre Dame is a “top six team” entering the year and could easily make the playoff with a couple of statement wins.
What this all reveals is a growing tension between data-driven models and the lived reality of football programs. Metrics like FPI are helpful tools, but they are not crystal balls. They cannot measure intangibles, chemistry, leadership, or the galvanizing impact of a bowl win on a young team. They cannot quantify offseason growth or the development of underclassmen into breakout stars. They are snapshots in a spreadsheet, not portraits of momentum.
For Notre Dame, the FPI slight may actually be a blessing in disguise. If nothing else, it provides bulletin board material—a tangible example of being counted out before the first snap of the season. Marcus Freeman and his staff can use it to fuel motivation, to build a “prove-them-wrong” mentality within the locker room. And if there’s one thing that college football has taught over the years, it’s that preseason predictions often mean very little by the time the games are played.
When the 2025 season kicks off, Notre Dame won’t be focused on percentages or playoff odds generated in Bristol. They’ll be focused on winning football games—on executing fundamentals, staying healthy, and rising to the occasion in marquee matchups. If they do that, the playoff odds will take care of themselves. The committee, after all, has shown in recent years a willingness to reward performance over perception. If Notre Dame finishes with a strong record and a couple of signature wins, it will be hard to deny them a place in the final four.
In the meantime, the FPI projection serves as a reminder that no team, no matter how storied or respected, is immune from being underestimated. Notre Dame fans are used to carrying the weight of tradition and expectation. Now, they carry something else: a perceived slight. And that might be exactly what they need.
The Fighting Irish have never needed anyone’s permission to succeed. They won’t need a favorable algorithm, either. The journey to the College Football Playoff won’t be decided by projections—it will be decided on the field, under the lights, where it has always belong
