College Football Playoff Bubble Watch: Is Notre Dame a near-lock after Week 1? (2024)

Nobody secures a spot in the College Football Playoff in Week 1. But Notre Dame might have come close.

Marcus Freeman won eight regular-season games in his first season and nine a season ago, but he also faced five ranked teams in 2022 and four in four consecutive games in 2023.

This season, the Irish face just three teams that were ranked in the preseason Top 25. One of them, Florida State, lost to Georgia Tech in its opener. Another is USC, which opened the season Sunday with a thrilling win over LSU in Las Vegas.

The other they took down on Saturday as three-point underdogs, beating Texas A&M 23-13 by toting a few bigger stones to a rock fight at Kyle Field.

Barring disaster or injury, Notre Dame will be favored in every game remaining this season. And it would probably take going 9-3 for this team to end up on the wrong side of the bubble.

“That was a huge victory for our program over a really, really good football team,” Freeman said Saturday.

And it deposited a whole bunch of house money into the Irish’s Playoff hopes. Notre Dame might ascend to the top five of the polls, but more importantly, Louisville, Georgia Tech, Florida State, USC and a Purdue team without Zach Edey are the toughest tests remaining.

Notre Dame 2024 Schedule

If Freeman can guide the Irish to a 3-2 record in those games, the first 12-team Playoff field will almost certainly include Notre Dame. And remember, the committee cares far more about the opponents teams beat than the ones they lose to. And the Irish logged what should be a quality win come December. Now, they can do what every team should do after a quality win (especially in nonconference for other programs): root like crazy for the team they just beat to improve its resume.

Each week, Bubble Watch will examine who’s in, who’s out and who’s somewhere in the middle. It’s a realistic snapshot of the field, not a projection. The five highest-ranked conference champions will get an automatic Playoff berth, and Bubble Watch is a reflection of at-large hopes, plus the spot that goes to the top-ranked Group of 5 champion. Find Austin Mock’s model’s bracket projections here.

ACC

The ACC had the worst weekend of any major conference. After Week 1, it looks like a league that might struggle to get more than one team into the field. But it’s a long season.

Is The U back? Saturday’s beatdown of Florida in The Swamp made it easy to dream, and Cam Ward’s 385-yard, three-touchdown performance made him look underpaid, no matter his NIL deals, relative to the value he might add to the program.

Miami looks like the clear class of the conference, but Florida State and Clemson both rank higher than the Hurricanes (14th) in the 247Sports Team Talent Composite. The league could squeeze three total teams into the field, but if that happens, Clemson and Florida State will have to play much better than they did in opening the season with embarrassing losses. (You too, Virginia Tech).

In Clemson’s case, against No. 1 Georgia, it learned the hard way how big the gap has grown between its program and the sport’s elite. Virginia Tech still has a lot of opportunity (and zero conference losses, unlike Florida State), but the shocking loss at Vanderbilt looked more like a season sliding off the rails before the hype train picked up any real speed.

North Carolina won at Minnesota but lost quarterback Max Johnson for the season.

If FSU and Clemson don’t come around, any of the teams on the outside looking in could sneak into the ACC championship and steal a bid, pushing Miami to an at-large candidate.

Big Ten

Ohio State and Oregon won’t be judged for a slow start or not looking dominant in wins against Akron and Idaho.

Penn State looks ready to take a leap, in part because of Andy Kotelnicki’s offense. The Nittany Lions didn’t have a huge personnel upgrade at receiver, but Kotelnicki thrived at scheming receivers open and creating space in the running game at Kansas. Last year, Penn State had just eight plays longer than 40 yards, 112th-most nationally. Saturday on the road against a solid West Virginia team, it had four. No team that faced an FBS opponent had more.

Michigan looked unimpressive and was a play away from being in real trouble for much of its win over Fresno State, but the Bulldogs might contend for a Playoff spot themselves, and no new head coach should be judged by his first game. More will be learned when Texas arrives Saturday in Ann Arbor.

USC logged a massive season-opening win as an underdog, and LSU still seems like a team likely to finish in the Top 25. Most importantly, the defense showed massive improvement under new coordinator D’Anton Lynn and Miller Moss looks capable of being the next great quarterback under Lincoln Riley — with a host of targets in the passing game.

Iowa scored 34 points in the second half under new OC Tim Lester in a win over Illinois State. Iowa scored more than 26 points once last season.

Big 12

Utah quarterback Cam Rising looked elite in his return from a serious knee injury, tossing five touchdowns — three to tight end Brant Kuithe — and the Utes made quick work of Southern Utah. Oklahoma State looked impressive with a dominant win over the nation’s No. 1 FCS team, South Dakota State. TCU logged a road win against a Power 4 opponent at Stanford.

In a league as wide open as this one, the race for the Playoff bid could get a bit wacky. The Big 12 could get two or three teams in the field, but it’s also by far the most likely league to have a champion no one expects.

SEC

Ohio State might have more top-end talent, but Georgia looks like the best team in the country until proven otherwise.

“Someone has got to prove that they can beat Georgia,” Nick Saban said Saturday on ESPN’s “College GameDay.” He’s the only coach to do it since Dan Mullen pulled it off Nov. 7, 2020. No active coach has beaten Georgia since Tom Herman, now at Florida Atlantic, and Texas did it to close the 2018 season.

Texas demolished a Colorado State team that might play in a bowl game 52-0 ahead of the Michigan trip. Alabama looked like a team that might be the second-best in the SEC in a blowout of Western Kentucky, but won’t face a major test before Kalen DeBoer and the Tide host Georgia on Sept. 28.

LSU lost a fifth consecutive season opener, but the schedule eases up, and the Tigers will have plenty more chances to prove themselves. The defense didn’t struggle with the busts and effort issues that plagued the unit a season ago, and new coordinator Blake Baker looks capable of getting much more out of a talented unit.

Texas A&M is easy to write off after Week 1, but Notre Dame might finish in the top five, and the Aggies went toe-to-toe with it in the first game for a new staff and a roster with a lot of new faces.

Group of 5

Boise State’s wild road win at Georgia Southern and UNLV’s evisceration of Houston were two of the two best wins for any Group of 5 teams in Week 1. Liberty was sluggish against Campbell and the lack of style points won’t quiet the concerns about the Flames earning a bid ahead of teams like Memphis or Boise State, which face Florida State and Oregon this month.

Independents

The Irish are in a strong position after Week 1.

(Photo of Notre Dame’s Jadarian Price: Jack Gorman / Getty Images)

David Ubben is a senior writer for The Athletic covering college football. Prior to joining The Athletic, he covered college sports for ESPN, Fox Sports Southwest, The Oklahoman, Sports on Earth and Dave Campbell’s Texas Football, as well as contributing to a number of other publications. Follow David on Twitter @davidubben