ESPN’s Computer Model Predicts Winner of Notre Dame vs. Miami Showdown

Bill Connelly has long been running the SP+ college football ranking model that throws everything into a formula and spits out projections of everything from win totals to conference champions and game predictions.

Connelly mentioned the Notre Dame at Miami opener in latest SP+ update, as Notre Dame starts the year sixth in his ratings and Miami 14. Despite the decent gap in rankings, Connelly projects a thriller on South Beach to start the year.

Bill Connelly's SP+ Projection for Notre Dame at Miami: Notre Dame by 1.4 points.

For what its worth, Notre Dame is currently a 2.5 point favorite in the contest.

Nick Shepkowski's Quick Takeaway:

The hard part of predicting at this point, even with a computer model, is that Notre Dame hasn't even named its starting quarterback yet. Now, there are ways to go around that (make 50% of models have CJ Carr start and the other half have Kenny Minchey, for whatever difference that creates), but its tough to buy into any prediction right now.

Notre Dame's race for the starting quarterback is very much up in the air as Sunday's important scrimmage nears. While it seems of late that Kenny Minchey has gained steam and may have a slight lead, it's impossible to know how he or CJ Carr will perform.

What if the starter is awful and is benched by halftime? What if whoever starts is flat-out awesome and outplays what should be a decided Miami advantage at quarterback in Beck?

Good for Connelly for putting this out and putting his name on it, because in today's college football, the gap between top teams is closer than it's been in years. That makes him very susceptible to having preseason rankings that won't be looked back upon fondly.

Hopefully, Notre Dame can start things on the right foot by blowing his model out of the water and winning by a lot more than one point at Miami.