Notre Dame Climbs in ESPN’s Preseason Computer Rankings

Two weeks from tonight we'll see Notre Dame and Miami battle it out in South Florida, in a top 10 battle between a pair of teams with high expectations for the 2025 college football season.

Two weeks isn't that much time, but feels like forever when you're looking forward to one of the biggest games of the season against one your biggest rivals in program history.

Despite any college football games getting going for nearly another week still, Notre Dame has already seen itself move up in the ESPN Football Power Index (FPI).

Notre Dame Moves Up in ESPN FPI

ESPN updated its Football Power Index to reflect more accurate preseason numbers instead of post-spring information. As a result, Notre Dame moved up one spot from No. 7 to No. 6, passing traditional power Oregon to do so. Here's a look at the full current top 25 according to ESPN FPI.

25. Indiana (Not ranked)
24. Arizona State
23. Missouri
22. BYU (Not ranked)
21. Auburn (-7)
20. Oklahoma (-4)
19. SMU (+1)
18. Kansas State (+3)
17. Miami (-8)
16. Clemson (-5)
15. Michigan (+2)
14. USC (+4)
13. Florida (+5)

12. LSU
11. South Carolina (+4)
10. Ole Miss (+3)
9. Texas A&M (-1)
8. Tennessee (+2)
7. Oregon (-1)
6. Notre Dame (+1)
5. Penn State
4. Ohio State
3. Alabama
2. Georgia
1. Texas

Nick Shepkowski's Quick Takeaway:

A quick look at these ratings and you see a few things stick out. Most notably, the drops of both Clemson and Miami are eye-popping. How did both of those teams manage to drop a combined 13 spots in the ratings since June? There wasn't a major injury for either, so why the significant drops?

Basic math can tell you that South Carolina and Florida were among the teams that jumped both Clemson and Miami despite no games or significant injuires taking place. So why on earth are those teams soaring while a couple of the supposed ACC powers are dropping?

Like I say here often, sometimes we overthink things when the obvious answer is right under our noses. Instead of asking if something significant happened to the teams that fell or soared, perhaps its wiser to check again with who distributes these ratings.

That's right, its ESPN.

Do I think they care enough to go through the numbers and make preseason computer polls lean in favor of more SEC teams, whom they have ridiculously large television deals with?

I'm not saying they did, but I'm certainly not saying they didn't, either.

This is the same place that has turned Kirk Herbstreit into a mouthpiece for the SEC even though the conference's dominance has taken a significant hit in recent years, afterall.