Notre Dame Football: Irish Join the 2024 College Football Preseason Elite

Here's why Notre Dame has been put in the elite category of preseason expectations for the 2024 college football season.

Sep 30, 2023; Durham, North Carolina, USA; Notre Dame Fighting Irish head coach Marcus Freeman leads his team onto the field during the first quarter against the Duke Blue Devils at Wallace Wade Stadium. / Jim Dedmon-USA TODAY Sports

Put your money where your mouth is - or where your preseason expectations are.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, the 2024 Notre Dame Fighting Irish will be ranked in almost everyone's top ten, if not top five, but they've joined an elite club of teams this preseason where it really matters.

The preseason win total.

Notre Dame's win total is now among the best of the best teams going into the season. Here's why that's a big deal. But first ...

College football win totals are a tricky thing.

To whiteboard this, in the betting world, a preseason win total for a college football team is only based on the regular season - bowls, playoff games, and for programs in conferences, championship games don't count.

They're a mix of how good or bad a team is supposed to be, but they're also based on the schedules.

For example, if you're a decent team in the SEC and you have to play at Alabama and at Georgia, your preseason win total is probably going to be lower than the SEC team that misses those two monsters and gets, instead, Vanderbilt and Mississippi State.

How many nasty road games do you have? When are your off weeks and how rested will you be for the big games? How rested are other teams when they play you?

For anyone who doesn't know how this works, if the win total is set at 6.5, if you think that team will win seven games or more, you bet the over. Six or fewer, take the under.

But really, how good are you? At the end of the day ...

Notre Dame football is receving a whole lot of respect.

How much does the betting public believe in each team? These are offseason picks, so there's an investment aspect to this. It's a long term play.

The 2022 preseason consensus win total for the Irish was 8, and they won nine regular season games. Last season, the win total was set by most sportsbooks at 8.5 - we marked it right on at 9, by the way - and the Irish won nine games.

This year? Five of the biggest sportsbooks - BetMGM, Bally's, Caesars, FanDuel, and Rivers all have Notre Dame's preseason win total at 10.5.

In practicality, the idea is to get everyone betting evenly on both sides. So roughly half of the investment types are thinking Notre Dame will win more than ten games, and half think it'll win fewer.

Here's the part about Notre Dame being in the VIP lounge of preseason win total club ...

Notre Dame is at a 10.5 win total with just four other teams.

It takes a LOT to go over on a 10.5 win total.

You're only allowed one loss - which is why if you ever see a college football win total of 11, or in a dream world, 11.5 - jump all over the under. It's hard to get through a season losing just one game, much less go unbeaten.

Alabama, Georgia, James Madison, Liberty, Michigan, Ohio State, Oregon, Texas, Toledo, Tulane, Washington. 2023 was an outlier with 11 teams able to get to 11 or more regular season wins. That's almost certainly not happening this season.

Everyone likes Texas this season. Its preseason win total is at 10.5 at just two of those five sports betting outlets. Penn State is at ten in three places and 9.5 at two, and no one else has a win total set at ten games other the Nittany Lions, Longhorns, and these five teams.

All of that before explaining how this win total thing works matters for a reason. Is Liberty one of the five best teams in college football? Very, very no, but it's good, and it has a two-foot putt of a schedule.

Liberty is one of the five teams at 10.5 across the five sportsbook board. (Under is the play, but not huge on that.)

Oregon is another in the 10.5 club, but ... welcome to the Big Ten. Ohio State, at Michigan, at Wisconsin are tough, dealing with Washington and Michigan State won't be a breeze. (If you could get the Ducks at ten, fine, but under is right on the 10.5.)

Georgia and Ohio State are both undervalued at 10.5. Each of them might lose once, but it'll take something catastrophic for either to lose twice. They're simply way better than everyone else in college football, which leaves ...

Notre Dame. It joins a Flames team with a light schedule, the loaded Ducks, and the unfairly-talented Dawgs and Buckeyes in the 10.5 club. (My call is the under - it could lose to Texas A&M to start the season, and there's a problem if Riley Leonard gets hurt.)

And here's the best part for Notre Dame. Get to 11 wins - or even 12 - great. It's the 5 seed in the College Football Playoff no matter what - long story to explain why if you're not aware how the new CFP works. Win ten games, it's still in the playoff.

Over on the win total or slightly under, Notre Dame is about to be in for a big season.

Notre Dame Fighting Irish on SI

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