Rumor has it Phil Steele has Notre Dame as one of...

Very winnable home games against SDSU, Stanford and Syracuse, and they can also beat Michigan and Purdue at home.  I think they'll struggle to stop McCoy when Pitt comes in.

Their road schedule isn't brutal, but it's not necessarily easy either.  They can win at Michigan State, North Carolina, Washington, BC and Navy.  They'll probably get 2 or 3 of those.

I'd say they are a 6-8 win team.

  I needed that, thanks man.

19th overall

Steele is overrated. Last year he had the Jayhawks at 6-6, that is what he said is there best possible record. 

 

First, they couldn't go any other direction but up and they didn't lose much but still are relatively a young team.  Core players are true juniors and sophmores.

Second, he had ND at 38 last year so he probably is overranking them at this point.

They have an easier schedule but the big issue for them is along the trenches.    The DL is very thin (mostly freshman backing up sophmores but Kuntz coming back is big for depth) so any serious injury on that front will be a concern.  They'll likely struggle stopping the run but their secondary should be the strength of the defense.

The offense will go as far as the OL.  If it gels then they should be able to move the ball. 

 

I'm not touting Steele here, but I seriously doubt you had Kansas as a powerhouse team heading into last season either.

Notre Dame will probably be an 8-4 team this year. They should be though. They have top recruiting classes every year, have a weak schedule next season and are coming off a humiliating season.

I think they will be good to bet early on and fade later in the season after they've picked up a few wins and are overvalued again.

Going bowling, its just a matter of how good the bowl will be.

I saw some ESPN guy on a preview show saying he picked the Domers to win 8 and get to a bowl.  Almost hurt myself laughing.  Show me eight wins on that schedule with this team. 

I really don't seem notre dame breaking the 7 win total....Pitt is a loss, Mich st. is always competitive because it is a game everyone gets up for. UNC is going to be vastly improved this year as well as purdue having Curtis Painter going into his senior season will only prove beneficial for purdue.

Navy will not beat ND for awhile. Sure they have great RB's and can run the option like nobody's business but a regime change is giong to be difficult to overcome even with the intelltigence level that many of the Navy players have.

Stanford ND should win, but should win is not the same as winning so we'll see.

I was thinking the same thing because he has PSU at the #3 or soemthing ridiculous like that, i would try not to put much emphasis on this rankings as they are more of longshots than anything.