Recently, the Notre Dame football program picked up its first win of the 2025 season with a home victory over Purdue by a final score of 56-30. The game allowed the Fighting Irish to exorcise some demons after they started out the season 0-2, with close losses to both Miami and Texas A&M.
Many figured that those two defeats effectively ended Notre Dame's chances of making a return to the college football playoff, especially considering that they have no elite or even good teams left on their schedule and no conference championship to play in.
Still, that hasn't stopped some in the national media from going to bat for the Fighting Irish, including Joel Klatt of Fox Sports.
“I think they win ten straight. I think that they do. I think they get back into the race. They just need, they really need, Texas A&M and Miami to continue to win,” said Klatt, per FOX College Football on X, formerly Twitter.
Indeed, having Miami and Texas A&M start to lose games would make Notre Dame's respective losses to them look even worse than they already do in the playoff selection committee's eyes.
A rough start for Notre Dame
Heading into the season, the consensus was that head coach Marcus Freeman and the Notre Dame football team needed to at least get a split in their first two games against Miami and Texas A&M in order to give themselves a realistic chance of making it back to the college football playoff, where they bowed out in the national championship game a year ago against Ohio State.
Instead, Notre Dame went 0-2 in those games, making several key mistakes including most notably a botched extra point late in the game against Texas A&M that allowed the Aggies to win it with their own late touchdown and extra point.
While there is a very real chance that Notre Dame doesn't lose again this season, the only somewhat notable team they have left on their schedule is USC, who isn't exactly a worldbeater at this point in time.
In any case, Notre Dame will next take the field on Saturday against Arkansas.
