Notre Dame will play its first regular-season game under first-year head coach Marcus Freeman with its highest preseason ranking — No. 5 in the coaches poll — since 2006.
Its season-opening opponent, Ohio State, is ranked even higher, at No. 2.
The two teams clash Sept. 3 (7:30 p.m. EDT) at 100-year-old Ohio Stadium in Columbus, Ohio.
Alabama tops the coaches poll at No. 1, with defending national champ Georgia at No. 3 and fourth-ranked Clemson filling out the top five. The Irish host Clemson on Nov. 5. Freeman is among the 65 voters for the poll, released Monday afternoon.
USC, at 15, is the other 2022 Irish opponent to crack the top 25.
Former Irish coach Brian Kelly’s first LSU team is unranked but was one of the higher vote-getters among teams that finished outside of the Top 25.
It’s the fifth straight season in which ND has been ranked 11th or better in the preseason coaches poll. The Irish have outperformed their preseason ranking in the final polls in four out of the past five seasons.
The only Irish team ranked higher in preseason in the post-Lou Holtz Era (1997-present) was Charlie Weis’ second ND team, which was slotted at No.3 in 2006. (The Irish were No. 2 in the preseason AP poll.) Ohio State was ranked No. 1 that year to start, and finished No. 2 after losing the national championship game to Florida.
Current Notre Dame defensive grad assistant James Laurinaitis and Freeman were the Buckeyes’ leading tacklers on that team.
Freeman made his coaching debut on Jan. 1 in a 37-35 loss to Oklahoma State in the Fiesta Bowl.
The last three Irish head coaches and six of the last eight made their regular-season debuts leading unranked teams. The only other Irish coaches to lead ranked teams in such games, since the inception of the coaches poll in 1950, were Terry Brennan (No. 1 in 1954), Joe Kuharich (No. 16 in 1959), Gerry Faust (No. 3 in 1981) and Bob Davie (No. 11 in 1997).
PRESEASON COACHES POLL
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