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Where Notre Dame Sits According To 2020 Preseason Predictive Analytics

A month after the initial wave of way-too-early college football top-25s for 2020, ESPN's two predictive analytical models, the FPI and SP+, released their ratings for a season still half a year away.

In both rating systems, Notre Dame was in familiar territory compared to the way-too-early preseason rankings, coming in at No. 9 in the FPI and No. 12 in the SP+. But in both rating systems, the Fighting Irish are behind two 2020 opponents.

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Clemson, which Notre Dame hosts for a night game on Nov. 7, is No. 1 in the FPI and No. 3 in the SP+, behind Alabama and Ohio State, respectively.

This shouldn't come as a surprise. The Tigers won two out of the last four national championships while making the playoffs in each of the previous five seasons. Clemson also returns a Heisman Trophy hopeful in rising junior quarterback Trevor Lawrence.

Somewhat bewildering, Wisconsin is ahead of Notre Dame in both rating systems, appearing at No. 6 in the FPI and No. 9 in SP+.

Technically a home game, the Fighting Irish will play the Badgers at Lambeau Field on Oct. 3.

Both teams should prove to be formidable on the defensive side of the ball.

According to the FPI, Clemson projects to have the top defense in 2020 — a title the program also held in 2017, 2018 and 2019. The FPI also predicts that the Tigers will have the No. 4 offense in 2020, behind Oklahoma, Ohio State and Alabama.

Wisconsin returns a significant portion of a defense that finished No. 7 in the FPI, including its entire secondary, and projects to have the No. 4 defense in 2020.

A Return to Glory for USC?

After going a combined 13-12 in the past two seasons, the two models project USC as a top-15 team in 2020.

This likely has to do with several returning starters.

Rising sophomore quarterback Kedon Slovis appears to be a star in the making, while wide receivers Amon-Ra St. Brown and Tyler Vaughns make up one of the top returning wide receiver duos in the country.

Bill Connelly, the creator of SP+, says one of the best predictors of success is returning production a the receiver position.

The Trojan defense also brings back several members of its young but talented secondary and rising sophomore defensive end Drake Jackson is a stud.

Another 2020 opponents that appeared surprisingly high in the models were Stanford at No. 28 in the FPI.

In total, seven teams on Notre Dames schedule for the fall appeared in the top 52 of the FPI and in the top 55 of SP+.

No True Cupcake?

Last season, Notre Dame beat up on two the worst FBS teams: New Mexico and Bowling Green. Both teams finished in bottom 10 of the FPI and, in the two contests, Notre Dame won by a combined score of 118-14, significantly padding the Fighting Irish stats.

According to the two models, the worst team on Notre Dame's schedule is Western Michigan. But the FPI has the Broncos as the second-best team in the MAC behind Buffalo.

While Notre Dame shouldn't have a problem with Western Michigan (unless we get a repeat of Ball State in 2018), the 2020 Broncos should still be vastly superior to the 2019 editions of the Lobos and the Falcons.

But can the Fighting Irish beat a more competent MAC team by 50 this season? The answer will come on Sept. 19.

The other teams that are expected to be the softest on Notre Dame's 2020 schedule according to the FPI and SP+ are Wake Forest (No. 69 and No. 81), Arkansas (No. 66 and No. 76) and Duke (No. 64 and No. 69).

How SP+ Works

In releasing the 2020 preseason SP+, Connelly provides the three main pieces of information used in creating his projections:

1) Returning Production

2) Recent Recruiting

3) Recent History

Returning production actually accounts for 50 percent of the preseason projections and, as Blue and Gold Illustrated's Lou Somogyi pointed out yesterday, Notre Dame is especially deep when it comes to starts along the offensive line and at quarterback.

The big question for the Fighting Irish offense is at wide receiver, where Notre Dame has a total of 40 catches for 746 yards and six touchdowns coming back (it's unclear if SP+ takes into account graduate transfer Bennet Skowronek's production in 2017 and 2018 at Northwestern).

Still, the offense is projected to be the 13th best in college football, so if talented juniors such as Braden Lenzy, Kevin Austin and Lawrence Keys can take huge strides in 2020, the offensive production could explode and exceed expectations.

SP+ actually has Notre Dame's defense taking a step back in 2020 after losing starters at every level but at this point, it seems silly to doubt defensive coordinator Clark Lea's ability to reload and adjust.

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