Notre Dame Football will go 10-2 according to ESPN’s Matchup Predictor

The ‘Worldwide Leader’s” matchup predictor for college football has the Irish hitting the double-digit win mark.

Sure, there is an argument to be made that ESPN has not been kind or favorable in many ways to Notre Dame football over the years. That said, the network essentially owns college football, and their coverage, features and tools are — if nothing else — entertaining.

One of their features is the “Matchup Predictor.” Every game on the college football schedule has a percentage tied to it via this matchup predictor in terms of a given team’s percentage of winning the contest. It’s all based on ESPN’s Power Index.

Going game-by-game for Notre Dame football, ESPN’s predictor has the Irish as the percentage favorite in ten of the 12 regular season matchups. The two losses they predict are not really a surprise — at Georgia and at Michigan. The vast majority of people around the country expect the Irish to drop those games.

The interesting/surprising things are some of the percentages themselves — both in regard to Notre Dame games and other featured games around the country.

Here’s what ESPN has in terms of Notre Dame’s chances of winning each game on the 2019 schedule:

• Louisville: 88.1 percent
• New Mexico: 98.6 percent
• Georgia: 29.7 percent
• Virginia: 86.7 percent
• Bowling Green: 98.6 percent
• USC: 79.7 percent
• Michigan: 37.1 percent
• Virginia Tech: 80.8 percent
• Duke: 82.5 percent
• Navy: 98.3 percent
• Stanford: 67.8 percent

Some things the pop out right away are the Navy and USC percentages. Given the history of those games, both seem high. Notre Dame should win both, but I like ESPN’s confidence. Additionally, I don’t feel great about that number next to the Stanford game for some reason.

Also of note, while ESPN only gives Notre Dame a 37.1 percent chance of beating Michigan at the Big House, they only give Ohio State a 23.4 percent chance to beat the Wolverines.

Very interesting.