Notre Dame Football: What the preview magazines have to say

Even with a lot of youth on the roster, optimism remains high for the Notre Dame football program according to the preview magazines.

College football preview magazines have become a staple of the late spring and early summer months. The books are seemingly released earlier and earlier, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic resulting in questions as to whether the season would even be played, a mid-May arrival has been pushed to early June.

Given everything going on in the world right now, these magazines provide a bit of a distraction and hope for a return to normalcy.

The one thing you can always count on from the previews, whether on time or not, are high hopes for Notre Dame football. Except for the disaster in 2016, for the most part, these expectations have been met and occasionally exceeded.

This year is no different as even with the loss of six NFL Draft picks including Cole Kmet, Chase Claypool and Alohi Gilman, Notre Dame is a consensus top 11 team. It’s a team that features a Heisman candidate at quarterback. They’re also once again considered a darkhorse threat to the College Football Playoff.

One of the surprising figures from this year’s magazines are the lack of preseason All Americans. For a top tier team as projected, you’d think Notre Dame would be loaded up with more than just a few.

The three magazines that are currently on newsstands are Street & Smith, Lindy’s and Athlon. All three are good and provide their own interesting insight into all 130 FBS teams, touching on FCS and some even hitting some Division 2 and 3.

What exactly are these magazines’ thoughts on the 2020 Fighting Irish? Let’s take a look.