Joel Klatt hasn't always been a Notre Dame football believer, but he is right now.
There are some analysts who think the 0-2 start to the season and a schedule that doesn't have any ranked teams on it at the moment could equal the Irish missing the playoffs. However, Klatt said on his most recent podcast that he thinks Marcus Freeman and Co. will impress people enough, especially with their offensive attack, that they'll do what they did last year. Win out and play their way in.
Joel Klatt says Notre Dame can still make the College Football Playoff
Fox Sports’ @joelklatt has Notre Dame in his current College Football Playoff projection as the No. 11 seed.
— Tyler Horka (@tbhorka) October 1, 2025
He says the Fighting Irish have “a really potent offense” and a top 3 QB in the country in CJ Carr.
“I think that they’re going to kill people the rest of the year.” pic.twitter.com/xHrbVnXIJL
"Based on the fact that I think that they're going to kill people the rest of the year with a really potent offense and maybe one of the best quarterbacks in the country, I'm going to go with Notre Dame," Klatt said when describing who he thinks will make the playoffs.
"I think Notre Dame comes all the way back and they get into this thing. They are left for dead right now, but Notre Dame is going to come all the way back and be 10-2."
"If they run the table, they would get in. The losses would be, remember, at Miami, which was a tie game in the final two minutes, and A&M, one play away from winning that game."
"The committee has assured us, well, I guess they haven't assured the public. They have talked about this somewhat publicly, but I know from conversations with the people that are really in the know, the committee are going to have more metrics, and in particular, not penalize teams for losses to really good opponents. For example, in this scenario that I'm painting, Notre Dame's losses would be the number two Miami and number seven Texas A &M. So their losses are not going to be held against them as much."
Certainly, Klatt's comments about the committee's metrics are something that hasn't been talked about much yet. It does certainly give Notre Dame a better chance of hitting the playoffs if it can win out. The next step is beating Boise State and then continuing to take care of business against a schedule that isn't killer the rest of the way, but doesn't have a ton of cupcakes.