The Notre Dame Fighting Irish are one of the teams of great intrigue heading into the penultimate week of the college football regular season. At 8-2, the Irish have overcome a difficult 0-2 start with losses at Miami and at home to Texas A&M. While the Hurricanes have faded into a College Football Playoff pretender, the Aggies remain unbeaten heading into their final two games of the 2025 season.
As for Notre Dame, the Irish are going to be vying one of the last two at-large bids into the playoff field. Miami owns the head-to-head, but Notre Dame owns the head-to-head over USC, who still has to play Oregon. As crazy as it sounds, Notre Dame is giving off the vibes of a potential No. 9 seed. Head coach Marcus Freeman should be thrilled about this, just like this good news on Gabriel Rubio.
Tyler Horka of On3 shared that Freeman believes Rubio will be ready if Notre Dame makes the playoff.
Marcus Freeman says Notre Dame defensive tackle Gabriel Rubio (elbow) will be ready for the College Football Playoff should the Irish qualify for it. pic.twitter.com/j0qplXv6rb
— Tyler Horka (@tbhorka) November 17, 2025
The senior defensive lineman from St. Louis has not played since Oct. 11 when he injured his elbow going up against the North Carolina State Wolfpack. Rubio has missed the last four games for the Irish, but they continue to march on toward a probable playoff berth. This includes two big wins over USC at home and on the road at Pittsburgh last week. Notre Dame has two more games remaining.
Assuming they handle two bad ACC teams in Syracuse and Stanford, Notre Dame is playoff bound!
What Gabriel Rubio's return could mean for Notre Dame's playoff run
In most estimations, Notre Dame is a playoff team. The Fighting Irish were ranked No. 10 in the first playoff rankings of the season and moved up to No. 9 this past week. They will either stay put, maybe move up to No. 8 in a best-case scenario. Regardless, Notre Dame is going to stay above the cut line at No. 10 for the third week in a row. ESPN's FPI is giving the Irish a 61.1-percent chance to make it in.
As for what this means for Rubio, Freeman and the rest of the Fighting Irish moving forward, it seems as though this team firmly believes it will make the playoff. They will get in over USC because of the head-to-head tiebreaker, plus their loss to Miami is slightly better than the Trojans' to Illinois. Should USC beat Oregon, the Ducks may not make it in. That is what may be at stake here in the playoff field.
Overall, Rubio's return to the defensive line should help the Irish out in stopping the run in their presumptive No. 8 vs. No. 9 or No. 7 vs. No. 10 game. Being able to limit the ground game's effectiveness for playoff-caliber teams they could be facing in those games like Alabama and Ole Miss is very promising for the Irish's chances of advancing to the national quarterfinals and beyond.
For now, Notre Dame needs to take care of business vs. Syracuse and Stanford before waiting it out.