It's no surprise that there are high expectations for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish in 2025. Almost every expert believes that they'll be a Top 10 team. Still, it's surprising to see Vegas expecting Marcus Freeman and company to win as many games as they're expected to win, considering a relatively tough schedule.
Earlier this spring, FanDuel was among those in Vegas who laid out regular season win totals for every team in college football. It doesn't appear they believe the Irish have much in the way for margin for error.
Notre Dame football enters 2025 with high win total despite brutal schedule
Fanduel set the Notre Dame Fighting Irish football team's win total at 10.5 for the fall. However, a closer look indicates it believes it's far more likely to go under (-188) than over (+152). Still, the expectation that quite a few fans will be banking on an 11-1 regular season at worst is interesting. Again, it's important to note that these are regular season win totals, meaning that if the Irish head to the playoffs, those games don't count here.
While the Blue and Gold take some heat from time to time for not being part of a conference, the program has done a good job in recent years of dotting the schedule with Power 4 opponents. Their first two games of the season are Miami and Texas A&M, meaning they have one of the toughest openings to 2025 of any team in the country.
Purdue should be a bit of a respite if all goes according to plan, but they follow the Boilermakers, with eight straight teams that went to a bowl in 2024. There's also one 2024 playoff team in there, Boise State.
That the Notre Dame Fighting Irish have just two teams on the schedule in Purdue and then their regular season finale opponent, Stanford, that, posted a losing record last season, doesn't get enough mention. That Vegas experts expect them to be right around 10-2 at worst is a statement of where head coach Marcus Freeman has this squad.