When looking at how far Notre Dame can go this season and how many games they can win in 2026, the Fighting Irish defense is what gets the most attention. However, it happens to be CJ Carr and the offense that ranks at the top of the nation after two weeks.
Just how good the offense has been was demonstrated yet again this week when ESPN's Bill Connelly updated his SP+ rankings for every team in FBS. The SP+ isn't the end all and be all, but it is Connelly's metric that allows him to illustrate why he thinks one team is defintely better than another.
Notre Dame is ranked as the No. 3 team in the SP+ rankings behind Georgia and Ohio State. The Buckeyes are ranking ahead of the Fighting Irish despite their loss to Texas on Saturday. To some degree, that might show that these rankings are not in any way, some kind of knee jerk reaction that can be easily dismissed. But No. 3 overall is just the tip of the iceberg for Marcus Freeman and his crew.
Notre Dame football outranks Texas, Miami and Indiana across SP+ metrics
Notre Dame is also ranked as the No. 1 offense in the country after the first few weeks of the regular season. Considering that Tennessee is the No. 2 offense in the country and all the way down at No. 11 in the country overall, there might be some people who still think that the Irish's offense being that highly rated is more about two weak opponents than everything else.
However, Chris Ash's defense is also quite impressive, ranking No. 6 in the SP+ rankings, while the Volunteers' defense is a big reason why they're outside the Top 10 as it's ranked 42nd.
It's worth noting that, given Notre Dame's high overall rating and its strong offense and defense, all three SP+ scores are better than those of Texas, Miami, and Indiana. At the very least, this is another example of the Irish's performance undercutting the argument that they're a paper tiger.
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