Calculating Notre Dame football wins needed for College Football Playoff at-large bid

It seems like a foregone conclusion that the Notre Dame football team is making the playoffs. However, it looks like we’ve finally found out exactly how many wins the Fighting irish would need in order to make the 12-team field.

The college football analyst KFordRatings has put together a listing, broke down in tiers as to just how many wins the Irish Need. It shouldn’t be surprising, especially considering how easy the Golden Domers’ schedule is, that the analyst believes they’ll need quite a few.

According to this rating system, the Notre Dame football team would need 10 wins in order to be “in the conversation” for the playoffs. It’s important to note this isn’t how many they need to get in for sure, but simply qualify.

Where will the 10 wins for Notre Dame football come from in 2024?

Only needing to get to 10 wins seems like a bit of a gift when you look at the Irish schedule. That means that even if they lose their season opener to Texas A&M and then to Florida State later in the season, they are still “in the conversation” if they win the rest of their games.

Beyond those two games, there’s not a ton of margin for error. USC and Louisville are really the only other teams on the schedule that should provide the Irish any problem at all. And it seems likely that wins over Florida State and Texas A&M but losses to either or both would make for an interesting end to the regular season.

The bottom line here is that the Notre Dame football team’s path to the playoffs doesn’t look particularly difficult. Take care of business and they’re one of the 12 teams in the field. But a misstep along the way, could be incredibly costly.