Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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BLUEGOLDONLINE.COM OCT. 4, 2025 9 UNDER THE DOME ✦ BY THE NUMBERS PHOTO BY MICHAEL MILLER -4.8 Percentage-point decrease (to 0.3%) in national title odds for Notre Dame from the preseason to Week 5. That was the third- largest decline behind Texas -18.1 (to 6.6%) and Penn State -5.7 (to 3.1%), and just ahead of Alabama -3.6 (to 7.2%) and South Carolina -2.4 (to 0.0%). "Notre Dame lost two huge games to start the season, and while the computers still like the Irish reasonably well, they'll have to win out and hope to get a decent strength-of-schedule boost along the way," ESPN's Billy Connelly noted. 0 Teams have started a season 0-2 and made the College Football Playoff. Last year, Ohio State became the first team with two losses to win the national title in the CFP era. LSU in 2007 is the only other two-loss national champion since 2000, overcoming regular-season defeats to Kentucky and Ar- kansas en route to beating Ohio State in the BCS national championship game. 8 Defensive stops, which are tackles that result in a failure for the offense, for redshirt sophomore defensive end Boubacar Traore through three games. That paced the team, which is why Traore leads all Irish defensive players with a 78.5 PFF defense grade during the team's 1-2 start. 14 Havoc plays (tackles for loss, forced fumbles, interceptions and passes broken up) for the Fight- ing Irish against Purdue Sept. 20, after posting just 12 during their 0-2 start. 17.0 A v e r a g e depth of target for red- shirt senior wide receiver MALACHI FIELDS through Week 4. That led the Irish by far and was tied for 37th among 405 wide- outs nationally with enough targets to qualify. When redshirt freshman quarter- back CJ Carr takes a shot, he more often than not looks for Fields, who led Notre Dame with 203 receiving yards through the Purdue game. 20 Touches per game through three contests for junior Notre Dame running back Jeremiyah Love, who was averaging 6.05 yards per touch entering Week 5. That's a much heavier workload than 2024, when he aver- aged 12.7 touches per game (although he missed much of the second half against Southern Cal and Georgia). 36 Passing plays of 10-plus yards allowed by Notre Dame through Week 4, which is tied for 103rd in the country with East Carolina, Eastern Michigan, Nevada and Southern Miss. That stat is actually worse for Notre Dame than it looks because the Irish had played three games while most of the other teams had played four. 47.0 Kickoff return average for Notre Dame redshirt junior running back Jadarian Price. He had 188 yards on 4 returns through three games, including his 100-yard runback for a touchdown. Price led all qualified players nationally in return aver- age so far this season. 74.07 Blue-chip ratio (the percentage of four- and five-stars) for Notre Dame's 2026 football recruiting class, per the Rivals Industry Ranking. The Fighting Irish, who have the nation's No. 3 class as of Sept. 25, had two five-stars and 18 four-stars, putting them behind only four schools: Rk. School Blue Chips Total Commits Blue Chip % 1. Oregon 15 17 88.24 2. LSU 13 16 81.25 3. Texas A&M 21 27 77.78 4. Georgia 24 31 77.42 5. Notre Dame 20 27 74.07 6. Florida 14 19 73.68 7. Miami 16 23 69.57 8. Southern Cal 22 32 68.75 9. Ohio State 14 21 66.67 10. Texas 14 21 66.67 98 Points allowed by Notre Dame in its first three games this season. It is the second-most surrendered in the opening three games of a season by the Fighting Irish in program history. In 2007, head coach Charlie Weis' squad gave up 102 in their first three on the way to an 0-5 start and a 3-9 season. Notre Dame also allowed 96 points in the first three contests of the 2016 campaign en route to a 4-8 final record. 118th Ranking for Notre Dame's scoring defense at 32.7 points per game, which was tied with Louisiana Monroe. Last year, the Irish were tied for fourth with Army at 15.5 points per game. — Jack Soble