Notre Dame football enters the season as the No. 5 team in the US LBM Coaches Poll, a ranking that follows two Big Ten and SEC teams.
It very much seems like the coaches don’t believe that the Irish would win either conference, but that isn’t the case nationally. On ‘The Herd’ with Colin Cowherd, On3’s Josh Pate went to bat for Notre Dame, saying that they would win the SEC this season.
“If they played in the SEC, I think I’d pick them to win the SEC this year,” is what he said then went on to also mention that “people are going to mistakenly look at their schedule and discount them. This is a team that can stand up against any schedule in the country this year… this is an extremely good team.”
Cowherd also had some very interesting thoughts on
the Irish, as he proclaimed that Marcus Freeman “might be the best coach in college football,” and how surprised he was that the program was able to quickly adapt to the NIL era. Not only that, Cowherd didn’t think Notre Dame would be able to elevate itself higher than what Brian Kelly did, which obviously is not the case.
Back in 2020, Notre Dame joined the ACC, winning the regular season title, and while they fell to Clemson in the conference championship game, it still showed they could complete at a high level in that environment. There is no question that the Irish could enter a conference and be contenders right away.
Both Cowherd and Pate had some encouraging words for Notre Dame, as you can now add these two as believers in the Irish.
"If they played in the SEC, I think I'd pick them to win the SEC this year." @colincowherd and @JoshPateCFB are VERY high on Notre Dame this year pic.twitter.com/8rmyAwPdnw
— Herd w/Colin Cowherd (@TheHerd) August 10, 2026
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This article originally appeared on Fighting Irish Wire: Expert answers how Notre Dame would fare in the SEC this year
