Brian, let's talk about this ESPN article that came out yesterday in the Irish Breakdown

podcast, brought to by our friends over at Van Duel.

There's a really interesting read. And before people, obviously, you know, when they hear, you know, we're going to talk about something that came out on ESPN, there's this notion that's like, we're going to rip them the shreds. This was actually a really good article. I can understand why people would think that. Without a doubt, it's, believe me, more times than not, it's valid. More times than not, it's definitely valid.

But this article from Bill Connolly was very interesting to read through.

And it was about the biggest ifs for every team.

And one of my biggest surprises that it had more of like a positive connotation to it.

It wasn't an article like, what if CJ Carr is not who we think he is?

Or like what if Marcus Freeman fails again in September?

It's, hey, if this works out for this team, they're going to be really good.

And that's kind of the overall premise for this article.

And obviously he ranked him in like different tiers of like if there's two ifs,

three ifs, four ifs. And he's talked about the top teams in college football, Texas, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Indiana. And the better of the team, the more, the better to the team, the fewer the ifs. And he did note, it was interesting trip. He said that nobody this year, it's the first time ever he's had anyone with only two ifs. So I thought was interesting. Which, which kind of what we've been talking about. This season is wide open. We believe that there could be six to seven really, really good teams in college football, but they have some things that they have to get answered. And this article kind of backs up that hypothesis. And it was a good read, man. But I'm with you. For the first time that he's done this, no two ifs. I appreciated that it, again, that it was taken from more of an analysis. Here's a, this is a crazy statement, but it was an actual analysis article of college football. It wasn't clickbaity, you know, is Archmanning overrated? No, it was, I mean, he said something about Archmanning. If Archmanning learns this one neat trick, and then he kind of gets into some things he's got to do as a player and give stats. And he talks about, you know, he was 82nd and completion percentage outside the pocket, 94th to completion rate on the move. And talked about he's got, you know, if he gets better at that, he's going to be really good, you know, offensive depth. So like even some of the things that were kind of negatives, it was more of a, if this works out, okay, they're going to be really good as opposed to kind of looking at more from the negative standpoint. So I thought it was really well done and showed a good grasp of the teams.

And when we look at the Notre Dame, the first one, Trevi talked about if they're a second

half of the season team. That was the first one we talked about. And, you know, here's somebody

said. He goes, Notre Dame's 25 schedule is unfortunate in a couple different ways. Not only did it

feature just a pair of particular CFP worthy teams, games, but those games also showed up in the first two weeks of the season, which when coach Marcus Freeman was breaking in a new quarterback and defensive coordinator, Carr took one week to get up to speed and Ash needed two, and by that point, the Irish were 0 and 2. Even while playing like a top 5 team the rest of the way, they eventually couldn't make it make up for that unfortunate start. This season, this season, the Irish again have a light schedule that will minimize their march for air. But with those big games coming in October 17th and November 7th, they can ease into that season a little bit. So he's talking about like, you know, like if they're going to be a

playoff team, they've got to be a good second half of the season team, meaning that's when all their big games were played. And he didn't even mention SMU, which I think has a chance to be their second best tough, their second toughest game this year. With all due respect to BYU, it would not shock me if SMU is the second best team they play this year. No, that wouldn't surprise me either. The thing that I appreciated that Bill Connolly put that

at number one is we have seen Marcus Freeman-led teams, especially the last two years,

be really strong second-half teams. This can't be the year where that falters.

They've ripped off 10 straight wins to end the regular season in each of the last two years.

They did it in 2024 after a one-in-one start, and they did it in 2025 after an 0-and-2 start.

This can't be the year where Notre Dame isn't playing their best football from mid-October to the end of the year because of those games,

...