The Irish are ranked high, high enough to be seriously considered as one of the few teams that could actually finish as the College Football Playoff champion. Count Fox Sports RJ Young among the believers: His pre-season college football tiers were announced today.
Tier 1 was dominated by the SEC: Alabama, Texas A&M, Georgia and Ohio State were the four teams in it. Tier 2 included the Irish along with Utah, Michigan State and Baylor. The third tier had one more team than the previous two: Arkansas, Clemson, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State and USC.
Four teams sit in tier 1 at the start of the season 👀📈
Do you agree with @RJ_Young's preseason CFB tiers? pic.twitter.com/xZZjKuXbJx
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) August 25, 2022
There are plenty of arguments to be had about the tiers, but Notre Dame being in the second does make sense. New head coach [autotag]Marcus Freeman[/autotag], new starting quarterback [autotag]Tyler Buchner[/autotag] and extremely difficult season-opening game (Ohio State) seemingly combined to cause Young to hesitate putting the Irish in the top group.
It will be fun to look back on this after the regular season and championship games are played to see how accurate Young was.
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