Yahoo Sports slots Notre Dame No. 2 in preseason Top 25 after 2025 CFP miss, citing a new playoff safety net

As Week Zero approaches, Yahoo Sports has released a preseason College Football Top 25 headlined by Notre Dame at No. 2, a positioning that frames the program as a near-term national-title contender despite missing the College Football Playoff in 2025. The Irish’s placement matters in part because preseason rankings do more than forecast style of play. In the modern era, they influence recruiting momentum, national media attention, and how the playoff picture is discussed as games begin to pile up.

A major thread in Yahoo’s argument is structural, not just on-field performance. The outlet points to a new College Football Playoff provision designed to guarantee Notre Dame a spot in the playoff field if the Irish are ranked in the top 12 of the final rankings. In practical terms, that rule creates a defined path to postseason relevance. It also shifts the pressure of “every week must be perfect” toward “stay within reach of the top-12 boundary,” where the season can still be course-corrected if the team stumbles early.

Yahoo ties its preseason assessment to the timing of the calendar, emphasizing that the sport is now days away from the start of the season’s opening slate. That matters for Notre Dame and other elite programs because the first meaningful rankings are often built on nonconference matchups, early statement games, and the ability to avoid disruptive losses. With a playoff safety net tied to final top-12 positioning, Notre Dame’s margin for error is not unlimited, but it is clearer than in a system that leaves access entirely to a selection committee without a Notre Dame-specific guarantee.

The preseason conversation also includes individual award speculation. The Yahoo preview image caption notes that CJ Carr and Arch Manning are favorites for the Heisman Trophy in 2026, a reminder that national narratives are already forming around quarterbacks and quarterbacks-adjacent offensive skill players. Even if award talk is speculative this early, it typically tracks how voter-facing production is expected to show up over the course of the season.

For Notre Dame, the key storyline is what the offseason confidence does once games begin. A preseason No. 2 ranking is a statement that the program is being treated as an immediate threat to win a national championship, not simply to “return to respectability” after a playoff absence. The playoff guarantee tied to the top-12 final ranking may reduce the fear of being fully shut out, but it does not remove the need to play for seeding and to be strong enough to survive the postseason’s tighter margins.

Looking ahead, the most important watch points are early-season benchmarks: how Notre Dame handles its first high-leverage games, whether it can keep results consistent enough to remain inside the top-12 range that triggers the guaranteed playoff spot, and how the offense and defense respond when opponents game-plan for an elite preseason status. The first month of the season will likely determine whether Yahoo’s No. 2 forecast becomes a storyline about a team accelerating into the title picture, or one about a program that can make the playoff but fails to turn that opportunity into a deep run.