While Notre Dame already has a loss to its name and is ranked behind Michigan State in both the AP and coaches polls, a few projections have the Irish winning Saturday night by a more comfortable-than-expected margin.
Brian Fremeau’s FEI projections give Notre Dame a 67.5 percent chance of beating Michigan State, with a projected final score of 31-25. The most likely outcomes are an Irish win by 1-8 points (23.2 percent) and an Irish win by 9-16 points (22.3 percent). If Notre Dame does lose, FEI projects it’ll be by eight points or fewer.
For comparison’s sake in this weekend’s other big games, FEI gives Oklahoma a 69.7 percent shot at beating Ohio State and Florida State a 53 percent chance at beating Louisville.
Meanwhile, Bill Connelly’s S&P+ gives Notre Dame a 61 percent chance of beating Michigan State, with a projected final score of about 37-32. That 61 percent shot is the same S&P+ assigned to Oklahoma against Ohio State, while Florida State has a 57 percent chance of beating Louisville by Connelly’s system.
ThePowerRank.com’s Ed Feng also is bullish on Notre Dame, giving the Irish a 70 percent chance of winning and projecting a seven-point win.
And while it doesn’t list game projections, ESPN’s Football Power Index ranks Notre Dame No. 16 and Michigan State No. 47, so that system would almost certainly peg the Irish to win on Saturday, too.
One more of note, too: In a far less scientific measure, Notre Dame is a 7.5-point favorite on the sports betting website Bovada.
It’s worth noting that the nascent nature of the 2016 season means a lot of these projection systems can be skewed by preseason rankings and small sample sizes. But with every one of them projecting not only a Notre Dame win, but a somewhat close Irish victory, maybe that’s some comfort for fans to take into Saturday night.