With the regular season only weeks away, the internet is doing what it always does this time of year: stacking up preseason lists and arguing over who got left out. The Athletic’s latest College Football Playoff impact ranking is no exception. Manny Navarro put together a list of 20 players he expects to shape the playoff race, and while the selections themselves are mostly fine, the glaring omission is Notre Dame.
That’s what makes this one jump off the page. The list doesn’t just miss on a player or two - it completely skips over the Fighting Irish.
Navarro’s approach includes players who haven’t even logged major snaps with their current teams, which explains why Leonard Moore and CJ Carr are absent. Still, that only makes the Notre Dame blank more noticeable. If a list is going to stretch that wide, it’s hard to see how it ends up with zero Golden Domers on it.
The Athletic’s group of impact names includes Texas receiver Cam Coleman, Texas Tech’s new defensive front, Indiana receiver Nick Marsh, LSU left tackle Jordan Seaton, Ohio State defensive tackle James Smith, Oregon safety Koi Perich, Michigan edge rusher John Henry Daley, Alabama’s offensive line, Texas A&M receiver Isaiah Horton, Miami offensive lineman Samson Okunlola, LSU’s Sam Leavitt, Indiana’s Josh Hoover, Miami’s Darian Mensah, Texas Tech’s Will Hammond, Penn State’s Rocco Becht, Alabama’s starting quarterback, Tennessee’s starting quarterback, Oklahoma State’s Drew Mestemaker, Virginia’s Beau Pribula and Baylor’s DJ Lagway.
But even with that full slate, the absence of Notre Dame still stands out. If the list is looking beyond quarterbacks, then it gets even harder to understand why a name like Francis Brewu didn’t make the cut. Brewu has been making noise in Irish camp, and if positions matter more than individual names, the new wide receivers in South Bend would seem like obvious candidates to influence the playoff picture.
Brewu already showed up on The Athletic once before, earning a spot on Bruce Feldman’s certified Freaks list. So this isn’t a case of someone flying under the radar. That only sharpens the question of why he - and the Irish as a whole - were left off this CFP impact list.
The same goes for defensive back DJ McKinney. If Navarro truly doesn’t see Notre Dame affecting the playoff race, that’s a bold read. At the very least, it gives Marcus Freeman and his team another reason to go out and make a statement.
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