It's not how you start: Which disappointing CFP hopeful has the best chance of a rebound?

Now that Week 3 of the 2025-26 college football season is complete, we can start officially judging which programs are contenders and which are pure pretenders. There are plenty of preseason darlings that just haven't impressed like we all thought (looking at you, Kansas State).

But among those disappointments, there are a small number of teams that could cling to a small sliver of hope as the rest of the season plays out. We've seen weirder things happen when it comes to the expanded College Football Playoff.

Top preseason contenders like Clemson (1-2), Florida (1-2) South Carolina (2-1) and Arizona State (2-1) have all severely stumbled and dropped out of the Associated Press rankings, effectively putting them on the outside of any CFP contention and looking in. But one additional program may be getting the benefit of the doubt because of what's yet to come.

Can Notre Dame rebound from disappointing start to reach CFP?

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish have yet to win a football game in 2025 but are still ranked (No. 24). That's only happened five other times in the history of college football.

Both losses were to ranked teams and happened in the last minute or so of regulation. That may be the only thing saving Notre Dame from being left for dead the rest of the year. They showed fight but came up just short against capable teams.

Now, it's understandable to think there's no reason for a winless team to be considered one of the best 25 in the country. The whole point of this competition is to win games, not just look good while playing.

Notre Dame, for the moment, only has one ranked opponent remaining on its schedule (No. 25 USC). That could always change but the Irish are now tasked with going perfect through the remainder of their schedule and hoping a few future opponents go on their own win streaks up until their contest with Notre Dame.

A two-loss independent still has a significant chance of making the CFP but there's a lot of moving parts with conference runners up looking to clinch at-large bids. This is where Notre Dame's independence can hurt them more than it helps. They need to crush their unranked foes and convincingly beat any future ranked opponents to keep their hopes alive.