Josh Pate Predicts Shocking CFP Opponent for Notre Dame

Congratulations, college football fans, you've officially made it to game week 2025! Now only a handful of teams get to participate in Week 0, but even if Farmageddon between Kansas State and Iowa State is the crowned jewel of this coming weekend, it's still better than having no college football at all.

With the countdown this far down, last-minute season predictions are being posted and spoken about all over the internet.

Today, we'll quickly take a look at Josh Pate as he released his preseason predictions on Sunday night.

Pate announced his playoff predictions on his show Sunday night, and Notre Dame was safely in the CFP as it checked in with the No.

6 seed.

The surprising part however was who Pate has Notre Dame squaring off against in that first round home game.

Take a look below.

A popular question this off-season has been who will be the Indiana of 2025, and make a downright shocking run to the College Football Playoff.

You could argue Florida is that team in Pate's predicted bracket based solely on its schedule, but Nebraska making the dance would be a stunner - even if it's that all-important third year under head coach Matt Rhule.

While USC has been Notre Dame's biggest rival for the last century, its end-of-season rival regularly before that was Nebraska.

Notre Dame and Nebraska played each year from 1915-1925 and things couldn't have been more even.

The two split those 11 games 5-5-1 a piece.

However, at that final game in Lincoln, Nebraska in 1925, is when the first talks of a Notre Dame-USC game took place.

By 1926, USC was on Notre Dame's schedule while Nebraska was off.

It would be until the two split a home-and-home series in 1947 and 1948 that they met again, with Notre Dame winning both of those matchups.

Since then, the two have met just three times, with Nebraska winning all three contests to hold a current 8-7-1 lead in the all-time series.

That includes the 1973 Orange Bowl that was all Cornhuskers in a 40-6 rout.

It also includes the 2000 classic between the two in Notre Dame Stadium, where Bob Davie decided to play for overtime instead of an unlikely regulation victory, and the 2001 opener in Lincoln that was all Nebraska.

Props to Pate for not going with the flow and instead picking a matchup that college football historians would love to see..

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