What's ahead in 2025 for Notre Dame, UConn and the Pac-2?

Army and Navy are in the AAC. Liberty and New Mexico State landed in Conference USA. UMass decided to head back to the MAC. Sacramento State's efforts to become an FBS independent aren't working out. In a year, Oregon State and Washington State will be members of a fully stocked Pac-12 again. (They aren't really indies now, either, but I'm putting them in here because I didn't want to write a two-team conference preview.)

The indie party has thinned out significantly in recent years. It looks like we'll be down to Notre Dame and UConn by next year, and, one of these years maybe those perpetual "UConn to the Big 12?" rumors will actually bear fruit, too. Regardless, these four teams bring loads of storylines to the table. Notre Dame might be more loaded this season than it was during last year's earlier-than-expected run to the national title game. UConn has restocked after last year's thrilling (and rather out of nowhere) nine-win campaign. Oregon State's roster has stabilized after a tumultuous 2024, and Washington State is attempting a complete culture transplant.

Let's preview 2025's independents (and the final two-team Pac-12)!

Every week through the summer, Bill Connelly will preview another FBS conference, ultimately including all 136 FBS teams. The previews will include 2024 breakdowns, 2025 previews and team-by-team capsules. Here are the MAC, Conference USA, Mountain West, Sun Belt and AAC previews.

We had a lot of plot lines running here despite a small number of teams. In their first season after watching 10 conference mates (and a bunch of players) depart the Pac-12, Wazzu and Oregon State started strong and collapsed; the former started 8-1 and finished 0-4, while the latter started 4-1 and finished 1-6. Wazzu then lost its head coach and most of its stars as well.

Meanwhile, out East, Jim Mora was engineering UConn's best season in 14 years while fending off all sorts of transfer portal vultures. Per SP+, the Huskies fielded their best defense since 2015 and their best offense since 2009, and after a pretty clear regular-season split -- 0-4 against power conference teams, 8-0 against the Group of 5 -- they capped a nine-win campaign with a 27-14 Fenway Bowl thumping of North Carolina.

Oh yeah, and Notre Dame reached the national title game. The Fighting Irish had their line depth tested significantly -- only one offensive or defensive lineman started all 16 games -- and passed with flying colors. After a shocking loss to NIU in Week 2, they had to win out to reach the CFP and did so, and then they beat Indiana, Georgia and Penn State before a midgame lull in the finals resulted in a 34-23 loss to Ohio State. It's hard to find new firsts to accomplish in South Bend, but Marcus Freeman got to check the "Notre Dame's first 14-win season" box.

The continuity table looks at each team's returning production levels (offense, defense and overall), the number of 2024 FBS starts from returning and incoming players and the approximate number of redshirt freshmen on the roster heading into 2025. (Why "approximate"? Because schools sometimes make it very difficult to ascertain who redshirted and who didn't.) Continuity is an increasingly difficult art in roster management, but some teams pull it off better than others.

For a title-game finalist, Notre Dame's continuity is pretty impressive. Freeman didn't have to do a ton of portal work because his Irish return 10 starters from 2024, plus loads of part-timers and some key injury returnees (namely, left tackle Charles Jagusah and defensive end Jordan Botelho). He plumped up depth at receiver (a necessity) and in the defensive line and secondary, but he stayed in-house to find a replacement for quarterback Riley Leonard. If that proves to be the right call, the Irish will contend again.

Elsewhere, UConn managed to avoid getting completely plucked apart by the aforementioned vultures, and while Wazzu is starting almost completely from scratch, Oregon State has encouraging continuity heading toward the fall.

Notre Dame's schedule is a strange one: The Irish play projected top-15 teams in each of the first two weeks (at Miami in Week 1, then Texas A&M in Week 2) but don't play another projected Top 25 team for the rest of the year. If they're genuinely a title-caliber squad again, the Irish could roll, but all sorts of land mines await -- at Arkansas, Boise State, USC, Navy, at Pitt -- if their attention drifts.

Out West, OSU and Wazzu did something I enjoy: They arranged a home-and-home. They'll face off in Corvallis on Nov. 1, then again in Pullman on Nov. 29. (Personally, I think they should make it a best-of-three and play on a neutral site over Championship Week if they split the first two games. Put it in Las Vegas. Call it the "Pac-12 Championship.")

Notre Dame's schedule strength will be impacted greatly by how good teams like Arkansas and Boise State turn out to be, but at this moment the Irish are one of the surest playoff contenders on the board. Start 1-1, and you're in great shape from there. And while UConn does have some roster holes to fill, a schedule featuring nine opponents projected 91st or lower in SP+ should make a third bowl trip in four seasons pretty likely.

Here are the five games involving independents that feature (a) the highest combined SP+ ratings for both teams and (b) a projected scoring margin under 10 points.

Cal at Oregon State (Aug. 30). With seven games projected within a touchdown or less, Oregon State's season could go in quite a few different directions; the Beavers start out with two of those games, both at home. If they're 2-0 when they head to Texas Tech in Week 3, they could be on their way to a lovely campaign. If they're 0-2, well...

Notre Dame at Miami (Aug. 31). The single-digit requirement means that only one Notre Dame game shows up on this list. Even against Texas A&M in Week 2, the Irish are favored by 10.2. But this Week 1 battle is enormous. With a new quarterback and new defense, Miami is going to be a talented mystery right out of the gate. If the Irish survive this challenge, their CFP odds skyrocket.

Washington at Washington State (Sept. 20). With former South Dakota State head coach Jimmy Rogers taking over (and bringing lots of former Jackrabbits with him), Wazzu will be fascinating to follow. The Cougs will have a couple of decent tests before this Week 4 matchup, but the Apple Cup will be Rogers' first big test to prove his physical identity is taking hold.

Houston at Oregon State (Sept. 27). Trips to Texas Tech and Oregon are likely to produce two OSU losses, which means that this one will represent the official start to Act II of the Beavers' season. They could be 3-2 after the Houston game, but they could also theoretically be 0-5.

Duke at UConn (Nov. 8). Even if UConn struggles with an almost entirely new starting defense, the schedule is kind enough that the Huskies are never projected double-digit underdogs. Even Duke, the third of three ACC opponents and the best projected team on the schedule, will visit East Hartford as only about an eight-point favorite here.

Head coach: Marcus Freeman (fourth year, 33-10 overall)

2025 projection: sixth in SP+, 10.5 average wins

Of the top seven teams in the current SP+ projections, only one, No. 3 Penn State, returns its starting quarterback. For that matter, only three of the top 13 teams do. This is part of the reason for what I feel is the relative offseason overhyping of Clemson -- quarterback Cade Klubnik is the proverbial bird in hand even though he's never ranked higher than 13th in Total QBR.

It's worth remembering, however, that six of the top seven in Total QBR last year (and 10 of the top 12) were first-year starters at their schools of choice. The bird in hand is only preferable until we know which of the new guys is awesome.

CJ Carr might be awesome. The Saline, Michigan, product -- and grandson of former Michigan head coach Lloyd Carr -- was a top-40 recruit and the No. 2 pocket passer in the class of 2024. He is by most accounts super-smart with a super-strong arm, and he was solid enough this spring that a) Marcus Freeman didn't feel the need to make any sort of desperate post-spring portal QB acquisition and b) 2024 backup Steve Angeli read the writing on the wall and transferred to Syracuse.

Carr (or, theoretically, sophomore Kenny Minchey) is one of the most important players of the 2025 season in that, if he's good, Notre Dame might not have a single weakness. For starters, the Irish will have Jeremiyah Love and Jadarian Price (combined: 1,871 rushing yards, 24 TDs) back at running back. Love is the best returning yards-after-contact back in FBS; only Boise State's Ashton Jeanty and Miami's Damien Martinez topped him in 2024, and they're both now in the NFL.

At receiver, CFP semifinal hero Jaden Greathouse is back in the slot, and while Freeman added fewer transfers than most, he did nab Malachi Fields (Virginia) and Will Pauling (Wisconsin), each of whom averaged more yards per route run than any Notre Dame receiver not named Greathouse. The offensive line overcame rampant injuries and extreme inexperience to play at a high level late last season; it lost two starters to the portal, but that was in part because others, like Charles Jagusah and center Ashton Craig, were likely to start over them. The defense, meanwhile, returns 12 of the 20 players who saw 200-plus snaps last season and welcomes 2023 starting end Jordan Botelho and potentially high-value transfers like tackle Jared Dawson (Louisville) and nickel DeVonta Smith (Alabama).

In a way, Notre Dame's charge to the 2024 title game came ahead of schedule, as evidenced by the massive number of key returnees who are either juniors (Love, Price, Greathouse, Craig, right tackle Aamil Wagner, defensive end Joshua Burnham, defensive tackle Donovan Hinish, linebackers Drayk Bowen and Jaylen Sneed, cornerback Christian Gray) or sophomores (Jagusah, left tackle Anthonie Knapp, defensive ends Bryce Young and Boubacar Traore, linebackers Jaiden Ausberry and Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa, cornerback Leonard Moore, safety Adon Shuler). The passing game produced almost no big plays of note, and the Irish had to rely on long strings of error-free plays to score points, and despite all the youth around Leonard, they got it. And despite having to start 20 different guys at least once on defense, they consistently delivered, especially against the pass.

It was a seasonlong endorsement of what Freeman is building -- right down to how this inexperienced Irish team responded to probably the single most shocking result of the season. And now, in theory, this team could continue growing and developing moving forward. As long as it has a QB.

Well, a QB and a defensive coordinator. With Al Golden moving on to the NFL, Freeman replaced him with former Rutgers head coach and Texas (among others) defensive coordinator Chris Ash. Ash and Golden are awfully similar from a résumé perspective -- once up-and-comers, they were both relative failures as head coaches who spent time in the pros before landing in South Bend. But Golden's overall track record as a head coach and coordinator was a little bit stronger, and the last time Ash was part of either a top-10 NFL defense or a top-40 college defense was 2015. Freeman's presence assures a pretty high floor, Ash will have lots of fun toys to play with, and Freeman has quickly earned the benefit of the doubt. But it was hard to love this hire.

The schedule does present one extra obstacle: Not only will the Irish obviously need good quarterback play from an inexperienced player, but thanks to the two best projected opponents showing up in the first two weeks of the season, they'll need it immediately. This roster positively screams "major national title contender in 2026," but the Irish's status as a 2025 contender will be determined by how quickly Carr (or Minchey!) looks the part and whether or not Ash can immediately thrive.

Head coach: Jim Mora (fourth year, 18-20 overall)

2025 projection: 84th in SP+, 7.4 average wins

You're forgiven if you didn't see this coming. Lord knows I didn't. Jim Mora's UConn tenure began with a massive surge from 1-11 to 6-7 in 2022, but the underlying stats suggested it was awfully fluky, and the Huskies crashed to 3-9 in 2023, then began 2024 with a 50-7 faceplant against Maryland.

Following that terrible trip to College Park, however, they ignited, winning nine of their final 12 games, losing to three ACC teams (Duke, Wake Forest and Syracuse) by a combined 15 points and beating everyone else on the docket. The offense dealt with ups and downs but got over 2,200 rushing yards and 18 TDs from a trio of backs -- one of whom, Cam Edwards (830 yards, 5.7 per carry), returns -- and random big plays from receiver Skyler Bell (who also returns). Under first-year coordinator Matt Brock, meanwhile, the defense basically started and ended drives brilliantly: The Huskies ranked first nationally in three-and-out rate (42.4%), fourth in third-down conversion rate allowed (29.1%) and eighth in red zone touchdown rate allowed (46.5%).