Indies 2024 preview: Notre Dame’s CFP ceiling, Oregon State and Wazzu’s zombie conference and more

The independent ranks have swung and swayed in recent years. As recently as 2022, we had seven of them, but BYU joined the Big 12, and Liberty and New Mexico State gratefully joined Conference USA. With Army joining AAC in football this year, and UMass re-joining the MAC in 2024, we could soon be down to only two: forever-independent Notre Dame and UConn.

For now, however, we sort of have five: three indies and a Pac-2. As you probably remember, the Pac-12 was torn apart last year, with four schools departing for the Big Ten (Oregon, UCLA, USC, Washington), four more leaving for the Big 12 (Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado and Utah) and, out of sheer desperation, two fleeing for the ACC (Cal, Stanford). Despite recent on-field success, Oregon State and Washington State were evidently too geographically remote to draw the Big 12’s attention. It’s unclear what they intend to do for a future conference home, but in 2024 they’re independents. They have scheduling arrangements with the Mountain West for football and the West Coast Conference for other sports, and their games will air on Fox and The CW this fall.

So we’ve got five independent or indie-like teams, all in either the Northwest, Northeast or Northern Indiana. Let’s preview them!

Every week through the summer, Bill Connelly will preview another FBS conference exclusively for ESPN+, ultimately including all 134 FBS teams. The previews will include 2023 breakdowns, 2024 previews and team-by-team capsules. Here are the MAC, Conference USA, AAC, MWC and Sun Belt previews.

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2024 projections | Best games
CFP contenders | Who might be good
Hoping for 6-6

2023 recap

Notre Dame and its temporary new indie mates Oregon State and Wazzu had almost directly opposite seasons. The Beavers and Cougars defiantly charged out of the gates after the terrible realignment developments — OSU rose as high as 15th in SP+ during a 6-1 start (in which the only loss was to Wazzu), while Wazzu rose to 20th during a 4-0 run that featured wins over OSU and Wisconsin. But the Cougs lost seven of their final eight, a run that featured four one-score defeats and no bowl bid. OSU, meanwhile, held on a bit longer, reaching 8-2 before a narrow loss to Washington. But the Beavers finished the year losing by a combined 71-15 to Oregon and Notre Dame. Then, to add insult to injury, OSU head coach Jonathan Smith left for Michigan State.

The Irish, meanwhile, were up and down, jumping to fourth in SP+ after a 4-0 start then losing to Ohio State and playing poorly in a loss to Louisville. But they won five of their final six games, losing only at Clemson and overachieving against SP+ projections by an average of 15.8 points per game. They finished eighth in SP+, and were on the rise when the season ended.