Notre Dame ranked No. 11 in preseason AP poll

Notre Dame's high expectations for the 2015 football season were reflected in Sunday's preseason AP Top 25 poll. The Irish are slated No. 11 in the country.

The No. 11 ranking marks Notre Dame's highest position in the preseason poll since being pegged No. 2 in 2006.

Four of Notre Dame's 2015 opponents made the list: USC (No. 8), Clemson (No. 12), Georgia Tech (No. 16) and Stanford (No. 21).

In the AP preseason rankings, Notre Dame has now been ranked 12 times in the 19 seasons that followed the end of the Lou Holtz Coaching Era.

In the 11 previous times ND started the season in the top 25 in those years, the Irish have never finished higher in the poll than where they started, and in eight of those seasons ND finished outside the top 25 – albeit just barely in 2014.

Conversely, of the seven times ND was snubbed in the preseason AP Top 25, the Irish finished in the top 25 four of those times.

That included a No. 4 showing in the finals polls after the 2012 season. The Irish finished No. 3 in the coaches poll that year.

ND was ranked 17th in the preseason AP poll last year and finished one spot out of the final Top 25. 

The full AP Poll is listed below.

1. Ohio State

2. TCU

3. Alabama

4. Baylor

5. Michigan State

6. Auburn

7. Oregon

8. USC

9. Georgia

10. Florida State

11. Notre Dame

12. Clemson

13. UCLA

14. LSU

15. Arizona State

16. Georgia Tech

17. Ole Miss

18. Arkansas

19. Oklahoma

20. Wisconsin

21. Stanford

22. Arizona

23. Boise State

24. Missouri

25. Tennessee