In 1971, there were 34 major college independents playing football. In 2022, there are seven independents, and the ranks are going to shrink soon. Liberty and New Mexico State will join Conference USA next year. BYU is headed to the Big 12. The question remains what will Notre Dame do?
Can the Irish afford to remain an independent? By the time the season starts, we may know the answer. With NBC rumored to be ready to pay big bucks to get a weekly Big Ten game in prime time, there may be little need to offer Notre Dame the vault the Irish desire. The Big Ten may be on the precipice of paying out 9-figures to its teams. If the Irish are only offered 30 to 40 million dollars, they may be willing to become Big Ten team number 17.
Of the seven indies this year, four figure to be good, and three will struggle to win three ball games apiece.
FBS Independents PiRate Ratings
| Team | PiRate | Mean | Bias | Average |
| Notre Dame | 119.0 | 117.0 | 118.9 | 118.3 |
| BYU | 112.1 | 110.1 | 112.1 | 111.4 |
| Army | 98.5 | 99.2 | 99.1 | 98.9 |
| Liberty | 95.3 | 97.4 | 97.9 | 96.9 |
| Connecticut | 77.5 | 79.0 | 74.5 | 77.0 |
| New Mexico St. | 74.8 | 77.1 | 74.0 | 75.3 |
| Massachusetts | 75.2 | 75.9 | 72.6 | 74.6 |
| Independents | 93.2 | 93.7 | 92.7 | 93.2 |
There are no official Independent Media Polls like there are for conferences, but I have included the consensus of seven of my friends that produce computer ratings like the PiRate Ratings.
Computer Power Rating Poll
| # | West | 1st Place | Overall |
| 1 | Notre Dame | 6 | 48 |
| 2 | BYU | 0 | 40 |
| 3 | Army | 1 | 38 |
| 4 | Liberty | 0 | 28 |
| 5 | N. Mexico St. | 0 | 18 |
| 6 | Connecticut | 0 | 15 |
| 7 | U Mass | 0 | 9 |
The PiRate Rating are designed to be used for the next week of football games and not meant to be used to predict won-loss records. Nevertheless, here are the projected won-loss records.
Predicted Won-Loss Records
| Team | W-L |
| Notre Dame | 11-1 |
| Army | 9-3 |
| BYU | 9-3 |
| Liberty | 8-4 |
| New Mexico St. | 3-9 |
| Connecticut | 3-9 |
| Massachusetts | 2-10 |
The Pi-Rate Ratings 