Notre Dame is at Miami (Florida) in Week 1 of the 2025 college football season, and the tilt between the Fighting Irish and the Hurricanes will be an ABC broadcast.

The Saturday, Aug. 31 game will kick off at 7:30 p.m. Eastern and is part of a slew of Week 0 and Week 1 games that will be shown on ESPN or ABC.

Other major matchups that will be on ABC or ESPN in those first two weeks include LSU at Clemson, Iowa State at Kansas State and Alabama at Florida State.

Notre Dame will be facing a tough opponent to start 2025. Nothing will come easy for the Irish if the team is looking to return to the National Championship game.

Ranking the toughest and easiest NFL schedules in 2025 originally appeared on NBC Sports Philadelphia

Not all paths are the same when it comes to the road to Super Bowl LX.

There 2025 NFL schedule features 272 games across 18 weeks. While each team will be bidding for a playoff spot and a chance to compete for a championship, some franchises have advantages when it comes to their 2025 slate.

Three games on each team’s schedule are based solely on where it placed within its division the year before, giving reigning division winners tougher, more exciting matchups the following season and division bottom dwellers some easier ones.

There are other divisional advantages and disadvantages, too. The AFC West and NFC North were gauntlets last season with each fielding three playoff teams. The AFC East, AFC South and NFC South, meanwhile, only had one above-.500 team apiece.

With the 2025 NFL schedule release arriving on Wednesday, let’s break down which teams have the toughest and easiest roadmaps.

Hardest NFL schedules for the 2025 season
The New York Giants have the toughest 2025 schedule based on the 2024 records of their opponents.

The team is already in a stacked division with the reigning Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles, NFC runner-up Washington Commanders and Dallas Cowboys. Making matters worse, the NFC East has to play the two deepest divisions from 2024 in the NFC North and AFC West. For one last kicker, the Giants and every NFC team have one fewer home game than away game in 2025.

There are plenty of offseason changes for each team, so another way of gauging strength of schedule is by looking at the projected wins of the opponents on a team’s schedule.

Unfortunately for the Giants, they also have the toughest 2025 schedule by this metric, according to Warren Sharp of Sharp Football Analysis.

The Giants aren’t the only ones with tough sledding in 2025. The Chicago Bears, Detroit Lions and Cleveland Browns are among the teams with the most difficult schedules for this coming season.

Easiest NFL schedules for the 2025 NFL season
The San Francisco 49ers had a nightmare 2024 season, but it could help jump start a turnaround in 2025.

Kyle Shanahan’s squad has the easiest 2025 schedule by both 2024 opponents’ records and 2025 opponents’ projected wins. The team has six games against division rivals in the NFC West, four against the NFC South and four against the AFC South — all of which had only one playoff team last season. The remaining three games are against last-place teams from 2024.

Like the 49ers, the New England Patriots and New Orleans Saints also benefit from a last-place schedule.

Nicolas Cage is playing legendary Oakland Raiders coach and NFL broadcaster John Madden in a movie. That’s about all the tease you need to know it’s going to be worth watching, right?

Well, prepare to get even more excited after Amazon MGM Studios released its first image of Cage as Madden. The image also features Christian Bale as former Raiders owner Al Davis. It’s quite the sight.