What Would Playoff Expansion Mean for Notre Dame Football?

It’s eventually going to happen, but when it does, how will it impact Notre Dame football?

Lately, there has been renewed talk of expansion to the College Football Playoff. These potential changes could impact Notre Dame football.

This isn’t just from UCF and their outspoken AD Danny White, though. A lot of this talk is actually coming from Power 5 athletic directors. Perhaps — most notably — Wisconsin’s AD Barry Alvarez. He said told SI.com the following:

"“Everyone has the same feeling; expansion is inevitable…In my opinion, we need to take a look of adding more teams into the playoff, giving more opportunities.”"

The B1G has been left out of the Playoff each the past two seasons, and UCF (along with other Group of 5 schools) aren’t ever going to be given a real chance at getting into the Playoff. So, it makes since that these are the athletic directors who seem most interested by expansion.

Take that out of the equation, though, and ask yourself what would expansion to the College Football Playoff mean for Notre Dame?

In an eight-team Playoff, there would be one of two formats. The first would be eight at-large teams decided on by a committee. In this scenario the Playoff participants would be decided like they are now — by committee.

This would be best for Notre Dame.

In the current scenario, Notre Dame seemingly must go undefeated to make the College Football Playoff. One loss often feels like an eliminator for the Irish. This is especially true, as many people want to hold not playing in a conference against Notre Dame — which I admittedly disagree with.

However, if there is an open, eight-team field, a one loss Notre Dame team could find themselves in the Playoff during years that they almost certainly wouldn’t under the four-team Playoff.

It has also been thrown around that an eight-team Playoff would have the Power 5 conference champions and one Group of Five champion automatically qualify for the Playoff. This would leave only two open spots for Notre Dame to make the Playoff.

With only two open spots for Notre Dame to make the Playoff, they’d most likely need to have a perfect season to get in. If they had one loss, under this scenario, it would be extremely likely they get left out of the Playoff. If two P5 schools had one loss seasons but didn’t win their conference, they’d have an excellent shot of making the Playoff over the Irish.

Now, that won’t happen often, but Georgia almost made this year’s Playoff with two losses. So it wouldn’t be surprising at all if Notre Dame struggled to get into the Playoff under this format.

Playoff expansion should come, and it will mean something different for every team and conference. For Notre Dame, the details of how the Playoff is expanded could completely alter the course of their future success.