Notre Dame Football: Predicting the College Football Playoff

The Notre Dame football team was beaten soundly by the Clemson Tigers in the ACC title game. How does that impact our final CFP rankings?

Coming into the ACC Championship it seemed like, win or lose, Notre Dame football would be in the College Football Playoff. Now, because of how badly they lost to the Clemson Tigers, there is talk that Texas A&M may make the CFP ahead of the Irish.

Of course, arguing that the late-season Irish loss was so bad that Notre Dame doesn’t deserve to be in isn’t Texas A&M’s only course of trying to fight their way into the CFP. They’ve already gone on a crusade against Ohio State for not playing enough games, and they’re not alone, with Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly reemphasizing playing an eleven game schedule in his postgame press conference.

Those questions at Ohio State are real, and it doesn’t help that they struggled in the B1G 10 Championship Game against Northwestern. Now, the committee needs to decide if six games, none of them particularly impressive, is enough to be considered one of the top-4 teams in the country.

It would also be unfair not to bring up the multiple unbeaten Group of 5 teams on the outside looking in. It’s been made more than clear that the G5 won’t be invited to play in the P5 invitational, but Cincinnati and Coastal Carolina have resumes that deserve more respect than they’re getting, and they should certainly be ranked higher than any Big 12 or PAC-12 school.

Whatever happens on Sunday, it’s safe to say that the College Football Playoff needs to be reformed and that this committee has been among the worst ever. They’ll undoubtedly get it wrong, but this is how the College Football Playoff should look.