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.
1. Alabama
You’d be forgiven for forgetting that Alabama missed the College Football Playoff last season, if only for how dominant they’ve been all season. They’ve got multiple Heisman Trophy candidates in quarterback Mac Jones and wide receiver DeVonta Smith, and they didn’t play a game closer than 15 points throughout the entire regular season.
Their lowest point total, 38, was all the way back in week one.
The question at the start of the season was their defense. Would they be able to toughen up and slow good offenses? It was certainly a slow start, but they still lead the SEC in scoring defense anyway. There are very few people questioning their defense now, though Florida and star quarterback Kyle Trask was able to pick them apart in the SEC title game.
No one has any doubt that Alabama will be the top seed this year. Their offense is terrifying, they have the best coach in the game, and their defense has improved every week. The Tide will probably win the National Championship this season, and being the four-seed almost seems like a punishment.
2. Clemson
With only one loss to a highly-ranked Notre Dame team without star quarterback Trevor Lawrence and half their defense in South Bend, Clemson has assured a spot in the College Football Playoff too. At full strength, the Tigers are arguably better than any team in the country, though they do have a loss, which limits their ability to jump to the one seed this season.
The Tigers excel because of their two-headed offensive attack. Trevor Lawrence can put the ball on a line anywhere on the field, but if you open the field up to cover all corners then they will run it down your throat with Travis Etienne. It’s a deadly combo, and they scored 46 points per game during the regular season because of it.
Of course, everyone knows about Clemson’s aggressive defense as well, which loves to spend the game in their opponent’s backfields.
It’s sometimes difficult to judge how good Clemson is based on their stats alone because they beat teams so bad that starters rarely play into the second half. However, it’s obvious to anyone who has watched them play that they earned this spot.
3. Ohio State
The three seed is where the debate begins this season.
We all know Ohio State is one of the best teams in the country based on pure talent, we just don’t know if they deserve to be in the College Football Playoff. After all, is the CFP for the best teams or the most deserving teams? It seems the answer has been best teams, with the decision to put an Alabama team who didn’t even win their division in 2017 into the Playoff over unbeaten UCF.
So, is six games enough to earn Ohio State a spot in the College Football Playoff? Yes. Without out of conference play, the committee has seemed to be going off the eye test, which they deemed the Buckeyes pass. Looking at USC, ranked 13th before their loss to Oregon in the PAC-12 Championship, you’d know that Ohio State wouldn’t be top-4 if they weren’t passing the eye test already.
Of course, they didn’t look great against Northwestern, but they did win and there was a loss ahead of them. So, they should be good to get into the Playoff based on how the committee has treated them so far.
Is that right? The coaches who are fighting for a spot in the Playoff don’t think so, but they aren’t making the decision. Besides, if they got their games in against Illinois, Maryland, and Michigan, would it change your opinion on them? Yes, those were opportunities to lose, but realistically they would have all been blowout wins.
This is a great team, and since this is an invitational tournament and not a true playoff, why not put them in?
4. Notre Dame Football
There will be those who say that Notre Dame football doesn’t deserve to make the College Football Playoff because they recently got blown out by Clemson, and in their place, they’d put in Texas A&M, who didn’t even win their division. This would be patently ridiculous for several reasons.
The first reason that Notre Dame football should be in the Playoff is that their only loss, to the No. 3-ranked team, is to someone they beat already. Texas A&M’s loss was to Alabama, which they never had the opportunity to avenge, but after losing 52-24 does anyone think they’d have a chance?
Yes, Texas A&M’s argument against Notre Dame is that their blowout loss doesn’t count as much as Notre Dame’s. They’re making that argument with an impressive 17-12 win over Vanderbilt and having played four games since November 7 against two teams who have fired their coaches.
In fact, Texas A&M has three wins against teams who fire their coach and two against teams with a winning record.
Top to bottom, Notre Dame’s resume blows Texas A&M’s out of the water and this shouldn’t be a debate. Hopefully, regency bias doesn’t benefit the Aggies for only playing a handful of games in the second half of the season.