After the Notre Dame football team blew out the Arkansas Razorbacks on Saturday, Sunday morning dawned with at least one set of analysts believing the Irish are back in the College Football Playoffs field.
For the second straight year, Marcus Freeman and Co. have to treat almost the entirety of the regular season as one long playoff. Last year, the situation was due to an early loss to Northern Illinois. This year it's because of an 0-2 start to the campaign courtesy of Miami and Texas A&M.
Notre Dame football earns College Football Playoff buzz after Arkansas win
For the second straight year, it appears Notre Dame is answering the call. With a second straight victory, they're now 2-2 and considering they will almost certainly move further into the Top 25, The Athletic's latest CFB projections have them in the field and even hosting a game in South Bend.
This new set of projects has the Irish vaulting back into the playoffs at a No. 8 seed. That allows them to host the first round game against the No. 9 Alabama squad. The Crimson Tide's story is similar to ND's in that talking heads counted them out after a bad season-opening loss.
As of now, The Athletic's field has No. 5 Penn State taking on No. 12 Tulane, No. 7 Texas A&M facing off against No. 10 Texas Tech, and No. 6 Georgia meeting up with No. 11 Iowa State in the first round.
Should the Notre Dame football team win its first-round game, it would then meet up with No. 1 overall seed Ohio State. The other top four seeds are Oregon, Miami, and Ole Miss.