It was known going into Saturday that at least one team in the top-seven of the College Football Playoff rankings would be going down as Ohio State and Michigan State were set to square off.
We also had an idea that No. 3 Oregon would have a tough night ahead of them as they were slight underdogs at No. 21 Utah, but nobody saw the thrashing they received coming.
Related: College football Top 25 recap – pair of Top 10 teams go down
What does it all mean?
That Notre Dame comes out the weekend feeling rather golden.
The Irish will likely move up two spots to six when the next batch of CFP rankings come out Tuesday night and will have guaranteed help coming. Michigan will be No. 5 and be hosting what I’d assume is No. 2 Ohio State next week. By default one of those will lose so assuming Notre Dame wins at Stanford, who has been awful this season, they’d move up another spot.
A week later No, 1 Georgia (they’ll destroy Georgia Tech next week) will take on Alabama (currently 2, might be passed by Ohio State) in the SEC Championship game. If any two-loss team were to be gifted a CFP spot we all know who that would be, but even at that I have real trouble expecting a two-loss Alabama to get in, even if they lose to Georgia in the closing seconds of that conference championship game.
That would move Notre Dame up into the top-four, even if Cincinnati (currently fifth) stays unbeaten.
The worry for Notre Dame from behind would then come from the Big 12 as Oklahoma and Oklahoma State both sit with just one loss as they’ll play each of the next two weeks. I don’t believe one sweeping the other should be enough for them to pass Notre Dame, but if one does it in impressive fashion two weeks in a row they will certainly have a compelling argument.
It’s not a guarantee that Notre Dame is going to the College Football Playoff by any means, but their path has gone from rocky at best to incredibly possible with two weeks to play.
That’s not too bad for Notre Dame in what was viewed as a rebuilding year going in.
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