Notre Dame sits at 4-3 on the year with five games left to go as they continue to prepare for Syracuse this weekend. Notre Dame will be a slight underdog against the Orange, who were handed their first loss of the year last Saturday after giving up 17 fourth-quarter points at Clemson.
If things play out according to what the oddsmakers say, would Notre Dame accept a bowl invitation?
That would mean Notre Dame falls at Syracuse, at home to Clemson, and at USC while beating Navy (Baltimore) and Boston College.
The last time Notre Dame finished 6-6 they declined a bowl invitation. It should be noted that came at the end of the 2009 season right after Charlie Weis had been fired.
2008 also saw Notre Dame go 6-6 in the regular season as the Irish accepted an invitation to the Hawai’i Bowl where they routed the University of Hawai’i and also took advantage of their proximity to prized recruit [autotag]Manti Te’o[/autotag].
Part of me gets that with accepting a bowl bid that is more important than the destination or opponent comes extra practices ahead of the off-season. With that said, I’m not against Notre Dame saying something like “we don’t reward 6-6 with a bowl appearance because our standards are higher than that” type of thing.
At the end of the day, however, I think the value of those practices outweighs the sting of potentially going to a postseason game with just a 6-6 record. Here is what the national experts project for Notre Dame’s postseason this week: