Category: College Football Playoff

What does Northern Illinois loss mean for Notre Dame?

Notre Dame probably would’ve been better off with an NIU win Saturday.

Just two weeks after coming into South Bend and beating Notre Dame in what might be the biggest upset of the 2024 college football season, the No. 23 Northern Illinois Huskies lost to Buffalo, 23-20, in overtime. At home.

This loss could have implications for Notre Dame’s playoff chances, though with just four games played, there’s still much more to figure out.

Almost every pundit and observer thought that not only would Notre Dame beat the Huskies, but the Irish would do it handily. We all know what happened next: Notre Dame lost 16-14.

The questions being asked after that game were these: Is NIU that good? Is Notre Dame overrated? Did Notre Dame simply have a bad day, perhaps by overlooking an underdog opponent?

Those questions remain unanswered. Northern Illinois jumped into the rankings after beating Notre Dame but also had the following week off. It’s too early to tell if a close loss to Buffalo means NIU isn’t as good as people thought. Neither does it help us determine if NIU is a playoff contender or if Notre Dame had a bad day — or both.

The following weeks will bring answers.

What does the NIU loss to Buffalo mean for Notre Dame?
Northern Illinois Huskies kicker Kanon Woodill kicks the game winning field goal in the fourth quarter against the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.

It would probably be good for Notre Dame if the Huskies are a true contender since it makes the loss to NIU look worse in the eye of any playoff decision-makers. Because the Irish are independent, they have no chance at an automatic bid via a conference championship.

While the Irish were considered, at the season’s start, as a possible playoff entrant with 1 or 2 losses, that depended on whom they lost to. Before the season kicked off, most observers would’ve excused an Irish loss to Florida State, USC or maybe Louisville. However, the conventional thinking since the loss to NIU is that Notre Dame will need to run the table to qualify for the College Football Playoff.

Notre Dame, for its part, hasn’t answered questions, either. The 66-7 drubbing of Purdue wasn’t particularly surprising, and the Irish once again started slowly at home against a Mid-American Conference team on Saturday, though this time they pulled away to beat Miami of Ohio.

There are other teams factoring into this equation. Florida State looks bad, so a win against the Seminoles no longer looks impressive. USC fell to Michigan on Saturday. Other upsets could happen, leaving a bunch of top 20 teams with one or two losses at season’s end.

Still, the NIU loss to Buffalo will likely hurt Notre Dame by making its loss to the Huskies look worse — unless NIU has a strong run to the finish line.

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3 Stars from the Oklahoma Sooners 34-19 win over Tulane

Which Sooners earned one of our 3 stars from Oklahoma’s 34-19 win over the Tulane Green Wave?

Saturday was a more significant win than it should have been for the Oklahoma Sooners, not because of the opponent or because the game had some stakes tied to it. However, internally, the Sooners had to answer a few questions.

The Sooners won 34-19 at home to wrap up this portion of their nonconference schedule. Now OU begins SEC play when they host the No. 7 Tennessee Volunteers next week.

Several players stood out from the Sooners win and here are this week’s three stars of the game.

1. R Mason Thomas, EDGE

On Saturday, the best player on the field was R Mason Thomas.

Thomas has spent his first two years in Norman, adding mass to his frame while fighting injuries. His development has impressed coaches, but we’d yet to see it come to fruition.

Coming into the season, it felt like now or never for him, and in this third game of the 2024 season, Thomas stepped up and provided good pressure throughout the game, coming up with three pivotal sacks and a forced fumble and fumble recovery in the most critical time of the game.

His calling card is winning with speed and he did just that on Saturday afternoon. He showed good awareness, being able to change his rush approach after the snap to go from working outside to working inside. He has added a few other tricks to his bag to win more regularly.

Thomas was Pro Football Focus highest-graded Power Four edge rusher among players with at least 15 snaps for week three.

OU has been desperate for a star-caliber pass rusher, and Thomas has the ability to fill that void.

2. Jackson Arnold, QB

When you think about Jackson Arnold,  it’s important to know his performances week in and week out will be compared (fairly or unfairly) to his predecessors.

OU’s last decade of QB play is an unreal group of players to live up to. If a guy playing that position struggles in the slightest, it feels underwhelming to the fan base. In a nutshell, that’s where parts of the OU fanbase are at with Arnold. But on Saturday, he played his best game as the Sooners’ QB to this point.

No gaudy numbers were amassed as he had under 200 yards passing, but he also carried the ball 14 times for 97. He was efficient, on target, and largely made good decisions. The one big strike against him was the pick-six he threw.

He looked comfortable out there, and even when the game got tight late in the third and into the fourth, he helped calmly orchestrate a couple of drives to ice it. His biggest test of the season and his career comes next week against OU’s first SEC foe, Tennessee.

3. Heath Ozaeta, OL

Oklahoma’s much-maligned offensive line needed to put together a solid performance as starters Branson Hickman and Jake Taylor continued to nurse injuries.

Heath Ozaeta had a good offseason dating back to the spring. With the aforementioned injuries, an opportunity for him to showcase his skills opened up, and alongside Jacob Sexton, he owned it.

There were some really encouraging moments and also some snaps where he missed a linebacker blitzing that he and offensive line coach Bill Bedenbaugh will have to clean up, but the run game was more productive than it was a week ago.

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Despite big win at Purdue, Notre Dame doesn’t move much in AP Top 25 poll

Notre Dame’s big win doesn’t do much for the AP voters.

Notre Dame gained just one spot, moving from No. 18 to No. 17, in the Associated Press Top 25 poll, despite blowing out the Purdue Boilermakers 66-7 on the road.

There appear to be a few reasons for this. There is the ongoing fallout from the Week 2 loss to Northern Illinois — despite being idle Saturday, the Huskies gained two spots to No. 23 — as well as the perception that the Fighting Irish were supposed to take care of business against a down-and-out Purdue squad that isn’t expected to contend for much.

It’s also a week in which there just wasn’t much movement in general. There weren’t really any upsets involving Top 25 teams, though there were scares. LSU stays one spot ahead of the Irish at No. 16 after nearly losing to South Carolina, and Georgia drops out of the top spot and falls to No. 2 after hanging on against Kentucky in a low-scoring nail-biter.

Missouri dropped a spot to No. 7 with a one-score win over Boston College. We should note that the Irish did pass Michigan, which is now No. 18.

Back to the Irish — the poll continues to reflect that Notre Dame shouldn’t have lost to Northern Illinois, although the longer NIU stays ranked the less bad that loss looks. Voters are likely expecting the Irish to take care of business right now. Things will get a bit more interesting two weeks from now when Notre Dame hosts No. 19 Louisville in South Bend — a bad loss to the Cardinals last season derailed the Irish’s playoff bid.

Should Notre Dame win that game, the polls will get quite interesting. Until then, it appears the voters aren’t going to reward Notre Dame for doing what was expected against Purdue, and that will probably hold true next week against Miami of Ohio, too.

 

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Here’s what the experts are saying about Notre Dame at Purdue

Here’s what the experts say as Notre Dame looks to win a bounce-back game.

Last week, the experts (and your author) all expected Notre Dame to cruise over Northern Illinois. Well, we all have some egg on our faces after the 16-14 upset by the Huskies.

So what are the experts saying about the Fighting Irish as they prepare to play Purdue in a game that could determine their College Football Playoff fate?

CBS Sports’ Shehan Jeyarajah has the Irish winning a close game in which Purdue will cover the spread. Why? In part because Boilermakers quarterback Hudson Card could play well if the Irish can’t get pressure, and in part because the Irish might be rattled by the loss to NIU.

“Many successful coaching tenures at Purdue were highlighted with historic wins over Notre Dame, and this certainly appears to be a fallible version. If the Boilermakers can protect quarterback Hudson Card, he represents one of the best quarterbacks the Fighting Irish will defend this season. Notre Dame will pull away for a victory, but Purdue will give the Irish their best shot,” he writes.

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How to watch Notre Dame at Purdue on Saturday, September 14th

Here’s how to tune in for Notre Dame at Purdue

Notre Dame is looking to show that what happened against Northern Illinois was only a matter of overlooking an underdog and that it belongs in the College Football Playoff.

The way the Fighting Irish can accomplish that is by beating Purdue on the road. Especially if a win is decisive. If you want to tune in to see how the Irish respond to one of the program’s worst losses in modern, if not all-time, history, scroll down.

Here are the viewing notes:

  • Game Day: Saturday, September 14, 2024
  • Kickoff: 3:30 p.m. ET
  • TV: CBS
  • Streaming: Fubo, Paramount+
  • Radio: Check local info here
  • Venue: Ross-Ade Stadium, West Lafayette, Indiana

The battle for the Shillelagh is on.

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Marcus Freeman said Notre Dame believed the hype

Can’t let a good win get to your head

Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman told ESPN earlier this week that the Fighting Irish fell to Northern Illinois in a massive upset because his team believed the hype it generated after a tough win at Texas A&M.

This author had that same thought the instant NIU blocked a second Mitch Jeter field-goal attempt to seal the Huskies’ win.

After beating the Aggies in a hostile environment on the road in the season opener, Notre Dame was being penciled in for a home game in the first round of the College Football Playoff. College players are human and can’t fully isolate themselves from media, whether it’s the news media or social media.

Not only that, but this Notre Dame squad has some relatively inexperienced players at key positions. That’s a recipe for players to start believing that they’ll roll out of bed and win, especially against an unheralded team like NIU.

It’s also a recipe for the Irish to underestimate an opponent. The Huskies might be a contender for the MAC championship — they are now ranked in the AP Top 25 after beating Notre Dame.

Marcus Freeman knows Notre Dame believed the hype.
Sep 7, 2024; South Bend, Indiana, USA; Notre Dame Fighting Irish head coach Marcus Freeman walks to the sideline in the second quarter against the Northern Illinois Huskies at Notre Dame Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Matt Cashore-Imagn Images

“This is the first time in my three years as a head coach that we have won the big game early in the season,” Freeman said. “Two losses to Ohio State and then all of a sudden, we win and everybody says, ‘Hey, you’re going to the playoff. You’ve got an easy schedule.’ We all hear it, and I think we started to believe that.”

“There is a physical approach to preparing for a game, and I think physically we prepared the right way,” he said, “but there’s also a mental approach and a mindset that you have to have every single week, and I think that’s where we failed.”

It’s good that Freeman is aware of the problem and the part it played in one of the worst losses in program history. Now it has to get fixed — or Notre Dame will find itself outside the playoff looking in. And Freeman might find himself unemployed.

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Notre Dame leads list of crushed College Football Playoff dreams

Another influential writer is suggesting Notre Dame needs to win out.

One of the leading voices in college football is piling on the Notre Dame Fighting Irish after the team’s poor showing against Northern Illinois.

The fallout from the 16-14 loss to a then-unranked MAC team continues.

Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde has a weekly series with the 12 teams that had their playoff dreams crushed, and Notre Dame leads his series this week.

“Following up a hard-nosed victory at the Texas A&M Aggies with this dud of a home opener immediately increases the heat on Freeman for the rest of this season,” Forde writes.

Notre Dame's loss to NIU may have crushed their playoff dreams.
Northern Illinois celebrates scoring a touchdown during a NCAA college football game between Notre Dame and Northern Illinois at Notre Dame Stadium on Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024, in South Bend.

It’s been a theme in the days following the stunning loss — can Notre Dame, the same team that seemed guaranteed a playoff spot just days before playing NIU, qualify?

What happens against Purdue will start to determine the answer. Until then, the analysts and pundits can merely speculate.

It’s tricky, since both sides can be argued, and since Notre Dame doesn’t have a chance for an automatic bid via a conference championship.

The Irish can start providing answers on Saturday.

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Here’s why Notre Dame will — or won’t — make the College Football Playoff

The arguments about Notre Dame’s playoff chances continue — and they will until the ball is kicked against Purdue.

Is Notre Dame in or out of the College Football Playoff? It’s the question that’s being bandied about after the Fighting Irish’s huge loss to NIU.

In truth, there’s no way to know until the rest of the season unfolds. We’re just two weeks in and arguments can be made both ways. Notre Dame could also be helped or hurt by how other teams do going forward.

CBS Sports took a look at both the argument for and the argument against the Irish in a point/counterpoint post between writers Will Backus and Shehan Jeyarajah. Backus backed (pun intended, sorry) the Irish and Jeyarajah argued the other side.

Notre Dame football is on the wrong end of a home-favorite stat
Northern Illinois celebrates after wining a NCAA college football game 16-14 against Notre Dame at Notre Dame Stadium on Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024, in South Bend.

Here’s some of what Backus said: “It’s not like 10 more wins aren’t attainable for the Irish, either. They’ll have a chance to pad their résumé against ranked teams like No. 19 Louisville and No. 11 USC. Though Florida State has lost its luster, beating the Seminoles still resonates”

And Jeyarajah: “Realistically, the path is for Notre Dame — a team that just stumbled against a MAC team — to win 10 straight games, including tricky matchups like Georgia Tech, Army and No. 19 Louisville. Then, it has to hope that these wins actually remain impressive by the end of the year. And then even on top of that, it has to hope that every at-large team in the country finishes with multiple losses.”

Who do you think is right? How will it all play out?

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Bowl Projection Has Notre Dame Out of Playoff

Few are predicting the playoff for Notre Dame after Saturday.

The fallout continues for Notre Dame after the ugly loss to Northern Illinois in Week 2.

The Fighting Irish have their work cut out for them if they want to be in the newly expanded College Football Playoff. At least one outlet has them missing the playoff, instead qualifying for the Gator Bowl, where they’d play Oklahoma.

This comes from 247Sports’ weekly bowl game projection/prediction series. Here’s what they have to say.

“The Fighting Irish fall out of this week’s playoff projection after a lackluster showing during a home loss to NIU. Notre Dame would have to win out from here to grab one of the seven at-large spots based on our projections — and that’s not happening if Marcus Freeman’s team struggled to handle business as a three-touchdown favorite in Week 2.”

Notre Dame may be settling for a bowl after its failure against NIU.
Notre Dame running back Jeremiyah Love (4) hurdles over Northern Illinois safety Nate Valcarcel on his way to score a touchdown during a NCAA college football game at Notre Dame Stadium on Saturday, Sept. 7, 2024, in South Bend.

It’s worth noting here that things can easily change, especially if other CFP contenders falter the way the Irish did — or if NIU shows that it’s a legit contender and its win wasn’t just because the Irish played an awful game. Other upsets could clear a path for the Irish, and if NIU is really a playoff contender, maybe the loss doesn’t look as bad a few weeks from now.

It’s also not clear that the Irish need to win out — many predictions made in the preseason or after the Notre Dame win over Texas A&M suggested the Irish could get in at 10-2. Of course, the two losses were predicted to be against top 25 teams — not a then-unranked team out of the MAC.

It’s a long season, and the same Notre Dame that experts said would get a home game in the first round is now being projected at out. Projections and predictions are just that, though — we’ll see what 247Sports says if the Irish are able to rebound. If they do, it starts next week at Purdue.

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Experts Punish Notre Dame for Stunning Failure Against NIU

As expected, analysts are sour on Notre Dame after the Irish faceplant against Northern Illinois.

It’s no shock that Notre Dame is falling hard in the rankings put forth by various experts after the Fighting Irish lost to Northern Illinois on Saturday.

The Irish were favored by four touchdowns and lost to the Huskies 16-14. Not only did they lose, but they looked awful doing so. The offense was disjointed for most of the day, the defense struggled in the first half, two field-goal attempts were blocked and the playcalling didn’t seem to make sense at times.

Football is, of course, a week-to-week sport. Notre Dame may have been ranked a bit too high after a gritty, ugly 10-point win in the hostile environment at Texas A&M. Similarly, they may take a bit too much punishment for having an awful day against an unranked opponent at home.

The rest of the season will help determine if the Irish are overrated or are a College Football Playoff contender that simply had a bad day and/or overlooked an underdog opponent.

For now, though, Danny Kanell doesn’t have the Irish in his top 10. Nor does Joel Klatt. CFB Kings puts the Irish at 22 in their top 25 — just ahead of an Illinois team that upset Kansas Saturday night.

Klatt’s top 10 is Georgia, Ohio State, Texas, Ole Miss, Miami, Tennessee, USC, Alabama, Penn State and Utah. Kanell’s top 12 are Georgia, Texas, Miami, Tennessee, USC, Penn State, Oregon, Ohio State, Ole Miss, Missouri, Alabama and Louisville.

Stewart Mandel from The Athletic now believes the Fighting Irish won’t even make the college playoff. Just a few days ago pundits had the Irish penciled in for a home game in the first round.

Notre Dame can play its way back into the pundits’ good graces. But it will need to win just about every game and look good while doing so.

https://twitter.com/dannykanell/status/1832738095042572627

https://twitter.com/joelklatt/status/1832666710325055991

https://twitter.com/cfbkings/status/1832779523290538063

 

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