There was a lot to unpack after a chaotic Week 2 of college football that saw No. 5 Notre Dame fall to Northern Illinois in South Bend.
Coupled with Notre Dame’s stunning loss last Saturday, defending national champion Michigan was blown out at home by No. 3 Texas, and NC State got taken to the woodshed by Tennessee in a neutral-site meeting at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte. Those results came six days after USC sent LSU to the Tigers’ fifth consecutive season-opening loss.
Clemson, meanwhile? The Tigers more than bounced back and took care of business in their home opener, delivering a 66-20 beatdown of Appalachian State.
Because of all those results in Week 2, The Athletic’s Stewart Mandel was asked in his weekly “mailbag” column ($) who he thought was more likely to earn a bid to the College Football Playoff between Clemson, Notre Dame, Michigan and LSU.
Mandel chose Clemson and wrote:
“I would not have guessed I’d say that a week ago, but Dabo Swinney’s offense went from scoring three points against Georgia to scoring 56 in the first half against App State. Cade Klubnik was a mere 24-of-26 for 378 yards and five touchdowns. Granted, App State is not a national championship contender, but it’s a respected mid-major program that played in last year’s Sun Belt title game.
“The Georgia game still served as a reaffirmation that Clemson can no longer hang with the sport’s elite tier, but it’s entirely plausible the Tigers could turn around and win the ACC — not exactly the world’s most daunting conference. Clemson’s next game is against an NC State team that lost 51-10 to Tennessee. And — here’s a sentence I never thought I’d write — the Tigers don’t have to face surprise teams Boston College, Syracuse or Cal.”
Mandel added that he wasn’t writing off Notre Dame as a playoff contender, even after the Fighting Irish’s 16-14 loss to a Group of Five team it had been a 28-point favorite against. But as Mandel pointed out: “Clemson can lose another game and still earn an automatic berth. The Irish cannot.”
Clemson is off this week before hosting NC State the following Saturday, Sept. 21. The game was announced earlier this week as a noon ET kickoff on ABC.
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