If No. 2 Notre Dame is to run the table the remainder of this regular season and earn entry into the ACC Championship Game, likely in what would be a rematch with Clemson, would they be a certainty for the College Football Playoff?
I was scanning different bowl projections and just about everyone of them has Notre Dame making the College Football Playoff with the only controversy really being if they’d be ranked second, third or fourth in them.
And then I looked at Pete Fiutak’s Bowl Projections over at College Football News.
“Who does my guy Pete have Notre Dame playing in the Rose or Sugar Bowl,” I said to myself when I clicked his link specific to the College Football Playoff and immediately started looking for what date his piece was posted.
Fiutak has Clemson taking on Ohio State in the Rose Bowl and Alabama battling Texas A&M in the Sugar Bowl as those two games serve as the pair of national semi-finals this coming New Years Day.
So where’s Notre Dame?
Pete has them playing Florida in the Orange Bowl in what goes without saying to Notre Dame fans, would be an incredible disappointment at this point.
So I quickly texted Pete and simply said: “Orange Bowl…really!?!?”
Pete points out to me a few things to look out for that make sense as much as Notre Dame followers would despise happening:
- Notre Dame’s three remaining road games against Boston College, North Carolina and Wake Forest are all far from cake-walks.
- What if Notre Dame gets trucked by Clemson in the ACC Championship Game?
- And what if Ohio State goes unbeaten like most expect them to do, and if Florida knocks off an unbeaten Alabama team in the SEC Championship?
Put all of those together and you’re looking at a nightmare scenario for Notre Dame in terms of the College Football Playoff, certainly.
But if Notre Dame is to take care of business in their final four regular season games and simply not get embarrassed in the ACC Championship Game, I don’t see another team in the country having as good of win as Notre Dame will have had over Clemson (assuming Alabama wins the SEC Championship).
And to me that is deserving of the reward of making the College Football Playoff.
If there is anything to take away from this though, it’s that as great as things seem right now the certainly is no certainty to any of it yet.