Deshaun Watson set Twitter on fire Wednesday by dismissing Notre Dame as a 2020 national title contender.
Deshaun Watson set Twitter on fire Wednesday by dismissing Notre Dame as a 2020 national title contender. One reply to the tweet came from the user @LudoBags, who sang the oft-repeated refrain from the anti-Irish crowd that the football program should just join a conference like almost everyone else.
I retorted by explaining how Michigan kept the Irish out of the Big Ten for years and had no reason to seek entry again. Little did I know that I had gotten myself into a two-day debate with this person over Notre Dame’s independence and the apparent unfair advantage that’s granted it when it comes to the College Football Playoff.
I won’t explore the conference argument because it’s been done to death. Nor will I show the whole conversation I had with @LudoBags because it’s not really worth it. I will, however, show you a couple of tweets that highlight how @LudoBags is so married to the idea of conferences and conference championship games that it’s simply unacceptable for any program to have the opportunity to play for a national championship without them.
Notre Dame’s schedule is not as custom as @LudoBags might think. Five ACC games a year through 2037, plus the annual meetings with USC, Navy and Stanford, mean only a third of the schedule is up for grabs. To complete the season, most of the remaining four games are taken up by other Power Five opponents. When that happens, chances are you’re going to have a high strength of schedule, and when you run the table in that case, it’s hard for the CFP committee to ignore you.
OK, so Notre Dame’s 30-3 loss to Clemson in the 2018 Cotton Bowl wasn’t the program’s finest hour. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t belong. Aside from the fact that it was the third seed out of four in that year’s CFP, it really did earn that spot. It just so happened that it was the Tigers’ year, and their dominance against Alabama in the title game proved it.
According to Sports Reference, Clemson and Notre Dame were ranked 19th and 20th, respectively, in strength of schedule. For the record, Alabama was third, and Oklahoma finished eighth. Georgia, the first team out, was sixth in strength of schedule but suffered its third loss of the season to the Tide in the SEC title game, and three of the four teams that made the playoff, including the Irish, entered the field undefeated. Ohio State was the second team out thanks largely to ranking 31st in strength of schedule in spite of a Big Ten title and matching the Sooners’ 12-1 record.
Of Notre Dame’s 12 regular-season games in 2018, four came against teams that were ranked at the time the Irish played them. They opened with a win over a Michigan team that was ranked fourth going into the final three weeks of the regular season. Stanford was at its highest ranking of the season at seventh before losing to the Irish, and Virginia Tech was ranked for four of the first five weeks until the Irish dealt it a home defeat that helped send it into a tailspin. The Irish also defeated Syracuse in November when the Orange had their season-high ranking at 12th.
Notre Dame also played schools that weren’t ranked when they played them but were at some point in the season. In 2018, Pittsburgh, Northwestern, Florida State and USC all got love from the AP. Add it all up, and that’s eight opponents the Irish couldn’t sleep on, or two-thirds of their schedule. By comparison, Clemson also had eight of its pre-CFP opponents ranked at some points, though only two were ranked when they played the Tigers.
So @LudoBags, spare me your tweets about Notre Dame getting dominated when a national title is on the line or that their independence should disqualify them from the opportunity. The journey always outweighs the destination. As the only Power Five independent, the Irish have to show the world twice as hard that they deserve a seat at the head table, and you know what? They did in 2018.
If hating Notre Dame’s independence gets you through the day or helps you sleep at night, you do you. Nothing is going to change anytime soon, and Irish fans are perfectly OK with that. The Irish require no validation by being a conference member, and they require no preaching from an outsider who hates them because the program and fan base don’t share their beliefs about the top level in college football. They’ve been independent since 1887, and they know what’s best for them, so what do you know?
