Perhaps both Ohio State and Minnesota win Saturday, handing Michigan and Wisconsin their third losses of the year, but after that it gets tricky.
Although no games were played Tuesday night Notre Dame saw their hopes of ending their season in the Cotton Bowl for a second year in a row come to an unofficial end.
As the College Football Playoff rankings were released Tuesday night, Notre Dame remained at number 16 in the country, still the lowest of any two-loss power-five teams and also still behind three-loss Auburn.
So as it sits with No. 16 Notre Dame having just one game remaining against an under-500 Stanford team that won’t count for much, even if it does end with a 50 point win for the Irish.
The problem is that Notre Dame has already routed better teams than Stanford in recent weeks and gained no ground.
Unless you can figure out a way that Notre Dame jumps six teams and gets into the top-ten, then they’re headed to Orlando for the Camping World Bowl against a Big XII team.
With the games remaining it’s hard to find six losses that are going to benefit Notre Dame.
Auburn losing to Alabama would probably finally get the Irish ahead of the currently three-loss Tigers.
Perhaps both Ohio State and Minnesota win Saturday, handing Michigan and Wisconsin their third losses of the year, but after that it gets tricky.
Kansas over Baylor or Rutgers over Penn State? No help coming in either of those.
Same pretty much going for Colorado’s chances against Utah, Florida State’s to upset Florida.
Not only would Notre Dame need one of those to happen, they’d need three of the last four listed in order to have a chance, couple with those Auburn, Michigan and Wisconsin losses listed above.
As you can tell the chances at the Cotton Bowl are about as good as gone. so if interested you might as well get those flights booked to Orlando.
That’s the unfortunate reality when what happens in Ann Arbor in late October happen to you in front of a national audience.
