Notre Dame Will And Should Be In The College Football Playoff
Watching and reading the responses to Notre Dame losing to Clemson, and how that impacts the College Football Playoff chances for the Irish has been a comical endeavor.
It also reflects on the inability of some that cover this sport to understand that the difference between how the College Football Playoff committee does rankings compared to the way many in the national media - aka the Associated Press Poll - do rankings.
The playoff committee has been clear from the beginning that the rankings are not a one-week snap shot. It's not an overreaction to what happened in the most recent weekend of games. The four teams to be selected in the final ranking will not be who played the best this past weekend.
That is what makes the AP Poll such a poor barometer of the best teams, and it's one of the reasons why the initial move away from the AP Poll happened when the BCS was created, and then the playoff.
Take the reaction to Notre Dame, the team that has been ranked No. 2 in the playoff rankings every single week leading up to its ACC title game loss to Clemson.
Forget the fact that Notre Dame already beat Clemson once before, the notion of pushing for Texas A&M to be the team to leap frog Notre Dame? Did those pushing for that not start watching the season until the last two weeks?
So let me get this straight, Notre Dame's 24-point loss to No. 2 Clemson (projecting the final ranking) should cause them to get leaped in the poll by the team suffered a 28-point loss to the No. 1 team?
Oh, and let's forget the fact that Notre Dame's loss came in its 11th game. The only way Texas A&M gets to 11 games is if it gets into the playoff and wins a semi-final game.
There is just no logic to anyone pushing for Texas A&M to be in the playoff, at least not if people understand how the committee works, or how evaluating the top team - not the hot team - works. If you want to push for 9-0 Cincinnati, I'll listen to your argument. I'll reject it in the end, but I'll listen to you.
Texas A&M's big win this season was a 3-point win over an 8-3 Florida team that a week ago lost to a 5-5 LSU squad. Notre Dame also beat an 8-3 team that will finish ranked in the Top 15, but the Irish won that game by 17. That was Notre Dame's second best win, its best win was over Clemson, the team it also lost to in a rematch.
So let's see:
Notre Dame
10 total wins
4 wins over opponents with a winning record
2 wins over a ranked opponent
8 wins by at least 14 points
.419 - Win percentage of opponents Notre Dame defeated
16.6 - Point differential on the season
Only loss was by 24 points.
Texas A&M
8 total wins
2 wins over opponents with a winning record
1 win over a ranked opponent
3 wins by at least 14 points
.375 - Win percentage of opponents Texas A&M defeated
10.6 - Point differential on the season
Only loss was by 28 points.
So please, someone, anyone, please try and explain to me why any sane, rational person believes Texas A&M should be in the playoff over Notre Dame? Is it really just that Notre Dame's loss was the most recent?
What's even more comical is that so many in the national press are pushing for Texas A&M to knock out 10-1 Notre Dame, not an Ohio State team with six wins.
As for Cincinnati, they are a fun team to watch, but the committee has shown that it doesn't put much value over a schedule built around beating Group of Five opponents. Cincinnati's 2020 squad wasn't anymore dominant at 9-0 than UCF was at 12-0 in 2018, and the Golden Knights never got higher than 8th.
The 12-0 Knights finished the 2017 season ranked 12th in the polls.
Cincinnati isn't getting into the playoff.
Yes, Notre Dame got whipped by Clemson, but Notre Dame is still without question one of the four best teams in college football when you look at the entire season, and outside of Alabama and Clemson, there isn't a team in the country with a better resume.
And no, the committee won't take into account what happened to the Irish in 2012 or 2018. If they cared about past results we wouldn't have looked at Oklahoma getting in year after year.
Not putting Notre Dame in would contradict everything the committee has said and done about the "four best teams" and looking at the entire season, not the most recent success.
This is why I project that Notre Dame will in fact be in the playoff when the final ranking comes out.
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