Notre Dame’s (Potentially) Huge College Football Playoff Break No One Is Talking About

Notre Dame might have been handed a massive break by the College Football Playoff types, and here's why.

Jan 8, 2024; Houston, TX, USA; A view of the CFP Trophy before the 2024 College Football Playoff national championship game between the Michigan Wolverines and the Washington Huskies at NRG Stadium. / Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

Oh, so Notre Dame can’t get one of the top four seeds in the newly-expanded College Football Playoff because it’s not in a conference and can’t play for a league title?

Fans are supposed to shake their fists and scream about the injustice that the Irish can’t get a first round bye?

If you’re an angry Notre Dame football fan, the words you’re looking for are simple …

“THANK … YOU!!!”

First of all, I’m about to talk about step 483 in the 2024 college football season playoff process and we’re currently on step ... three.

Step One was the schedule that suddenly became beautifully made to go 10-2 - the bare minimum it’ll realistically take to get into the 12-team CFP - and possibly 11-1 or 12-0. But first …

How the expanded College Football Playoff works and what it means for Notre Dame

Scroll past this if you already know the basics.

Before going any further, I should whiteboard this for anyone who doesn’t quite get what I’m talking about. You can click here for the easiest overall explanation. 

The College Football Playoff is expanding to 12 teams this season. The top four conference champions get a first round bye - more on this in a moment and why this is actually a massive plus for Notre Dame.

Everyone else is then seeded according to the final CFP rankings, with the fifth-highest ranked conference champ also getting an automatic bid along with the other four league champs.

That means even if Notre Dame goes 12-0 and beats everyone by nine touchdowns, it can’t be seeded higher than fifth, which means has to play a first round home game if seeded 8 or higher.

Okay, back to the program. Step Two in all of this was Marcus Freeman putting together a team potentially good enough to get into the CFP, and Step Three was the CFP types and major power players unwittingly giving Notre Dame this big comfy hug.

Going forward here, accept the premise that Notre Dame might just be as good as advertised, will be at least 11-1, and will be 5-seed worthy.

If that really does happen, here’s how Notre Dame football gets the biggest of big breaks.

Notre Dame doesn’t have to play a conference championship

Yes, the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, and SEC champs will all - unless something insane happens - get into the College Football Playoff and will likely get first round byes. However, there’s a flip side to that.

Each of those conference championship games will have a loser, and they’ll all still be good.

Remember, we’re done with divisions now among the Power Four conferences. That means you’ll never, ever, ever see a Purdue, or a Duke, or any sort of outlier get its shot in a conference title game again. To even play for a Power Four title, you’ll almost certainly have to be at least 10-2 good.

So the losers of most of these games will still likely get into the expanded CFP and have to play a 14th game in the first round. The winners of the conference championships will have played 13 games.

Notre Dame’s 13th game - again, going with the idea that it’s the 5 seed - will be at home against a weak 12 seed, most likely some throw-the-little-guy-a-cookie Group of Five champ like Liberty or Memphis or Boise State.

And the Irish will play that home game in South Bend, in December, and with a few weeks off to rest up.

And here’s the real payoff …

A CFP 5 Seed Notre Dame plays the 4 seed no matter what

Here’s what the world isn’t telling you, at least not yet …

The 4 seed might be sort of meh.

This is the biggest glitch in the expanded CFP matrix, and anyone who gets the 5 seed might benefit from it.

For some insane reason the CFP won’t reseed after the first round. Therefore, it’s possible the 12 seed upsets the 5, and in the second round the 4 seed gets the 12, and the No. 1 overall seed gets the 8/9 winner.

More realistically, the 5 beats the 12, and then the quarterfinals go to a neutral site in one of the bigger bowls. That four seed doesn’t have to be someone awesome - it just has to be the fourth-highest ranked conference champion.

2022 would’ve been the perfect example of what I’m talking about (stay with me).

The final 2022 CFP rankings went 1. Georgia (SEC champ), 2. Michigan (Big Ten champ). That’s fine. That’s the 1-2 in the new format. Here’s where it gets tricky.

If the system was

No. 3 was TCU, and No. 4 was Ohio State - two teams that didn’t win their respective conference championships.

So two years ago, the 3 seed would’ve gone to the next highest-ranked conference champion, which was a fine-whatever Clemson. The Tigers were ranked 7th in the final CFP rankings, but they would’ve been the 3 seed. And the 4 seed would’ve gone to the No. 8 Pac-12 champion Utah Utes.

In this scenario, TCU would’ve been the 5 seed, and would’ve played at home against Tulane in the first round, and then face Utah in the second round. The Utes would’ve been tough, but they’d have been FAR easier to deal with than, say, Ohio State or Alabama.

In other words, if there’s any sort of upset in the big conference championships, that’s the team the Irish will likely play. 

So as the 5 seed, Notre Dame would have a real shot at 1) playing one less game, 2) being better rested, 3) getting a relative layup first round game at home, and 4) possibly being the higher-ranked - if not higher-seeded - team for the first two rounds of the tournament.

Now all Notre Dame has to do is go 11-1 and everything will be okay.

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