Irish Breakdown

Notre Dame Moves Up in Joel Klatt's College Football Playoff Projections

How much will the Big Ten Championship game impact Notre Dame's CFP seeding?

Nick Shepkowski

Dec 27, 2023; San Diego, CA, USA; Fox Sports analyst Joel Klatt at the Holiday Bowl at Petco Park.
Dec 27, 2023; San Diego, CA, USA; Fox Sports analyst Joel Klatt at the Holiday Bowl at Petco Park. / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images
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How much will the outcome of Saturday night's Big Ten championship game between No. 1 Oregon and No. 3 Penn State matter for Notre Dame regarding the College Football Playoff?

Notre Dame will be in and playing at home in the First Round either way, but could the Irish benefit from a second Penn State loss on the year?

Fox Sports college football analyst Joel Klatt has updated his College Football Playoff projections based off his predications for this weekend and Notre Dame moves up to the No. 5 seed in his.

Klatt has Notre Dame playing host to 12-seed Clemson, who he has beating SMU in this weekend's ACC championship.

The winner of that game he has moving on to the quarterfinals to take on No. 4 Arizona State.

Nick Shepkowski's Quick Take:

I'm torn on whether or not the College Football Playoff committee will move Penn State down if the Nittany Lions lose on Saturday. The committee has made the claim that teams who lose in the conference championship game won't be punished, but will that actually be true?

I thought the committee would move Notre Dame ahead of Penn State this past week due to more impressive wins by the Fighting Irish against common opponents, but that was not the case.

If things play out like Klatt predicts, the draw shown above came up with is about as favorable as Notre Dame could hope for.

Clemson isn't Clemson of old and the Tigers coming to South Bend would be incredibly favorable as the Irish should be able to run the ball with very good success.

Next up would be an upstart Arizona State on a neutral field before one of Oregon, Penn State, or Tennessee in the national semi-final.

In a year where things appear to be so close between so many national championship contenders, the luck of the draw will be incredibly important for several.

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Nick Shepkowski
NICK SHEPKOWSKI

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