Examining how proposed 14-team College Football Playoff format could impact Notre Dame

With where the College Football Playoff is headed, Notre Dame has to feel pretty well about their odds of making it in most years. However, that could change depending on if the model expands any further, such as the discussed 14-team field.

On3’s Andy Staples opened his show on Thursday with a question about how additional automatic qualifiers could impact the Fighting Irish. He started by noting how a potential 14-team playoff would take away some of their say-so as the independent program at the table.

“What is really going on here? It is not, I don’t think, so much that they are trying to force Notre Dame into a conference as they are trying to determine whose vote counts the most now. Remember, Jack Swarbrick, the Notre Dame athletic director, was on the group, along with Greg Sankey, that helped create the 12-team playoff and helped craft it,” said Staples. “The difference is when they were crafting the 12-team playoff? What they were doing was altering the system within the framework of the first TV contract, which runs through the 2025 season. That contract gave everybody an equal vote – essentially, the 10 conferences and Notre Dame.”

“Notre Dame had a kind of outside seat at the table for one school. What that did worked within that because you’ve got to give Notre Dame that amount of say, you’ve got to give the other leagues that amount of say. But, in this new one, you don’t,” Staples said. “They’re kind of figuring that all out. They’ve not come to an agreement on what the system will be, they’ve not come to an agreement on revenue-sharing. They’ve not really come to an agreement on who gets what vote when. What this essentially does is it reduces Notre Dame’s power in whatever happens going forward.”

Still, while that may be the case, playoff access alone continues to be Notre Dame’s lone goal. Having less say on who makes it in won’t matter as much to them as them being able to be in it themselves according to Staples.

“Now, is it enough to force Notre Dame to join a conference? We talked about that with Tyler Horka earlier this week from Blue And Gold. Notre Dame’s biggest wishes are access to the College Football Playoff and relevance,” Staples said. “Access to the College Football Playoff is the key thing here. The 12-team version was seven at-larges – it was originally six at-large, now it’s seven. It’s perfect for Notre Dame. You stick with that version? Notre Dame never has to join a conference because, if they’re 10-2, they’re in every single year.”

Now, with that said, that 14-team version of the College Football Playoff could come into play as the decade goes on. With that model, Notre Dame’s accessibility would be complicated again unless they were essentially within the double-digit win range. That’s because the amount of auto-bids compared to at-larges, which the Irish would be a part of, wouldn’t be in their favor numbers-wise.

“Let’s look at it through the lens of the potential 14-team playoff, which they are talking about. Ross Dellenger from Yahoo! said they were ‘socializing’, which I think just means running it by people, a 14-team model where the SEC would get three auto-bids, the Big Ten would get three auto-bids. The ACC would get two, the Big 12 would get two. Highest-ranked group of five team gets one and then there would be three at-larges. 11 auto-bids, three at-larges,” Staples explained. “Does that hold out a good Notre Dame team? Or would every good Notre Dame team still make that playoff?”

“You have to think that, in most years, the top three SEC teams and the top three Big Ten teams are going to be ranked in the Top-14 – you would think. There may be years where they’re not. You would think that, most years, the top-two ACC and the top-two Big 12 teams would be in the Top-14. The top Group of Five champ might not always be in the Top-14 but we didn’t expect them to always be in the Top-12 either,” said Staples. “Would you then have higher-ranked of those than Notre Dame? I’m not talking about an 8-4 Notre Dame or a 9-3 Notre Dame. That’s not a team that should be making the playoff anyway. If you’ve got a 10-2 Notre Dame, is there a possibility that they are in the Top-14 but, because of the auto-bids, don’t get a bid because somebody ranked lower?”

If that’s the case, the one way to solve it would be for Notre Dame to entertain the idea of joining a league. They may not wish to still but, if that stance ever changed, Staples knows as well as anyone that they’d have no issue in attempting to do so.

“Obviously, if they get aced out of the playoff? Then you reexamine your options. If Notre Dame wants to join a conference in football? They can do it at the drop of a hat,” Staples said. “Everybody wants them. They already have a relationship with the ACC. They would immediately join the ACC in football if they wanted to. If they wanted to join the Big Ten, the Big Ten would welcome them with open arms. If they wanted to join the SEC, the SEC would welcome them with open arms.”

“They’re the one everybody wants,” Staples said. “They’re the one that a TV network would not even blink about.”

For now, Notre Dame only has to focus on the new, 12-team playoff that’s coming this fall. Further expansion down the line is when it may get dicey based on how that would be laid out.

Even if it does shift again, though, Staples remains high on the Fighting Irish’s ability to get in so long as they have the record that’ll justify is.

“I don’t see a scenario where that happens. That would be very tough to do. I think, if they’re 10-2 or 11-1 or 12-0? They’re going to be ranked so high that it won’t be an issue,” Staples said. “They will get one of the three at-larges. I think that they should feel okay about where they’re at right now.”