Heather Dinich details Notre Dame's difficult path to College Football Playoff after NIU loss
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish looked like they were in a good position to make a run at the College Football Playoff. However, after dropping a game to Northern Illinois, the Irish are now looking at a more difficult path to the CFP.
ESPN college football insider Heather Dinich went on The Paul Finebaum Show. There, she explained that Notre Dame still has a path to the Playoff thanks to the size of the field. However, she emphasized that the NIU loss is something the Irish need to find a way to overcome.
“They are in a really tough position,” Heather Dinich said. “But I’m not going to write them out at this point in the season. But they have a bad loss and their path to the Playoff is one of those seven at-large bids,” Dinich said. “It’s highly unlikely that anyone else in the country contending for one of those spots is going to have as bad of a loss. So, Notre Dame has to run the table.”
Notre Dame has two more opponents remaining on the schedule who are currently ranked in the AP Poll — USC and Louisville. Meanwhile, Georgia Tech and Florida State were both ranked at one point, but they are unranked now. It would help the Irish for those teams to be ranked and be perceived as positively as possible by the College Football Playoff selection committee.
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Perception matters to the selection committee. Florida State was left out of the four-team format despite being unbeaten because the Seminoles struggled offensively once Jordan Travis was injured. They were then perceived as not one of the best teams without Travis. Avoiding that negative perception is going to be vital for Notre Dame through the end of the season.
“They have to look like a Playoff contender in the process and they have to hope that some of those opponents that they’re going to face, like USC and Louisville, are going to be ranked because if not they’re going to be on the outside looking in,” Dinich concluded.
Before anything else, Notre Dame needs to get back into the win Column. That starts on Saturday with a road game against Purdue.