Where Notre Dame football ranks in final College Football Playoff rankings
All attention Sunday morning turned to the top four in the final College Football Playoff rankings of the year. This rankings reveal was arguably the most contentious and wide-open of any in the 10-year history of the four-team CFP. Not tied to any of it, Notre Dame fans were just like all the other college football followers across the country who don’t root for Florida State, Texas, Alabama and Georgia.
Sit back, grab some popcorn and watch the fireworks.
There were four teams vying for two spots at the conclusion of Championship Saturday. What some people saw as common sense, putting in undefeated Florida State and a Texas team that beat Alabama, who beat Georgia to win the SEC Championship, made little sense to others.
How can you put the Seminoles in the playoff when they’re without Heisman Trophy hopeful quarterback Jordan Travis because of his season-ending leg injury? How can you keep back-to-back national champion Georgia out of the playoff when the Bulldogs have as many losses as Texas and Alabama? You can’t put Alabama in and leave Texas out when the Longhorns beat the Crimson Tide by 10 points in Tuscaloosa, Ala., this year, yeah?
No undefeated Power Five conference champion was left out of the first nine playoffs. The No. 1 team in the country entering Championship Saturday made all of the first nine playoffs. The SEC had at least one participant in each of the first nine playoffs.
Something had to give. There was plenty to talk about.
Those prevailing conversations among college football enthusiasts lasted all night Saturday and into Sunday morning. As aforementioned, though, they were talks completely inconsequential to the Notre Dame Fighting Irish. Head coach Marcus Freeman‘s team lost three games this season and had no shot at making the CFP. That was known way back in the first weekend of October when Notre Dame lost to Louisville.
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As a result, Notre Dame (9-3) came in at No. 16 in the final pre-bowl College Football Playoff rankings.
Last year at the same time, the Irish were ranked No. 21. That team was 8-4, so Freeman led Notre Dame to one more win in his second regular season as head coach than he had in his first. Progress is progress, but followers of the program and definitely those within it felt the Irish could have been much better than a three-loss team with a defense that was in the top 10 in multiple metrics and a sixth-year quarterback with oodles of experience in Sam Hartman.
Hartman is expected to suit up and try to get Notre Dame to 10 wins in a bowl game and opponent to be named later Sunday, though, and that would allow the Irish to finish Freeman’s second season on a strong note amid a flurry of transfer portal entries and an uncertain future related to roster management. Just like the teams that did not qualify for the four-team field, Notre Dame still has one game left to play.
Might as well make the most of it.
