How far Notre Dame fell in College Football Playoff rankings after losing to Clemson
Things can change so quickly in college football. A week ago, Notre Dame checked in at No. 15 in the first College Football Playoff rankings release of 2023. The 7-2 Fighting Irish had a good chance of creeping into the top 10 if they won their final three regular season games.
They did not even win the first of those.
Clemson crushed Notre Dame’s New Year’s Six bowl game dreams with a 31-23 takedown of the Irish in South Carolina this past Saturday. The best Notre Dame can do in this regular season is 9-3, which would be a one-game improvement from Marcus Freeman‘s first season as the head coach last year. The best Notre Dame can do in the CFP rankings at the end of the year, meanwhile, is nowhere near the top 10. That was made clear Tuesday night.
With two games against teams with losing records remaining, the Irish came in at No. 20 in the second CFP rankings release of the fall.
The only way the Irish can go into 2024 feeling as though progress was made in the second year of the Freeman era would be to win all of their remaining games. That entails taking care of Wake Forest (4-5) on senior day in South Bend on Nov. 18 and going on the road to exact revenge on Stanford (3-6) two days after Thanksgiving on Nov. 25.
That scenario also includes a bowl game victory. Freeman is 1-1 in bowl games. The loss came to Oklahoma State in the Fiesta Bowl two years ago. It was Freeman’s first ever game as a head coach just a few weeks after he was officially promoted to the position following Brian Kelly‘s abrupt escape to LSU. Many credible bowl game prognosticators have Notre Dame and LSU matching up in the postseason. It could very well come down to Freeman facing his former boss for the right to notch a better record than he had in Year 1.
A mark of 10-3 feels significantly better than 9-4, so there will be something for Notre Dame to play for in the bowl game no matter who the opponent is and no matter what the rankings say.
Week 11 College Football Playoff rankings
- Ohio State (9-0)
- Georgia (9-0)
- Michigan (9-0)
- Florida State (9-0)
- Washington (9-0)
- Oregon (8-1)
- Texas (8-1)
- Alabama (8-1)
- Ole Miss (8-1)
- Penn State (8-1)
- Louisville (8-1)
- Oregon State (7-2)
- Tennessee (7-2)
- Missouri (7-2)
- Oklahoma State (7-2)
- Kansas (7-2)
- Oklahoma (7-2)
- Utah (7-2)
- LSU (6-3)
- Notre Dame (7-3)
- Arizona (6-3)
- Iowa (7-2)
- Tulane (8-1)
- North Carolina (7-2)
- Kansas State (6-3)
