With Notre Dame in the spotlight, at least for a few more hours but possibly for longer, the BYU comparison is being made.
It’s a fair comparison to make. They are, as institutions, perhaps more similar to one another than either is to any other FBS football school: Religious. Independent. Nationally followed. Accustomed to being loathed.
In the eyes of the College Football Playoff selection committee, though…
To be fair, we don’t know. We don’t really know about BYU. Until last year, we never really had to think about BYU and the College Football Playoff, and last year was unique in that BYU didn’t get to play any Power Five teams instead of its usual handful. So while BYU certainly got the Group of Five adjustment last season (our research indicates a broad discounting exists in the committee’s implied formula when it comes to Group of Five schools—a discount that does not apply to Notre Dame), that may have been because it was playing a Group of Five schedule, and after all, isn’t the schedule really where the committee finds cause for its discount? (To be fair to the committee, some sort of discount is reasonable—it just looked a little last year, to our numbers, like goalposts had been moved.)
So, let’s do this the simplest way we can:
Let’s compare BYU and Notre Dame’s schedules. Starting from the bottom.
FCS Opponents – BYU: 1. Notre Dame: 0.
BYU does host Idaho State. Notre Dame does not play any FCS schools.
Group of Five Opponents – BYU: 4. Notre Dame: 3.
Not hugely different, though when you factor in the FCS game, there’s more of a gap. That said, one of Notre Dame’s Group of Five games this year happens to be a home one against Cincinnati. The best BYU can offer is a visit from Boise State. By the end of the year, those teams might not be in all that different of places, at least for the purposes of the committee (who, after establishing the Group of Five discount, our research indicates focuses on a team’s most noteworthy results—best wins, worst losses). But it’s also possible Cincinnati will be Notre Dame’s best opponent, which makes this comparison imperfect (though, again, from the committee’s eyes, it might be relevant).
Common Opponents – Virginia, USC.
The teams do play two of the same teams, and while neither’s a conference championship contender or anything, each is solid enough to be more than a coincidence. Also, each kind of provides a benchmark here. How many opponents does Notre Dame have who are clearly better than USC? I’m not sure. The AP Poll says five. How many opponents does BYU have who are clearly better than USC? Again, I’m not sure, but the AP Poll says just one.
Ranked Opponents – TBD.
We’ll see, but it doesn’t currently look great for the Cougars on this front. That said (we are in big “that said” territory with this), Notre Dame’s only currently-ranked opponents are all either flawed enough (Wisconsin), inconsistent enough (UNC), or play a schedule with enough downside (Cincinnati) to drop out of the top 25, whereas it wouldn’t be shocking if BYU saw Arizona State or Utah find its way back in. Notre Dame is the favorite in this comparison, but not by as much as it currently appears. There may be some need for urgency, though—first impressions on something as broad as, “Do we treat BYU like a Power Five or a Group of Five team?” might be crucial.
The “Strength of Schedule” Metric – ???.
We’ll see on this one. It’s too early to tell. Based on our research, it probably doesn’t matter. We haven’t seen the committee put much stock in the schedule as a whole so much as we’ve seen it look at the best wins and all of the losses.
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There’s an element here where nuance should probably be applied to both, and it might be, but it also might not be. Notre Dame’s top end of the schedule is likely to wind up worse than that of any contender’s this year (especially if they beat Cincinnati), save perhaps Oklahoma. BYU’s schedule is certainly better than that of probably all Group of Five schools, but it isn’t outstanding. The product on the field will matter too, which is to say margin of victory will probably matter, big part of the “eye test” that it is. The other part of the “eye test”—narrative—will matter as well. With Notre Dame, it’ll matter if things really turn south for the Irish résumé and they’re left without a Power Five opponent with fewer than four losses (or something like that). With BYU, it’ll matter on the other side if the Cougars can get someone like Baylor or USC to make a run at a conference championship appearance, especially since BYU plays each of those teams on the road.
Overall, of course, this probably won’t end up being a significant question. Both Notre Dame and BYU will likely stumble at some point, and for Notre Dame, that might come as soon as this afternoon. But for the sake of this exercise, they’re more similar than Notre Dame advocates will want you to believe, and less similar than BYU advocates will claim. At least from a scheduling sense. On the field (and off the field, in those aforementioned ways), they’re pretty darn close.
