We talked a lot on Friday about what a loss last night would mean for Clemson. We established that based on historic precedent, it likely wouldn’t affect their playoff chances, though I suppose we left out the possibility of them winning last night and losing in a rematch in the ACC Championship, which would have been an interesting case. The reality is that provided neither Notre Dame nor Clemson loses their next game, we can assume Notre Dame will be ahead of Clemson in the first CFP Rankings of the year, with Clemson otherwise treated as though they have yet to lose.
What we didn’t talk about on Friday was what a win would mean for Notre Dame. So now that it’s happened, let’s discuss that.
On the one hand, Notre Dame beat a Clemson team missing a few defensive starters and its starting quarterback. On the other, D.J. Uiagalelei didn’t turn the ball over, threw for 400 yards, and Clemson’s defense might remain shorthanded for the remainder of the year. One shouldn’t expect Notre Dame to be favored if these teams both do win out and meet again in Charlotte the weekend before Christmas. But this win does a lot for the Irish: It gives them a legitimate victory over a playoff contender. It shows the Irish themselves they can play with said playoff contender, and with others of the sort.
Notre Dame fans may be upset with this next piece, and it’s fair to feel slighted, but in the business-as-usual placeholder expectation, it still looks like it’ll be Alabama, Ohio State, Clemson, and a fourth in the College Football Playoff. Notre Dame will be ranked ahead of Clemson, and perhaps ahead of Ohio State, but they are not yet the ACC title favorite—at least not in the collective psyche (they may be a numeric favorite due to them having a cushion and Clemson lacking a cushion, with Miami still a one-loss team). They are still, in the psyche, a contender for the fourth playoff spot, alongside BYU, Cincinnati, Texas A&M, and potentially Oregon or another undefeated Pac-12 Champion. Florida is not included in this list, because they’ll either finish with two losses or win the SEC, in which case Alabama will have lost and we won’t be operating in this only-the-fourth-is-uncertain universe.
We have historic precedent to tell us that Clemson will be forgiven this loss. If they were forgiven 2017’s questionably shorthanded loss at Syracuse, a two overtime shorthanded loss on the road against a top-five team will be forgiven easily, and may even be treated as a credit to their depth and ability. We do not have historic precedent to tell us how this victory will be treated for Notre Dame. There is only one scenario in which it matters: the one in which the Irish win out through the regular season but lose the rematch to Clemson. But this scenario is rather likely, so let’s explore it. Here’s what we do know:
Margins Matter
As we say, Ohio State will tell you that margins matter (see: Iowa debacle, Purdue act of Tyler Trent). Blowout losses are bad, and while we don’t know exactly how a Notre Dame blowout loss to Clemson in Charlotte would impact things, we know it would reflect more strongly upon the Irish if they were to play Clemson close in that hypothetical game. Before then, Notre Dame would do well to turn on the firehose against tricky Boston College, inconsistent-but-talented UNC, bad Syracuse, and potentially lively Wake Forest.
Elsewhere, other contenders can do themselves favors by doing what Texas A&M did last night and stomping on throats. If BYU and Cincinnati don’t play close games and finish undefeated, there will be pushes to include them over a team that didn’t win its conference. If Oregon treats the Pac-12 like a juco league, it will be hard to keep the Ducks out. If Texas A&M finishes 9-1 with their only loss coming to Alabama…well, they still lost to Alabama by 28. A&M’s got a thin path.
Notre Dame Has the Best Win
This could prove a trump card, and there’s an outside shot that if Notre Dame wins in Chapel Hill and UNC goes and beats Miami, the Irish might have two wins better than the totality of their competition’s. If fate does not provide a clear four, there will be a factor chosen as the decisive one. It could be losses and the absence thereof. It could be wins. It could be quality wins. If it is quality wins, Notre Dame will make the playoff (again, in this scenario).
Covid Lurks
Upsets are a wildcard, but so is the coronavirus, and even if Alabama and the Buckeyes hold onto their perches and Clemson regains theirs, this race for the fourth spot could be shuffled not just by an outbreak within one of the teams in question, but by an outbreak affecting one of their opponents. Nothing is settled.
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Other notes:
- Cincinnati and BYU are good. SP+ has BYU as the sixth-best team in the country and Cincinnati as the tenth (Notre Dame is eighth, for those wondering, with Wisconsin fourth, Florida fifth, Oregon seventh, and Georgia ninth). Cincinnati has the better schedule. BYU has the better cachet. Both are legitimate factors in a way UCF never was in ’17 or ’18.
- Oregon is also good. There’s a lot of hate for the Pac-12 in the ecosystem, and the committee isn’t independent from the ecosystem, but the committee can sometimes pull the ecosystem through its rankings. If the Ducks keep playing well and the committee looks kindly upon them in the initial rankings, it’s possible the ecosystem will adjust and treat Oregon as it would in a normal year. i.e., with scorn but acknowledgment.
- Don’t forget Wisconsin. One of the weird possibilities out there is that someone on their schedule has an outbreak, the Big Ten doesn’t shuffle the schedule to get Wisconsin a makeup game, the Big Ten sticks to its six-games-minimum rule for the conference championship participant, and we get two undefeated teams out of the Big Ten, one of which is 6-0 and demolished everybody they played. It’s a niche scenario, but we’re here to explore those, so beyond just being a foil for Ohio State, the Badgers could prove to be a wildcard themselves. We really don’t know if the committee will punish teams for outbreaks.
- Georgia is officially done. There was a case being made for the Dawgs that said, “Well, they led Alabama in the third quarter,” but that case was only going to be relevant if the Dawgs won out or if there was so much chaos elsewhere that we were parsing one and two-loss résumés.
- Florida is not done. But they’re in the spot we expected Notre Dame to be in, in which in the placeholder expectation scenario, they need to win out, which would involve a sizable upset in the SEC Championship.
- As was said above, Texas A&M’s in these conversations, but it’s going to be really hard to make a case for the Aggies when they looked like high schoolers against Alabama. We’ll see.
