Great going, Good List! If you’ll recall from last week, we identified five games where the Irish could jump the potential loser. None of those games came to fruition. Fortunately, Ohio State finally exorcised its Michigan demons, ending the possibility of the Wolverines jumping into the CFP discussion.
Worse still, the CFP committee bumped Alabama ahead of Notre Dame in its penultimate rankings, meaning the Irish sit as the last at-large team in the field. That arguably means Bad List item #1 has already happened—Bama hasn’t won the SEC (yet), but the damage may already be done.
A second Bad List item would knock the Irish from the CFP field. The two possibilities left: (1) Miami leapfrogs Notre Dame, or (2) BYU wins the Big 12.
The first became much less likely Tuesday night, when the CFP committee ranked the #10 Irish ahead of the #12 Miami Hurricanes. A flip-flop of the Irish and Hurricanes on Selection Sunday would represent a Bad List event. To avoid a second Bad List event, or in the case of Alabama, potentially reverse a Bad List event, our Rooting Interests for Championship Weekend are as follows:
SATURDAY
#4 Texas Tech (-12.5) over #11 BYU, Noon ET, ABC
The game to watch. If Texas Tech wins, Notre Dame is very likely in. A Red Raiders loss could see the Irish on the wrong side of the playoff bubble.
We said it before the first matchup between these two teams kicked off: we wanted whoever won that game to win the Big 12 to keep that conference to a one-bid league. We felt more comfortable with Texas Tech because they appeared to be the better team. Four weeks later, as much as everything else has changed, this all remains the same.
#3 Georgia (-2.5) over #9 Alabama, 4pm ET, ABC
The last non-CFP win for the Dawgs in this series was 2007. Georgia has lost seven straight in this series as the higher-ranked team, dating back to 2003, and including losses in each of the last two years.
Alabama feels safe from a playoff perspective unless they get boat raced in Atlanta. But could the Irish jump back up to #9 with a Bama loss? A Texas Tech win would likely make this game more comfortable, possibly representing the difference between a 9- and 10-seed. Otherwise, we’d be hoping for a Georgia blowout of the Crimson Tide.
FRIDAY
Boise State (-4) over UNLV
Not a bona fide Good List item, but c’mon, we only have two other games this week!
Boise State earned a surprise berth to the Mountain West Championship Game, courtesy of a four-way, four-computer-ranking-system tiebreaker. Better still, thanks to a 56-31 win earlier in the season against the Rebels, the Broncos will host UNLV on the Smurf Turf.
Notre Dame, of course, knocked off Boise State in Notre Dame Stadium back in October. A win against the potential Mountain West champion couldn’t hurt when it comes to the Irish’s standing compared to Alabama. But why don’t we raise the stakes a bit?
Let’s say the Broncos win the MWC. The ACC, of course, has an even-more unlikely championship game participant in the 7-5 Duke Blue Devils. Let’s say Duke claims the ACC Championship, a real possibility against the underwhelming Virginia Cavaliers. This is where we have to provide a quick reminder of the CFP rules: the top 5 conference champions receive automatic playoff berths. So the ACC champion doesn’t necessarily get an automatic-berth, especially a five-loss one like Duke! In that scenario, the Group of Five conference could receive two automatic bids!
Let’s flesh this scenario out further. The winner of the American Athletic Conference (North Texas or Tulane) looks well situated to claim one of those two remaining bids (Tulane defeated Duke earlier in the season, and North Texas would be 12-1). The next team poised for a bid would be 11-1 James Madison out of the Sun Belt Conference. But they still have a date with old friend Gerad Parker’s Troy squad in the Sun Belt title game. Let’s assume the Trojans upset JMU (fine, this is a long shot as Troy is a 22.5-point underdog, but we’re vibing here!).
In this scenario, would the CFP committee select 9-4 MWC champion Boise State over 8-5 ACC champion Duke as the final autobid conference champion? If I had a magic 8 ball, I’d say probably not, but it’s possible, I guess? Regardless, this would make for a hilarious Selection Sunday watching the ACC having to lobby to receive any CFP bids at all. The karmic retribution for Team A/Team B would be hysterical.
To squeeze a little more fun out of football season before whatever BS occurs on Saturday surely we should support FOTP Gerad Parker as 23.5 point dogs against JMU.
And for when you need to turn off the TTU/BYU game old friend Chuck Martin is a 2.5 point dog against young friend Lance Taylor.
Chuck getting to the title game for a third year in a row was pretty impressive given his QB, 7th year FBS QB Dequan Finn, quit the team in a cursing tirade after their 11/4 loss to rival Ohio, but then showed up to play after missing the whole week of practice 11/12 before being told he was benched(?) and then he re-quit the team after that game.
That’s a wild story about Finn, I can’t believe I didn’t hear about this!
I feel like the committee is really struggling with OU v Bama v BYU v ND v Miami. I really wish they didn’t have to release weekly rankings because they end up twisting themselves into knots.
Last night I was convinced Miami wouldn’t leapfrog us. Now I’m not sure if we both landed 10/11 what would happen.
While I agree that I don’t want them to release weekly rankings, I think it’s possible that it actually benefited us this year. They dropped Miami so far after that 2nd loss that there just hasn’t been a good case to bump them all the way up ahead of us.
If they had waited until now or next week to release rankings, they could say that Miami has rounded back into form, beat Pitt by more than we did, and the head to head tiebreaker is the difference. (I guess they could still do that now, but they dropped them so far after that second loss that they just really haven’t had the opportunity to make up ground)
BYU loses, Alabams loses by 7, Virginia wins, Tulane/N. Tx , JMU & BSU win. What happens ?
My guess: ND up to 9, Bama down to 10, BYU stays at 11, Virginia takes the 11 seed, and Tulane takes the 12.
I’m curious how far up Bama would move if they beat Georgia. A win over the #3 team is obviously a big deal, but they’ve also already beaten them this year. If Bama wins again and Texas Tech wins again, could the SEC end up with 0 teams in the top 4?
If OSU and IU play a close game and either Georgia or Texas Tech lose, would the Big 10 end up with 3 teams in the top 4?
This is the optimal scenario for ND.
What I’m worried about is BYU loses big, Bama wins; as a result, we’re right next to Miami for the last at large. Will the public pressure lead to a flip in ordering?
What we really want is BYU to lose on a last-second field goal.
I am very interested in seeing how they handle conf champ game losses. I believe in years past they explicitly said they wouldn’t be considered, but I think they said they would consider considering it this year.
Looking at FEI, which removes garbage time, ND is significantly better than Miami, who is significantly better than OU, BYU, and Ole Miss (who secretly isn’t great). But since everyone is comparing ND and Miami, we have a much better offense, better defense, slightly better SoS, one spot better SoR, better losses, better win likelihood against every common opponent (and even 72% against Miami).
Of course ND is #4 in FEI, and closer to #1 than #5. The committee clearly isn’t looking at that.
So I am very with you on wanting BYU to lose close. Miami looks better than ND when you look at the surface level stats and I don’t trust the committee to dig too deep.
As far as if it comes down to Miami vs. ND, in the end the easiest way out for the committee is “well ya it’s close so we’re going with head to head.” And for those who say “it doesn’t make sense”, it doesn’t mean they’re weighing the game more but, that other things changing some, have closed the gap. For instance, winning out comfortably, after loss two, being one. Perhaps their low ranking a few weeks ago was because they didn’t expect that. IDK. Miami certainly hadn’t done it yet. Yes, there are counter arguments. I’m not saying I agree with it but, it is not illogical.
This may be my ND bias, but I feel that if you can play your way into the playoff through a conference championship, like Clemson last year, then there should be no reason that you can’t play your way out of the playoff.
Also (tangent rant) why is “ND doesn’t have to play in a conference championship” even exist as a statement against us in the 12 team playoff? Neither does half the potential field (Oregon, Ole Miss, OU, A&M, and ND).
I don’t want to be next to Miami for comparison sake, but for final seeding (assuming OSU wins) I’d rather end with the 10 seed rather than 9. OSU is the only team that I think we’d need to play “perfect” to beat, and so I’d rather not be on their side of the bracket.
Post SEC Champ game odds to make the playoff:
ND -1000
Bama -325
Miami +154
Nothing is guaranteed, but looking good.