Notre Dame fans entered the weekend with stars in their eyes and visions of the coveted #5 seed in the College Football Playoff. Just about nothing that had to happen for that to transpire took place, and instead the Irish were seeded #7 (with a true rank of #5 by the committee) and matched up with Indiana in the first round, set to be played Friday night, Dec. 20 at Notre Dame Stadium. The winner will face SEC champion and No. 2 seed Georgia in the Sugar Bowl the evening of Jan. 1, with that bracket feeding into the Orange Bowl semifinal Jan. 9 prior to the Jan. 20 national championship game.
The full bracket below:
Some bracket takeaways:
All in all, not the worst path for Notre Dame
Of course we’re all looking at this bracket from a Notre Dame perspective, and…it could have been worse. Yes, the Irish could have gotten an easier draw (see a few paragraphs below), but they will open the playoff against a very good IU team that nevertheless defeated exactly one team with a winning record (Michigan), and barely escaped them at that. ND has a solid raw talent advantage over IU, and the computer folks see the game as roughly a touchdown spread in the Irish’s favor, which lines up with the Vegas opening lines. The Hoosiers struggled to move the ball against either Michigan or Ohio State, which bodes well for a matchup against an ND defense that is more comparable to those teams than any other IU opponents.
If there’s a part of the matchup that could be tricky, it’s that Hoosier coach Curt Cignetti has coached in a championship format several times as a HC and an assistant and Marcus Freeman has not – but given how adept Freeman has been for having his teams ready for the big games (even if they haven’t all ended well), how concerning is that gap, really?
Should ND earn a first-round win, Georgia in the Sugar Bowl isn’t the ideal scenario, as the Bulldogs probably have as much talent as any team in the country. That said, UGA has looked remarkably mortal for much of the season; the Bulldogs struggled to escape a Kentucky team that won one game over a power-conference opponent, got handled by Ole Miss, and were lucky to escape a home game against a Georgia Tech squad Notre Dame soundly defeated in Atlanta. This is to say nothing of the fact that Bulldog quarterback Carson Beck took a hand injury in the (now hilariously pointless in a 12-team playoff world) SEC title game and his status is unknown at the moment. Backup Gunner Stockton did enough to win but might have benefited from Texas being unprepared for his running threat. That said, Georgia’s defense is straight-up elite, and ND would have a hard time moving the ball on them. It’s likely the Irish would need a couple of game-breaking runs, impressive all-around play from the offensive line, and several clutch plays from Riley Leonard to have a chance to win.
That said, if ND somehow gets past that, none of the 3 teams that could emerge from the Penn State/SMU/Boise State triad would be, on paper, scary for the Irish if they bring home the Georgia pelt to hang on the wall.
Meanwhile, on the top half of the bracket, Ohio State, Tennessee, Oregon and Texas will all be slugging it out. That’s perfectly fine with me.
The team is reasonably healthy
Notre Dame has been crushed by injuries, by any reasonable standard, this season. However, Howard Cross (missed the USC game) and Jeremiyah Love (banged up during said game) are both going to be back for the IU game, per Marcus Freeman. (Kyngstonn Viliamu-Asa, however, is out indefinitely, and none of the other previously injured players will be back this season.)
ND, like IU, got what amounted to 2 bye weeks before this game, so we should be close to the best from both teams.
Penn State probably has the most enviable path, and that’s ND’s fault
I won’t pretend that anything about this is rational, but that the college football world has been forced to pretend Penn State is an elite program the past several seasons when their best accomplishments have involved losing close in mostly noncompetitive games against their best opponents has driven me and several of our writers completely nuts. So there’s something infuriatingly poetic about the Nittany Lions drawing probably the most navigable path to the finals of any team in the entire playoff – SMU and Boise State teams PSU is on paper significantly better than, then a potentially compromised Georgia as the best possible semifinal opponent.
You can’t rule out James Franklin James Franklin-ing it up, but PSU really has no excuse not to at least reach the semifinals and probably make the finals. Let’s hope they don’t.
On that topic, I know some people do, but I have no particular arguments with Notre Dame’s seeding. I think the committee was pretty dead set against giving ND a #5 spot after that loss to NIU regardless of what else happened because it would’ve rendered the game effectively meaningless (since ND can’t get any higher in the seeding). Had the Irish been able to earn a signature win or two along the way, they would’ve had a solid argument to be ahead of either or both of Texas and Penn State despite that, but ND’s opponents didn’t hold up their end, with #22 Army serving as (by ranking) the best win. (Because I don’t think it really matters anyway, I’ll spare you my rant about us pretending #20 Illinois is good when pretty much any non-poll metric thinks they’re significantly worse than the Louisville and Texas A&M teams ND beat but are unranked.)
The first round games should be fun
I was on record as being against expanding the playoff beyond four. (BTW, who would’ve made a 4-team playoff this year? Oregon and Georgia seem obvious, then I guess you’ve got Notre Dame, Texas and Penn State in a debate battle royale for 2 open spots? Maybe IU gets involved too by virtue of being 11-1? That would’ve been quite the sight.) However, I always conceded that the actual new playoff games themselves would likely be fun, especially early. I’m optimistic these matchups will deliver the goods.
The most lopsided matchup on paper looks like Clemson @ Texas, but Dabo Swinney has come up big in huge matchups before, and Quinn Ewers frankly did not look good yesterday. He’s either hurt or he’s regressing, but he could barely move in the pocket and tossed floaters all over the stadium. If UT is going to stick with him and he’s going to play like that, I think Clemson has a puncher’s chance at an upset. SMU @ Penn State might be a bit of a slog, one of those 17-point PSU wins no one, even their fans, enjoys watching – but it’s not crazy to think the Mustangs could play with them. Tennessee/Ohio State has the makings of a banger, and you already know about ND/IU. (ESPN’s long-reported salivation over having the first ever campus playoff game be at Notre Dame came to fruition, and with one of this season’s best stories on the other side, too. It’s nice when a scrappy underdog like Disney gets their way sometimes.)
The dream is alive
All ND fans really wanted out of this season was a home playoff game and a chance. We got it. Notre Dame enters the playoff with a not-horrible draw, a lot of momentum and a team that pretty universally is thought to be a real threat. (Did you notice that a lot of media folks thought ND would or at least should be a #5 seed despite everything?)
It’s been 4 years since we had reason to think much about actual ND football games in December. It’s a fun thing to do and I could get used to it.
All I want for Christmas is……we can talk about New Years after that.
With the 4-team playoff, things were tight enough that conference championship games were seen as a neutral or positive. They were seen as de facto play-in games. This meant that no one was crying about a conference game loser dropping out, because if you can’t even win your conference, are you really in the top 4? The narrative changed because there are now a bunch of teams that are in the playoff w/o even making their conference game (not unheard of, but pretty rare in the 4-team version), and thus having no risk in week 16.
That’s a long way to say if it was a 4-team playoff, I don’t think there’s any way PSU is ranked ahead of ND in the final rankings. And, I don’t think there would be even much debate about it. The only debate would be Texas or ND at 3. This weeks AP is a pretty good representation of a true ranking without consideration for trying to artificially avoid “punishing” conference game losers.
I have an extra reason to be excited for our first home playoff game.
It’s the first ever Notre Dame football game to be played on my birthday. I know what I’m wishing for when I blow out the candles!
We’ll all be singing you Happy Birthday after Notre Dame Our Mother if we come out on the plus side of this!
First ever home field home playoff game in south bend, 11-1 record, beat-dat-ass in almost every game, and a realistic shot make some noize in the postseason.
I’ll take this squad all day for its perfections and imperfections. All this extraneous selection crap is past tense now, just go TCB on 12/20!
After the NIU loss, some posters here were calling on ND to give up on this season, bench Leonard, and play CJ Carr. I didn’t go that far, although I assumed we would not make the playoffs, and this season would be a failure.
At this point, what constitutes a “successful” season for Marcus Freeman in everyone’s eyes? For me, I think I would say winning a home playoff game would make this year successful. What does everyone else think?
I think beating IU makes the season a ‘not-failure,’ beating Georgia makes it an unqualified success.
But screw it. Let’s go all the way.
I think winning against IU and a close game against Georgia is a success. Beyond that is more than successful. Though I do think it’s possible (and not in a hey they made it so anything is possible way) for this team to make the championship.
All good remarks. Love this site. That said, harking back to my Lou Somogyi-heavily influenced riff on “Year 3 for all ND coaches”:
Not that I’m exactly comparing them but tbf, Pete Carroll was pretty good for one of those too. And they’re more survivable now if you win out.
Pete Carroll would have thrived in a college football world with a playoff.
They would always lose some stinker and then beat some Big Ten opponent in a bowl
I am very glad he left USC and didn’t come back.
Me too. Remember.
Pete Carroll eats babies.
I was one of those people and absolutely didn’t think the team had it in them to do this after that massive egg-laying against NIU, who ended up being an ok MAC team. Missing the playoffs would’ve been a failure regardless – we should consistently be a roughly top 12 team at a minimum. Beating IU is a must and that puts us into “good season” territory. Getting pasted by Georgia makes this more like a good but frustrating season – not so much for the season itself but for what it probably means the state of the program still is. A close or closer loss can still be good. I’ll note that this is based on the pre-season presumption of it being our best chance to really threaten for a title that we’ve had in a while.
I certainly thought we had no shot at a home playoff game after NIU – I thought 10-2 was likeliest at that point. Very happy to be wrong there.
I agree with others: you can’t call this season a success if we don’t beat Indiana. Home playoff game was a goal, and so we’ve had a successful regular season – as noted above, we would be in the playoff in a 4-team setup – but if we’re not one of the last 8 teams then it just wasn’t a very good year (especially without anything resembling a signature win). Still, regardless of what happens, Freeman has earned an extension; it’s just a question of how big of one. Let’s hope he wins a natty and earns a huge one.
Andy knows that I’ve argued passionately in the writers’ room about why it was absurd for the committee to leave us behind Penn State in the pre-CCG rankings, but I’ll lay it out here one more time:
People point to their SOS advantage, but that was propped up by the back half of their schedule being less awful than the back half of ours. The top half of ours was actually better than theirs. We even had a much better performance against a good common opponent! I knew when the committee kept us behind them after the USC game that they weren’t going to drop them behind us unless they got absolutely hammered in the Big Ten title game. It’s stupid, but it is what it is.
Perhaps a sobering thought for Penn State fans: Their best win, USC, took them to overtime, and is ranked 20th in FEI. SMU is ranked 13th. Go Ponies.
I think Penn State being ranked ahead of us after losing a conference championship game, especially given the foregoing, is a pretty good piece of evidence that we should join the B1G. To me the price of independence is increasingly not worth it, and the downsides to joining the B1G get smaller and smaller as the conference expands.
ND lost to NIU. Every other argument is nice and good, but at the end of the day, if you lost to a MAC team, you’ve dug your own grave. I wouldn’t have even been upset if the committee determined we didn’t deserve a home game.
Also relevant:
https://x.com/TheIrishTribune/status/1866527845171794401
EDIT: If you’re not on Twitter… Cignetti made a media appearance and said he didn’t understand why Indiana wasn’t hosting a playoff game given that ND lost to Northern Illinois. Seems kind of like waving the red cape in front of the bull, but go ahead pal.
Didn’t he get pretty chesty before the ohio state game, I guess starting last offseason. and they put it on them then scored the last touchdown just to punctuate it.
In always nervous about ND games, but this indiana team does have me a bit worried. would certainly have preferred a different path. Funny enough a part of me does want georgia though. gotta get the first
Anyone else a little curious/concerned about the game environment with many students going home for winter break? A loud and rowdy student section helps set the mood for the rest of the stadium. Does anyone think the crowd may be just a notch quieter without the usual number of students?
Heck of a good question. This is kinda my hobby horse, as I have alluded to, too many times I’m sure. Normally the answer is absolutely yes, it’s likely to tamp down the noise; we’ve always been a student body driven home crowd
But lately the big video board team has been doing a pretty good job of bringing the rest of the crowd along. And even educating them on the key moments, and especially starting to pump up while the opposing team is in their huddle.
In this case, there’s been a ton of interest, the game sold out right away, everybody will be cold, so standing up and making noise could actually be a good physical thing.
So I kinda think, we’ll see. I did hear the university adjusted the academic calendar months ago to take into account hosting a playoff game. Also, it being Friday night could actually help with the students — two of my former interns just texted me that they’re sticking around.
Anybody else have any thoughts?
I hear they’re selling beer in the stadium….that’ll help raise the volume.
The first person uttering “down in front” should be exiled from the campus !
Better, Irish Coffee (gonna be chilly!)
Amen on the down in front crap!
And air push-ups should be allowed in all sections, not just for the students!
(Ushers shut us down in Section 6 against FSU after the 3rd TD or so.)
The ushers catering to the crowd that thought a football game was like going to the theater was always the worst part of a home game experience
For real! Fun police are no fun… what’s always a bummer about high profile games in sports is the dilution of real fan attendance and it’s a status thing for folks. They’re there for the kickoff selfie and not INTO the game. I hope there’s enough tickets going to die hards, and that the ushers will enable razors edge wild fun. I doubt the stadium will ever achieve SEC levels of insanity, but like that should be the goal
How did ND handle ticket sales and what were the prices. I’ve read IU got 3500, were the rest ND’s to allot ? No way they were sold at the secondary prices being reported.
They held a lottery. I won, my cousin Mary (assistant sacristan at the ND Basilica) lost. Prices were pegged by section: top 250, then 200, 150, like that. North End Zone, lower down, right by the Band. I got downgraded from 250 to 150. So I have no idea where the resale stuff came from.
Leaves me wondering how many $1000+ tickets are actually out there???