This was a difficult championship weekend to process. Certainly, it lacked drama and thanks to USC’s loss on Friday night in Las Vegas there was basically nothing at stake for the Power 5 matchups on Saturday. The top 2 seeds took care of business anyway, even if they didn’t need to, and the no. 3 seed lost in overtime and didn’t drop in the CFP rankings anyway.

Let’s hope the playoffs themselves brings us some drama. Although, Michigan can lose by 50 that’s okay by me too.

18 Stripes Top 20 Poll

National Storylines

Let’s not overlook Buffalo playing a rescheduled game against Akron on Friday night due to a huge snowstorm a couple weekends ago and then gaining bowl eligibility in the process.

Also on Friday, Caleb Williams suffered a hamstring injury in the re-match against Utah and once his play suffered the USC team seemed to check out for the rest of the game. That’s back-to-back Pac-12 championships for the Utes.

UTSA completed a perfect season in league play winning the Conference USA title 48-27 over North Texas. In response, despite no current athletic director at the helm, the Mean Green fired head coach Seth Littrell.

Led by a blocked field goal returned for a touchdown, Georgia breezed past LSU for their first SEC Championship since 2016. That’s 15 straight wins for the Dawgs stretching back to last year.

Michigan won their 44th and 18th outright Big Ten title this weekend beating freaking Purdue. Congratulations are in order.

We were joking in our Slack chat this weekend how much effort and emotion TCU quarterback Max Duggan was putting into the Big 12 Championship when the outcome wasn’t going to affect their playoff status. Our dude was truly upset after the loss. Get him some rest so the Hypnotoads can beat Michigan, for the love of God.

It looked like the Cade Klubnik era finally began for Clemson as the freshmen went 20 of 24 for 279 yards in the Tigers’ romp over North Carolina for the ACC title.

Tulane capped off a tremendous year by beating UCF 45-28 in the AAC Championship. The Green Wave have secured the Group of 5 auto-bid to the New Year’s 6 bowl slot.

Fifteen months ago, Toledo almost upset Notre Dame in South Bend. On Saturday, the Rockets won their 9th MAC title, and first since 2017, with a 17-7 win over Ohio at Ford Field.

Troy absolutely ripped Coastal Carolina apart 45-26 for the Sun Belt crown and led by 33 points entering the 4th quarter.

Boise State was -2 on turnovers and lost the Mountain West title to Fresno State, despite the Bulldogs only gaining 245 total yards.

New Mexico State’s game against San Jose State earlier this year was canceled following the death of Spartans’ running back Camdan McWright who was struck by a bus while riding a scooter. With 5 wins, NMSU appealed to the NCAA to face Valparaiso (and for a second FCS opponent to count towards 6 wins) on Saturday with the Aggies dominating 65-3 to gain bowl eligibility for just the 5th time in school history.

OUT:

For the first time all season, the top 20 in our rankings remains the same with some shuffling around included. After giving it some more thought, I’ve moved Tennessee ahead of Alabama. I think their resume is a little better thanks to the head-to-head win, plus FEI has the Vols one spot higher, too. Thankfully, we didn’t have to witness Alabama making the playoffs over Tennessee.

Opponent Watch

Here’s how Notre Dame’s 2022 opponents finished after championship weekend:

Ohio State (11-1): They sneak into the playoffs but get matched up against top seed Georgia. I want to see the Buckeyes beat Michigan in the playoffs for all of the laughs but that would mean Michigan makes the title game and instead we have to put all of our faith behind TCU.

Clemson (11-2): Well, the advanced stats say this isn’t a very good Clemson team for their standards and their once anointed star quarterback has now entered the portal. They still win the ACC comfortably and have a chance to gain momentum with a bowl victory under new quarterback Cade Klubnik.

USC (11-2): What could this season have been if not for pesky Utah??

North Carolina (9-4): Was this a good season? It’s the most wins for Mack Brown at North Carolina since arriving for his second stint in Chapel Hill. But 3 straight losses going into bowl season is rough.

Marshall (8-4): The Herd finish a not-terrible 67th in the FEI rankings with one of the country’s best defenses. With hindsight, it makes Notre Dame’s loss a little more understandable.

BYU (7-5): This was a super weird team and season for BYU. At times, both their offense and defense were all over the map.

Syracuse (7-5): Dino Babers is suffering some severe whiplash after starting 2022 on the hot seat, then moving into Coach of the Year candidacy, only to revert back to probably losing his job after 2023 if things don’t look a little better.

UNLV (5-7): It was one of the biggest shocks this season to see UNLV fire Marcus Arroyo after showing steady progress through 3 seasons. Something doesn’t smell right about this decision.

Navy (4-7): The Middies are currently 1-point underdogs for their upcoming game against Army this Saturday in Philadelphia.

California (4-8): I have a feeling Justin Wilcox is probably done in Berkeley after next season.

Stanford (3-9): The real ones will always look at this loss to Stanford as worse than the Marshall loss. The Cardinal finish the FEI rankings 89th nationally, 3rd worse on the 2022 Notre Dame schedule behind only Boston College and UNLV.

Boston College (3-9): It’s important to point out that head coach Jeff Hafley was hired by then-AD Martin Jarmond who is now at UCLA. The Eagles appointed Pat Kraft who left to be Penn State’s VP of Athletics after 2 years, so Hafley’s now dealing with his 3rd AD since coming to Chestnut Hill. There probably isn’t a ton of patience to keep the current status quo for much longer.

8 Bowl Games to Watch

Now featuring dates, channels, and times eastern!

Cure Bowl
UTSA (+1) vs. Troy
Exploria Stadium [Orlando, FL]
Friday 12/16, ESPN, 3:00 PM

The only bowl game between conference champions is coming before I’ll have any of my Christmas presents wrapped. How much longer can Jeff Traylor stay at UTSA, by the way? This could be back-to-back 12 win seasons, although the Roadrunners are losing their offensive coordinator to Oregon.

Las Vegas Bowl
Florida (+10) vs. Oregon State
Allegiant Stadium [Las Vegas, NV]
Saturday 12/17, ABC, 7:30 PM

This is the first of two bowl games that I found fascinating this year for similar reasons. On one side you have a blue blood coming off a bad year and probably not too invested in their post-season. On the other side, you have a non-blue blood coming off a terrific regular season. The spread is pretty indicative of this imbalance. Quite often, we get surprises at how this kind of matchup unfolds.

Holiday Bowl
Oregon (-10.5) vs. North Carolina
Petco Park [San Diego, CA]
Wednesday 12/28, Fox, 8:00 PM

I preferred that Notre Dame made it to this bowl game as I find Oregon much more appealing of an opponent and San Diego is several steps above Jacksonville. Instead, we get to see these 2 teams play each other and we might get to a combined 150 points.

Cheez-It Bowl
Oklahoma (+7.5) vs. Florida State
Camping World Stadium [Orlando, FL]
Thursday 12/29, ESPN, 5:30 PM

This mirrors a lot of the things going on in the Las Vegas Bowl, except both teams here in Orlando are blue bloods. Oklahoma has been nowhere this season while Florida State has gone through a nice quiet resurgence, albeit in a pretty weak ACC. You’d think the Seminoles will win easily and yet…

Alamo Bowl
Texas (-6) vs. Washington
Alamodome [San Antonio, TX]
Thursday 12/29, ESPN, 9:00 PM

Huskies quarterback Michael Penix, Jr. has announced he’ll return to Washington next year, so that’s cool. Be prepared to see him in a bunch of pre-season Heisman lists, especially if they beat Texas and finish with 11 wins. The same could be said for Quinn Ewers if he has a big game. Then again, if he doesn’t play well prepare for an off-season of Arch Manning hot takes that he’ll be winning this job.

Fiesta Bowl
TCU (+7.5) vs. Michigan
State Farm Stadium [Glendale, AZ]
Saturday 12/31, ESPN, 4:00 PM

TCU lost the Big 12 Championship so they could find more motivation in the playoffs. It’s science.

Pray to our new God.

Peach Bowl
Ohio State (+6.5) vs. Georgia
Mercedes-Benz Stadium [Atlanta, GA]
Saturday 12/31, ESPN, 8:00 PM

As mentioned above, Ohio State beating Michigan for the title would be some of the funniest content I could consume in my time on earth so far. Whatever happens, the winner of this game better not lose to Michigan if it comes down to that matchup. I know he hasn’t been healthy all season (he’d catch just 3 passes after taking that big hit from Brandon Joseph in the opener) but Jaxon Smith-Njigba skipping this game to prepare for the NFL is a big bummer.

Cotton Bowl
Tulane (+2) vs. USC
AT&T Stadium [Arlington, TX]
Monday 1/2, ESPN, 1:00 PM

This looks like a matchup we’d see back in 1929. Unfortunately, we don’t know the status of Caleb Williams but the early reports out of Los Angeles are that his hamstring injury is pretty serious and he’s doubtful to play in the Cotton Bowl. That would be a bummer but also opens the door to a pretty neat Tulane win. I’m assuming if Williams were healthy this line would be 8 to 10 points higher in favor of USC.