No. 8 Notre Dame’s College Football Playoff hopes might have slipped through Ty Buchner’s hands. There was Buchner, the former Notre Dame quarterback turned lacrosse national champion player, ready to take the snap on the PAT following a Notre Dame touchdown that gave the Irish a 40-34 lead with 2:53 to play. Only he couldn’t get a grip on it. The ball slipped through Buchner’s hands, and though he tried to make a play out of it, he couldn’t.
He then had to sit on the sideline and watch No. 16 Texas A&M march down the field to score a touchdown of its own and make the extra point to defeat the Irish 41-40. The loss dropped Notre Dame to 0-2 on the season, with the losses coming by four points combined. Both losses may have come by razor-thin margins, with the results possibly turning on 100 different plays, but none of it matters.
The truth is Notre Dame is 0-2 and its playoff hopes are on life support.
Yes, there’s a world in which the Irish win 10 straight games to finish the regular season, and it’s hard to imagine the College Football Playoff ignoring a 10-2 Notre Dame team that’s won 10 straight. But the Irish would still need help. Miami and Texas A&M are currently the only two ranked teams on Notre Dame’s schedule. It’s possible Boise State will make its way back in as the season progresses, and maybe USC squeezes in this week, but would wins over them be enough to persuade the committee to give the Irish a spot over another 10-2 at-large candidate from the Big Ten or SEC?
What if it’s between a 10-2 Notre Dame with wins over USC and Boise against a 9-3 Georgia that lost games to Alabama, Auburn and Texas, but picked up wins against Tennessee, Ole Miss and a Georgia Tech team that might reach the ACC Championship Game?
There’s a lot of unknown context to the situation, but this is the position the Irish are in now. They have no conference championship to save them. Their resume will be picked apart and scrutinized in comparison to every other at-large candidate. Not only do they need to win out, but they need Texas A&M and Miami to thrive. They need chaos to strike in the Big Ten, SEC, ACC and Big 12 to hurt the resumes of their non-champions.
Most importantly, they need to win every single game, but what has Notre Dame shown to this point to make that seem even slightly realistic? Yes, the losses have been close, but the Irish just gave up 41 points at home to Texas A&M. The Irish defense didn’t allow more than 35 points in a single game last season, and only allowed more than 24 twice. The Notre Dame defense that averaged 5.44 tackles for loss per game last season has four total through two games.
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Yes, Notre Dame survived a home loss to Northern Illinois last year and reached the title game, but that’s because the second loss never came. It did this year, in the second game. The Irish will have to light a lot of candles in the Grotto to see this out.
Meanwhile, Clemson has no hope
There’s a chance I’ll live to regret this because Clemson can still technically win the ACC, but it’s a chance I’m willing to take, so here goes.
Clemson’s done. There will be no College Football Playoff for the Tigers this year. Go ahead and print this out and hand it around the locker room, Dabo. It’s not going to matter. If Saturday’s loss to Georgia Tech didn’t show the world how exceedingly ordinary this Clemson team is, I’m not sure what will.
Now, don’t get me wrong. Clemson isn’t a bad football team. It’s a good one. The problem is that the goal isn’t to be good. Clemson is supposed to be a great team. An elite one. It wasn’t too long ago, but those days feel further and further away every week. They may have been able to overcome their faults last year to win the ACC and sneak into the field, but this year’s ACC isn’t last year’s.
Miami looks legit, as does Florida State. Georgia Tech just beat the Tigers, so they have that tie-breaker, and have you seen the rest of Georgia Tech’s schedule? The bad news for Tech is they’ve had plenty of trouble beating the average teams in recent years, but the good news is there’s a whole lot of average to below-average teams between now and that date with Georgia after Thanksgiving!
But we’re not here to talk about Georgia Tech (yet). We’re here to talk Clemson. The same Clemson that’s 8-6 against Power Four competition since the beginning of last season. Not ranked teams, any team in the Power Four. If you can’t count on Clemson to beat the teams it’s more talented than, who can you count on it to beat anymore? The idea that this team won’t suffer a third (or fourth) loss before the end of the regular season feels extremely far-fetched right now.
They’re in the ROY Bus until further notice.
Georgia Tech has a legit shot
I just mentioned Georgia Tech’s remaining schedule while writing about Clemson, and if you haven’t looked it up yet, go ahead and see for yourself. The Jackets get Temple this week, but the rest of their ACC slate consists of Wake Forest, a Virginia Tech team that’s 0-3 and could fire its coach any moment now, a Duke squad that’s lost two straight, Syracuse, NC State, Boston College and Pitt.
Those seven remaining ACC opponents are a combined 11-10. They’re only 8-10 if you take out NC State. As long as Haynes King stays healthy — which is not a given considering the beating he exposes himself to every week — this Tech team has a legitimate shot of reaching Charlotte.
Miami isn’t on that schedule, nor is Florida State. Those two must play one another, though, and the ‘Noles play Clemson, too. They could knock each other out of the picture, and suddenly, the Yellow Jackets are this year’s SMU.
The SEC picture is not as clear
It’s damn near a certainty the SEC will get at least four teams in this year, even if one of them is 9-3. Don’t yell at me about it, either. After beating Notre Dame and Wisconsin this weekend, the league improved to 10-2 against Power Four opponents in nonconference play.
None of the other three Power Four leagues is over .500 in such games.
It’s been a dominant September for the SEC, and that will benefit it come decision time. Where the problems start is when you try to figure out who the teams will be at the top of the league. No. 11 South Carolina saw LaNorris Sellers get knocked out of the game with an injury and promptly lost at home to Vanderbilt 31-7. Ask Alabama what a loss to Vandy can do to your playoff hopes.
Nobody will hold a 44-41 loss at home to No. 6 Georgia against No. 15 Tennessee, but it certainly makes the path tougher for the Vols. They’re starting 0-1 in the SEC and still have to play Alabama on the road, as well as Oklahoma at home.
Florida is 1-2, and while you might think that disqualifies it from realistic at-large conversations, it has games remaining against Miami, Texas, Texas A&M, Georgia, Ole Miss, Tennessee, and Florida State. I strongly doubt it’ll win enough of those games to remain relevant in the discussion come the end of the season, but even if it loses to Miami next week to fall to 1-3, it’s still only 0-1 in the SEC.
Texas is 2-1 but looks mediocre. Well, that’s not fair. The defense looks incredible. Arch Manning and the offense? An entirely different story.
Meanwhile, ever since being written off after a 31-17 loss to Florida State, Alabama has outscored its last two opponents 111-14. Georgia doesn’t look as good as it did when it was winning national titles a few years ago, but it still looks plenty good enough to go on the road to win a shootout in Knoxville.
Ole Miss is 2-0 in SEC play but hasn’t looked incredible getting there. LSU beat Florida this week, but hasn’t scored more than 23 points in a game, and the combined record of the three teams it’s beaten is currently 4-5. Louisiana Tech is the only team it’s beaten with a winning record!
Texas A&M just beat Notre Dame to get to 3-0, but is allowing 28.7 points per game, and hasn’t played a conference game yet. Still, when you look at the Aggies’ SEC schedule, it doesn’t look daunting in comparison to what other teams in the league have to get through.
All of which is to say that the SEC will get at least four teams in, and may even get five, but I’ve no idea who the hell those teams will be. I mean, I didn’t even mention Oklahoma, Missouri, or Vanderbilt, and guess what? They’re all very much in the picture, too!
It was a bad weekend for the Big Ten
The Big Ten lost both its P4 noncon games in Week 3, with Wisconsin falling to Alabama 38-14 and Minnesota losing 27-14 on the West Coast against Cal. The losses drop the league to 5-5 in such games, and to 1-2 against the SEC, which could matter a lot come selection Sunday.
Still, the worst loss in the Big Ten came thanks to UCLA, which not only lost at home to New Mexico on Friday, but did so by 25 points. The Bruins are now 0-3 with two losses to Mountain West teams. There’s a chance this team could go winless based on what we’ve seen so far, which would be an anchor on the strengths of schedule for the Big Ten teams on their schedule.
That includes three of the league’s playoff participants last season in Penn State, Ohio State and Indiana, as well as at-large hopefuls like Nebraska, Washington and USC.
That ninth conference game doesn’t help much when it’s UCLA filling it.
Week 4 vibe shifters
A look ahead to the five games on next week’s slate most likely to impact the playoff race
No. 21 Texas Tech at No. 20 Utah
No. 24 Auburn at No. 13 Oklahoma
Tulane at No. 17 Ole Miss
No. 23 Michigan at Nebraska
No. 9 Illinois at No. 22 Indiana
This week’s CFP Projection
1. Ohio State
2. Miami
3. Georgia
4. Utah
5. Oregon
6. Alabama
7. Penn State
8. Florida State
9. LSU
10. Texas A&M
11. Oklahoma
12. USF
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