Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/598383
UNDER THE DOME NOTRE DAME NO. 5 IN INITIAL COLLEGE FOOTBALL PLAYOFF POLL The initial College Football Playoff poll was released Nov. 3 with 7-1 Notre Dame coming in at a surprising No. 5. It remained No. 8 in the As- sociated Press poll, but the CFP committee ranking is the only one that matters when four teams are selected Dec. 6 to vie for the national title. The company line among Fighting Irish players and coaches was the ranking is irrelevant if business on the field isn't taken care of over the final four regular season games. Popularly pointed out was 2014 national champion Ohio State was No. 16 when the first CFP committee rankings were released last year. Two factors helped Notre Dame's high ranking. Foremost was the overall sched- ule quality. This included Irish opponents handing the single losses to No. 12 Utah (by USC), No. 15 Oklahoma (by Texas) and No. 16 Florida State (by Georgia Tech). Second was Notre Dame's lone loss was at Clemson — voted No. 1 — on the road in a white knuckler (24-22). In 2006, Notre Dame was 10-1 head- ing into its regular-season finale at USC — but it had no shot at playing for the title. That's because in game three it lost at home to Michigan, 47-21. That margin of defeat on your own turf was not going to be acceptable to anyone. An initial and wishful analysis might state, "All Notre Dame has to do is win out to finish 11-1 while one of the four teams ahead of it loses." If it were only so simple, though. Should Notre Dame finish 11-1, an unbeaten Big Ten team, an unbeaten Big 12 outfit, unbeaten Clemson and an unbeaten or even one-loss SEC team would still likely get the nods for the four-team playoff. So many unbeaten teams in one season almost never happen, but that is still out of Notre Dame's control. Its lone objective is to start playing its best football over the final month of the regular season after going through numerous tests, including season-ending injuries to a half-dozen starters and three fourth-quarter comeback wins. "What I've told them is they've been tested," Kelly said. "Their mettle has been tested … let's use that to our advantage in the way we play. Don't worry about the score. You can't control those things. "What you can control is the last month you've been tested against very good football teams, three of them undefeated and one being USC. That should bode well as we work through the month of November."