Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/605097
In the previous system, head coach Brian Kelly's Irish would have been on the outside looking in, desperately needing the three teams ahead of them — Clemson, Alabama and Ohio State — to lose. Yet even one of them losing would not be enough. Instead, similar to Major League Baseball in recent years adding one and then two wild-card entrants into the pennant sweepstakes, Notre Dame was one of the four finalists and had at least some (but not total) sense of controlling its own destiny. If the four top teams held serve through Thanksgiving weekend, the main threat to the one-loss Irish team getting supplanted from the fourth spot was a 12-0 Oklahoma State edi- tion winning the Big 12 — and maybe, but less likely, 11-1 Oklahoma generat- ing enough momentum to receive the nod. Because of the four-team format, playoff fever has enveloped college football much more than in the past because of opening up more possi- bilities to teams in the closing weeks of the regular season. On one hand, yes, the current four- team format appears to make Notre Dame's access toward the champion- ship easier. On the other, it's not quite as favorable as the old early matchup possibility that existed until 1995. THE OLD SYSTEM For the most part, bowl games were irrelevant and glorified exhibitions until 1968 — which is part of the rea- son why Notre Dame had a no-bowl policy until 1969. That's because both wire service polls, the Associated Press (AP) and United Press International (UPI), awarded the national title at the end of the regular season. What happened in bowl games did not matter. Then in 1968, the AP changed its policy and opted to wait until after the bowl games were played to award the national title. What was not altered back then was for the most part the "Big Four" bowls — Rose, Cotton, Sugar and Orange — were tied in to conference champs. The Rose would feature the Big Ten and Pac-8 (later Pac-10 and Pac-12) winners, the Cotton would host the Southwest Conference champ (usu- ally Texas) and the Orange would welcome the Big 8 champion (usually Oklahoma or Nebraska). Also, bowl games back then ex- tended invitations to independent teams such as Notre Dame about two weeks before the regular season actu- ally ended. This was ideal for the Irish from 1969-80 — when they were matched up with the No. 1 and undefeated team in the land six times in those 12 years. That brings us to how a four-team playoff today is maybe not quite as beneficial to Notre Dame as that old system was. THE FINAL FOUR In the 47 seasons from 1968-2014, or once the AP decided to include bowl games in the final rankings, Notre Dame finished the regular season in the AP top four only five times, believe it or not: 1973 (No. 3), 1988 (No. 1), 1989 (No. 4), 1993 (No. 4) and 2012 (No. 1). Yet in several other seasons, Notre