Blue & Gold Illustrated: America's Foremost Authority on Notre Dame Football
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mittee — expected to be similar to the one that selects the NCAA men's basketball tournament field each March — weighs myriad factors to choose a Final Four. Will it be strength of schedule? Won-loss re- cord? Head-to-head results? A conference title? On paper, last year's four national semifi- 2014-25. This new 12-year deal will replace the 16-year Bowl Championship Series (BCS) format (1998-2013) in which the objective was to match No. 1 versus No. 2. Yet to be resolved is how a future com- A new era dawned on college football this summer when school presi- dents approved a four-team playoff to crown a national champion from nalists would have been No. 1 LSU vs. No. 4 Stanford, and No. 2 Alabama vs. No. 3 Oklahoma State, with the winners meeting for the title. However, No. 5 Oregon defeated No. 4 BY LOU SOMOGYI have been implemented in 1969, even with Hall of Fame coaches Ara Parseghian (1964-74), Dan Devine (1975-80) and Lou Holtz (1986-96), Notre Dame might have advanced to the Final Four only those four aforementioned times out of 23 years (once per six seasons). It gives one an appreciation of just how difficult it is to reach that Final Four. when the AP poll voted on a national champion after the bowl games were played. Prior to 1968, the national champ was voted on after the regular season, ren- dering bowl games into almost glorified exhibitions. That's part of the reason why Notre Dame opted not to go to bowls from 1925-68. In 1969, it changed. If the current four-team format would We use 1968 as the base because that's Stanford head-to-head — so would the committee have moved the Ducks into the national semifinal instead despite having two losses while Stanford had just one? Over the past 18 seasons, Notre Dame has finished in the top 10 only once (No. 9 in 2005), so it would seem silly, if not delu- sional, at this point to discuss how the new format is more advantageous to its national title opportunities in the future. What might be overshadowed is how difficult it is to crack the top four in the final regular-season rankings. In the 44 college football seasons since 1968, it has happened at Notre Dame only four times (1973, 1988, 1989 and 1993). Joe Montana led Notre Dame to a No. 5 national ranking and then beat No. 1 Texas in the 1978 Cotton Bowl en route to a national title. Under the new playoff rules, the Irish might not have been in the mix. PHOTO COURTESY NOTRE DAME MEDIA RELATIONS AUGUST 2012 64