No sleep in South Bend, Ind., tonight, folks.
No sleep all week, matter of fact.
Notre Dame, winner of 10 games in a row — by a leprechaun’s chin hair under 30 points, on average — is in real danger of missing the College Football Playoff.
The Fighting Irish were ranked 10th Tuesday in the selection committee’s next-to-last top 25 of the season, putting one of the best “eyeball test” teams in the country right on the so-called cut line of the 12-team tournament. If there are no significant upsets in the coming weekend’s conference championship games, the Irish (10-2) might hang on to a spot. At best, though, they’re in “might” territory — far more so than they were just one week ago, when the committee had them at No. 9.
What happened to move the Irish down? Alabama, that’s what. And what happened to move the Crimson Tide (10-2) up from 10th to ninth? In Week 14, while the Irish rolled by four touchdowns at four-win Stanford, the Tide played at rival Auburn — a five-win team with an interim coach — and hung on 27-20 despite blowing a 17-point lead and being outgained 411-280. Apparently, this epic performance wowed the committee, which is chaired by Arkansas athletic director Hunter Yurachek, whose school inhabits the same extremely influential conference — the SEC — as the big boppers from Tuscaloosa.
“That debate between Notre Dame and Alabama has been one of the fiercest debates for the last three weeks and really split our committee room,” Yurachek said in a conference call with reporters. “[But with] Alabama in a rivalry game on the road — and Auburn has been an extremely tough place for many teams to play this year — the committee gave Alabama a little respect for winning that game.”
This is where, eyes absolutely rolling, we mention that the only home games Auburn won this season were against Ball State, South Alabama and Mercer. Not to mention that Alabama lost to Florida State, which ended up having a disastrous season.
And given the committee’s reluctance to penalize a team for losing in a conference championship game, it’s likely the Tide — even with three losses — will stay ahead of Notre Dame unless they get ripped apart by Georgia for the SEC title. Lose by 10 in Atlanta? Don’t worry, it’ll be like it never even happened.
That brings us to Notre Dame, the Big 12 and the ACC. If No. 11 BYU upsets No. 4 Texas Tech in the Big 12 title game, both the Cougars and the Red Raiders can be expected to go to the playoff. That’s the nightmare scenario for the Irish, because (1) one-loss BYU surely would jump ahead of them, (2) 17th-ranked Virginia will steal a playoff spot if it beats five-loss Duke for the ACC title, and (3) there’s still at least one spot to be claimed by a Group of Five champion that isn’t currently ranked in the top 12.
A simple way to look at it: If BYU wins and Alabama avoids being blown out, the Irish are toast.
But there’s also Miami to consider. Also 10-2 and ranked 12th, the Hurricanes beat Notre Dame 27-24 in the season opener. If BYU loses and the ’Canes move up to one spot behind the Irish, will the committee relitigate the cases of those teams and err on the side of head-to-head?
“Idle teams [still] can move,” Yurachek cautioned.
And teams on the cut line definitely can’t sleep.