Notre Dame football finds itself in a similar spot to last year leading into Purdue week: Coming off a disappointing loss and needing to bounce back for its College Football Playoff hopes.
The circumstances, and perhaps stakes, are higher Saturday. The Fighting Irish are 0-2 and have one ranked opponent on their remaining schedule: USC. And they now get a Boilermakers team that proved they are no pushover when they challenged that USC team late into the fourth quarter.
But there may be no team with two tougher games to open the season than Notre Dame. And it did so with freshman quarterback CJ Carr, who has shown his potential, maturity and had the Irish in two games. Those losses, by four combined points at Miami and to Texas A&M, are reason for optimism for how close the Irish are.
It’s a conversation that led to a brief segment on ESPN “College GameDay” spearheaded by Nick Saban and Kirk Herbstreit.
“Notre Dame has played the toughest two teams of anybody in the country so far,” Saban said. “They lost by one point and (three) points. Saying that to say this: They only have one ranked opponent left on their schedule. They need some kind of way to pick up some quality wins. If they win out and go 10-2, they don’t have a conference championship game to get a quality win from somebody. That’s going to be interesting to see what the (CFP) committee does.
“They may need help from other schools to lose a couple games for (Notre Dame) to get in there.”
That led Herbstreit to respond: “So, coach danced around that. I’m going to say they’re at Arkansas, USC at home, they finish 10-2 and, yes, Notre Dame will be in the playoff at 10-2. … I just think Notre Dame’s in.”
The last point was a clarification after Pat McAfee said, “no matter what the wins are?”
Of course, Notre Dame can only win the games and let the chips fall where they may.
One must remember that the Irish were nationals runner up last season. Whether that factors into the decision to include them, and Notre Dame get one of the seven at-large bids, will be decided down the road.
Odds Notre Dame makes College Football Playoff
Notre Dame still has a fighter’s chance at making the CFP. They are 2.3-1 odds to make it per BetMGM, which makes out to a 30.3% chance.
Mike Berardino covers Notre Dame football for the South Bend Tribune and NDInsider.com. Follow him on social media @MikeBerardino.
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