Notre Dame Football: Georgia loss is horrible for the Irish

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish were able to get a win but something bad happened to them in a different game on the schedule.

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish won their football game over the USC Trojans by a final score of 30-27. It was a decent win for the Irish and it pushed their record to 5-1. That appears to be a really good record when you consider the fact that the one loss was to the big bad Georgia Bulldogs who came in as the number three team in the country for pretty much the entire season.

Well, the bad thing that happened to Notre Dame this weekend didn’t happen in their field. It happened in Athens, Georgia when the Bulldogs were defeated by the unranked South Carolina Gamecocks in overtime by a final score of 20-17. It was a major upset that might really hurt both Georgia and Notre Dame. It hurts Georgia because there are some other powerhouses in the SEC to deal with like Alabama and LSU, but it hurts Notre Dame because of the strength of schedule.

Notre Dame’s lack of conference participation makes it where they pretty much have to go undefeated to make it to the College Football Playoff and if they do get a loss they need some help and it better be a quality loss. Georgia looked like it was one of those top tier teams with the likes of the Alabama Crimson Tide, Clemson Tigers, and Ohio State Buckeyes so it made Notre Dame’s loss to them sting a little bit less.

Now that Notre Dame’s one loss is a Georgia team that may fall out of it as well really hurts. Georgia now will need some help in order to even get to the SEC Championship game instead of Florida where they would need to play one of LSU and Alabama there anyway. That makes it worse for Notre Dame’s strength of schedule and almost puts a bow on them not making it to the College Football playoff. There was a debate on if they should get in last year as an undefeated team simply because they were not a conference champion.

Now that they have a loss to a non-undefeated team they are pretty much done. Their only truly formidable opponent left on the schedule is Michigan who already has an ugly 35-14 loss to Wisconsin. This is probably not a College Football playoff year for the Irish as a result of all these factors. Maybe some things can fall into place where they can get back in the conversation but things are looking bleak now.