Notre Dame Football: CFB Playoff chances after ACC Title loss
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish still might be a playoff team despite the ACC Title loss.
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish Football team had a tough showing against the Clemson Tigers in the ACC Championship on Saturday afternoon. They were defeated by a final score of 34-10 and didn’t look very good for most of the game. It was a disappointment after their big win over Clemson earlier in the season. In this game, Trevor Lawrence was fully recovered from COVID-19 and it showed. He came in and dominated the Notre Dame defense.
Of course, Clemson is not going to be in the College Football Playoff again. They are the ACC champions with a record of 10-1. It is officially the same 10-1 record as Notre Dame but with the extra accolade of being the conference champion. It was a great showing for the Irish in their first (and likely only) year competing in a conference but they weren’t able to finish it off.
So if Clemson is going to jump Notre Dame, does that mean the Irish are out? It shouldn’t if we are being honest with ourselves. It has been a weird year for College Football and two ACC teams could absolutely be in. Alabama defeated Florida, who is number seven, in the SEC title game so that just about does it for Florida. Iowa State, who entered the day at number six, lost the Big 12 Championship to the Oklahoma Sooners so they are basically out now as well.
Where things get fishy is at the number four and five spots. The top three are almost certainly going to be Alabama, Ohio State, and Clemson. They are all teams who rolled through the regular season and are now conference champions. That leaves Notre Dame and Texas A&M as the two teams fighting for that last spot.
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Both schools are one-loss teams but the Irish made it to the title game for their conference. Texas A&M did play a game on Saturday and they defeated the Tennessee Volunteers pretty handily. The issue for them, besides not playing in a conference championship, is that their win on Saturday wasn’t against a good team. It just feels like Notre Dame deserves to be in because they were a much better team all year long. A&M has a compelling argument as well but it will ultimately come down to what the committee thinks.