Notre Dame Football: Irish are in CFB Playoff despite ACC title loss
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish Football team is in the College Football Playoff.
The Notre Dame Football program asserted themselves into the College Football Playoffs with another very good season in 2020. They had an undefeated regular season before a blowout loss to Clemson in the ACC Championship game. It was a big loss but with their dominant regular season, people believed they would make it to the College Football Playoff regardless. The selection committee saw enough from them and decided they were one of the four best teams.
After the big loss, they fell to fourth from second. Alabama is number one, Clemson is number two, and Ohio State is number three ahead of them. Texas A&M was the team with the Irish in the conversation for the fourth spot but they came in fifth. Oklahoma jumped all the way up to sixth after their big Big 12 win. The top four never changed during any week that the committee got together, they just changed the order a few times.
The Irish are deserving of this playoff spot because of how good they are but the other teams having beef with the selection does make sense. Cincinnati has to be annoyed because they weren’t even in the top six. They are a “Group of Five” school and they never get any respect from the committee. You can make a nice argument that they deserve to be in over the Irish but the committee felt differently.
So now, the Irish have a big showdown with the Alabama Crimson Tide in the College Football Playoff Semi-Final. On Friday, January 1st, the Irish are going to face their toughest test to date with the Tide in the Rose Bowl with a chance at the National Championship on the line. That same day is when Clemson will play Ohio State in the Sugar Bowl.
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It is certainly going to be a tough task for the Irish. Alabama is an elite program year after year but 2020 has been different Mac Jones leads an amazing Alabama offense that will be tough for the Irish to contain. This is going to be a fun matchup to dissect until kickoff.