Notre Dame: Fifth in the College Football Playoff isn’t bad

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish had a very interesting season. They had a tough stretch where they didn’t play well early on but won all of those games except one. Unfortunately, the one loss was to Cincinnati and that is the reason that they are finishing the season ranked fifth in the College Football Playoff rankings.

Cincinnati is the team directly ahead of them in the four-spot. They will play Alabama who finishes in the one seed after their stunning blowout win over Georgia. In the meantime, Georgia didn’t fall out of and finished in the three-spot.

Georgia will face Michigan in the semi-final which should be an incredible game. The Wolverines are in after a huge win over Ohio State in the last week of the season. They then defeated Iowa in the Big Ten Championship in order to complete their berth in the College Football playoff.

This is a big selection for a few different reasons. For one, Michigan is in which means that they finally got over the Ohio State hill without messing anything else up. They should be able to at minimum put up a good fight against Georgia.

Another reason is that two SEC teams made it and they are not going to meet in the semifinal. In fact, there is a decent chance that the SEC Championship is just played again for the entire National Championship. It is the best conference in college football and it really isn’t even close. Fans of other conferences don’t like it but that’s just the way it is.

As for a third reason, it is the biggest reason. Cincinnati is the first team that is a member of the “group of five” that will appear in the College Football Playoff. They did everything that they needed to do in order to make it to the dance and they will go. Their reward for breaking through is Alabama so it will be interesting to see how it turns out. As Notre Dame’s only loss, it is fair to cheer them on.

Notre Dame finishes in fifth place of the College Football Playoff selection.

As mentioned before, Notre Dame finishes fifth which is usually the worst place to finish in College Football. They were so close yet so far. With the off-the-field drama that has gone on, however, they should be proud of the way the season finished.

One of the teams that really ruined their chances of making the playoff on the last day was Oklahoma State. They had a legit chance to make it but they lost to Baylor in the Big 12 Championship. Now, they will face the Irish in the Playstation Fiesta Bowl on January 1st.

It isn’t necessarily the place you want to finish but the Irish are in a good spot. They have a chance to make some noise in the Fiesta Bowl and come into 2022 with a new coach and some momentum. Hopefully, this season proves to be an outstanding building block.