College Football Playoff Invitational by ESPN

TNUtoNotreDame · Tuesday at 10:54 PM

the 24 team playoff 9 teams from the SEC are in.... I also imagine we may get more if they are close to the top 25..

IrishLax · Tuesday at 10:57 PM

slick7410 said:
Wisconsin has a much better chance to finish 9-3 than LSU, and a better win. Their losses are uglier (Kentucky-like) But Bama is already placed high enough to absorb LSUs 4th loss.

Let's say Wisconsin finishes 9-3, SMU beats Wake then loses to ND... you are looking at an ND schedule with 4x high quality games and ND at 3-1, 11-1 overall. That probably is a top 4 seed, unless everyone above ND runs the table and Bama beats Georgia in SEC championship (however, as things stand, I think Tennessee has the inside track for SEC Championship game since they own H2H over everyone they are tied with but Texas).

EDIT: Last thought... even if #5, if we got to play Boise and then UCLA that is the most immaculate path to the semifinals one could dream of. UCLA would flat out not be able to move the ball on ND, game would be over at halftime.

PolishDomer · Tuesday at 11:09 PM

They should exclude FCS games from the calculations

InKellyWeTrust · Tuesday at 11:11 PM

Dale said:
This team isn’t ranked:

L: 4, 5, 15
W: 18

This team is ranked:

L: 3, 11, 19
W: NR

I was just thinking to myself, how is beating LSU any different than beating Wisconsin?

JamIrish · Tuesday at 11:16 PM

Texas and Tennessee have another L in store I imagine, their games this weekend are worth tracking. LSU probably gives one of them a loss. Arizona n Utah is another interesting game this weekend. BIG1O is interesting to see how many make the playoff. Indiana/UCLA and who else? Just want UCLA to keep winning, take a spot from the SEC and I wouldn't mind a home playoff game n seeing them in round 2 over a bye.

PolishDomer · Tuesday at 11:52 PM

InKellyWeTrust said:
I was just thinking to myself, how is beating LSU any different than beating Wisconsin?

Thissss....

.

Dale · 2026-11-11T00:08:23-0500

Also crazy Oklahoma State is yet again ranked. They have three losses including to Tulsa and Iowa State. I know they have the Oregon win. Another example of a clear prop. Makes Oregon’s Big Ten run look better and in reach. Makes Houston look remotely viably as a Top 15 team.

GATTACA! · 2026-11-11T00:22:20-0500

IrishLax said:
(however, as things stand, I think Tennessee has the inside track for SEC Championship game since they own H2H over everyone they are tied with but Texas)

No it goes to Alabama for some reason. Saw people discussing that on Reddit.

Notre Dame Joe · 2026-11-11T03:52:28-0500

DCDomer said:
Dropping Miami that far is crazy

They're loss to us on the road is better than their best win (Wake Forest).

402puck · 2026-11-11T03:58:09-0500

College hockey’s postseason outside of the AQs is decided by NPI, the selection committee only there to place them in regionals. Regional placement obviously not necessary in football, there is zero reason there needs to be any sort of human element involved in this selection process.

We all hated the BCS, but I can’t help but think going back to it is the right move going forward. Hearing these guys spin their gears round and round and feed us nothing but bullshit is getting really old

Notre Dame Joe · 2026-11-11T04:15:54-0500

402puck said:
College hockey’s postseason outside of the AQs is decided by NPI, the selection committee only there to place them in regionals. Regional placement obviously not necessary in football, there is zero reason there needs to be any sort of human element involved in this selection process.

We all hated the BCS, but I can’t help but think going back to it is the right move going forward. Hearing these guys spin their gears round and round and feed us nothing but bullshit is getting really old

Most infamously the BCS was tweaked after 2003 to make more subjective. USC was 'screwed' because they did not have a good strength of schedule; LSU and OU did not play Ty Willingham.

Notre Dame Joe · 2026-11-11T05:20:54-0500

BleedBlueGold said:
You can look at pretty much any computer rankings or AI modeling and note that the committee has almost all of the SEC teams ranked higher in the CFP (Georgia being the obvious #1 seed across the board).

The computers all have Bama pretty highly ranked. That may change now that the SEC plays a 9 game schedule and the wins over UK, MSU should fade.

echowaker2.0 · 2026-11-11T06:07:31-0500

PutuporShutup said:
There's no valid justification for ND not to be 4th but what they will probably say

ND beat Miami without Toney (may even bring up catch although they didn't bring up our game with BYU still isn't over)
Alabama has now won on the road at both kentucky and LSU
Indiana was on a bye so they can't be jumped (lol)
Texas just won on the road at missouri (there 2 losses to unranked teams don't matter)
UCLA remains undefeated and

ND should be 4th IMO but I can see them anywhere between 4-8

I like 5th and hope that's the final ranking. The bye serves no purpose. The layoff is too long plus a home game is a great momentum builder.

thekid33 · 2026-11-11T06:27:11-0500

Imagine looking at teams #13-24 and thinking they need to be given playoff spots, smh

NDRock · 2026-11-11T06:50:41-0500

irishjim said:
I think he's guessing we end up in top 4, then our first game would be held at a bowl site.

Gotcha. I’ll be very surprised if we end up top 4. I bet all 4 teams that get byes will be ones who played in CCGs. We’ll see.

stlnd01 · 2026-11-11T07:05:06-0500

echowaker2.0 said:
I like 5th and hope that's the final ranking. The bye serves no purpose. The layoff is too long plus a home game is a great momentum builder.

Given our injuries on defense, I wouldn't mind the bye. But we would be off for more than a month, which is a long time.
5th seed would likely mean a G5 in the first round, basically a tune-up game. Just stay healthy and maybe that's fine.

slick7410 · 2026-11-11T07:06:23-0500

The AP poll looks better and better every week to me, not just for ND 3/5.
The average of everyone’s biased opinion seems to come out pretty good.

RudyVerse · 2026-11-11T07:17:33-0500

Copying from another site. Go Trojans, fight on!

1. Georgia (8-1) - vs Missouri, @ South Carolina, vs Georgia Tech

2. Utah (9-0) - @ Arizona, @ TCU, vs West Virginia

3. Alabama (7-2) - @ Vanderbilt, vs Chatanooga, vs Auburn

4. UCLA (9-0) - vs Illinois, @ Michigan, vs USC

5. Notre Dame (8-1) - vs Boston College, vs SMU, @ Syracuse

6. Texas (7-2) - @ LSU, vs Arkansas, @ Texas A&M

7. Miami (8-1) - vs Duke, vs Virginia Tech, vs Boston College

8. Tennessee (7-2) - @ Texas A&M, vs LSU, @ Vanderbilt

9. Indiana (8-1) - vs USC, @ Washington, vs Purdue

10. BYU (7-2) - vs Baylor, @ Kansas, vs Cincinnati

11. Kentucky (7-2) - vs Florida, @ Missouri, vs Louisville

12. Texas Tech (8-1) -@ Oklahoma State, @ Baylor, vs TCU

T Town Tommy · 2026-11-11T07:32:10-0500

GATTACA! said:
No it goes to Alabama for some reason. Saw people discussing that on Reddit.

Posted this in the Miami game thread. It’s my understanding of why Bama would go before the Vols.

Your best bet is that Ga and Bama win out and Ga beats Bama in the SECCG. The crazy thing here is the SEC tiebreaker rules. Bama, Tenn, and Texas can all finish 7-2 in conference but Bama would go to the SECCG ahead of Tenn even though they lost to the Vols because Bama’s cumulative conference winning percentage of all conference opponents would be higher than the Vols. Texas beat Tenn but didn’t play Bama and has the lowest percentage of the three so they would be out.

The Irish needs to be Ga fans against Bama and then hope for some B1G chaos. Right now I do like the chances the Irish can get that bye. For all the negativity on the board about the committee, they set up the Irish to in fact get the bye if things play out as expected.

FightingIrishLover7 · 2026-11-11T07:38:56-0500

I know some will disagree, and I understand the injuries

But I think a lot of the 2024 run started with all the good vibes in South Bend against IU. I'd love to have a bonus game for the fans and get the team juiced.

Yes, this team is different than 2024 situation. But,either way I see some pros.

irishff1014 · 2026-11-11T07:38:57-0500

Georgia might have the best remaining schedule.

arrowryan · 2026-11-11T07:40:57-0500

FightingIrishLover7 said:
I know some will disagree, and I understand the injuries

But I think a lot of the 2024 run started with all the good vibes in South Bend against IU. I'd love to have a bonus game for the fans and get the team juiced.

Yes, this team is different than 2024 situation. But,either way I see some pros.

Boise at home then UCLA is a great two game stretch imo

Blazers46 · 2026-11-11T07:49:27-0500

PolishDomer said:
They should exclude FCS games from the calculations

Or include it… as a negative in their formula.

InKellyWeTrust · 2026-11-11T07:55:53-0500

arrowryan said:
Boise at home then UCLA is a great two game stretch imo

Couldn't ask for better

PutuporShutup · 2026-11-11T08:06:24-0500

irishff1014 said:
Georgia might have the best remaining schedule.

By best do you mean most difficult?

Most difficult seems to be Kentucky, then Texas, then Georgia

Easiest of the top 12 is Bama.

NDRock · 2026-11-11T08:17:59-0500

T Town Tommy said:
Posted this in the Miami game thread. It’s my understanding of why Bama would go before the Vols.

Your best bet is that Ga and Bama win out and Ga beats Bama in the SECCG. The crazy thing here is the SEC tiebreaker rules. Bama, Tenn, and Texas can all finish 7-2 in conference but Bama would go to the SECCG ahead of Tenn even though they lost to the Vols because Bama’s cumulative conference winning percentage of all conference opponents would be higher than the Vols. Texas beat Tenn but didn’t play Bama and has the lowest percentage of the three so they would be out.

The Irish needs to be Ga fans against Bama and then hope for some B1G chaos. Right now I do like the chances the Irish can get that bye. For all the negativity on the board about the committee, they set up the Irish to in fact get the bye if things play out as expected.

I don’t think they’ll punish the loser of the SEC CCG as they haven’t in the past. I think Georgia and any 2 loss SEC that finishes 2nd, will be in the top 4 going into CCG weekend. We win out, we’ll be 5th, most likely.

Jiggafini19Deux · 2026-11-11T08:28:00-0500

thekid33 said:
Imagine looking at teams #13-24 and thinking they need to be given playoff spots, smh

They're just part of the cash grab. It's more SEC teams for ESPN to add. Extra pawns on the board.

jerseyborn1971 · 2026-11-11T08:28:32-0500

Teams that have gotten a bye are 1-7. No thanks. ND would have a 3 week layoff. That's too long. At #5 they would play a first round game at home against Boise St after essentially one bye week. It will be 3 weeks since their last game before they face a tough opponent, which right now looks like UCLA. #5 is a great spot if they can stay there.

jerseyborn1971 · 2026-11-11T08:33:58-0500

And we can put to rest this idea that the Committee doesn't care about public perception or media criticisms. If that were actually true and they wanted to keep ND out, they just wouldn't rank them. They heard the backlash about the first set of rankings and adjusted. IU dropped 5 spots on a bye week. It's not just ND, they are just generally incompetent.

Going to 24 teams is even more reason to institute AI instead of a committee. Hell, let the committee utilize AI and then either certify the results or make changes where they see something egregiously wrong. But there is ZERO reason to not use unbiased, data driven AI beyond just good old fashioned corruption.

IrishLax · 2026-11-11T08:34:16-0500

NDRock said:
I don’t think they’ll punish the loser of the SEC CCG as they haven’t in the past. I think Georgia and any 2 loss SEC that finishes 2nd, will be in the top 4 going into CCG weekend. We win out, we’ll be 5th, most likely.

It was so funny last year watching every CCG loser move down *except* Bama

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