2018 Bowl Projections

[arrowryan]

If we're the 4 seed and get housed by 6 touchdowns to Bama, I'd rather play in a major NY6 bowl.

It'd be nice to say "we made the playoff", but not if it meant we ran into a buzzsaw in round 1.

Give me a Rose Bowl win instead and let it spring board us into crootin' season

 

[BobbyMac]

If we're the 4 seed and get housed by 6 touchdowns to Bama, I'd rather play in a major NY6 bowl.

It'd be nice to say "we made the playoff", but not if it meant we ran into a buzzsaw in round 1.

Give me a Rose Bowl win instead and let it spring board us into crootin' season

Ohio State has had the highest Avg Player Ranking since they were blown out 31-0 in the CFB semis.

ND's best class signed a month after Bama blew them out.

 

[calvegas04]

They schedule cupcakes now to keep fresh and pad their record. Giving an auto bid allows them to not worry about losing an OoC game to a big or even medium name, and missing out because of it.

I don't see it that way, the only thing that would matter to teams is their conference wins. No need to schedule big games anymore other than getting a payout from Disney

 

[Bishop2b5]

They schedule cupcakes now to keep fresh and pad their record. Giving an auto bid allows them to not worry about losing an OoC game to a big or even medium name, and missing out because of it.

I agree it would likely lead to better OOC scheduling, but the problem, though, is that it does exactly what opponents of playoff expansion claim: makes the regular season much less meaningful or important (or at least a big part of it meaningless). OOC games would cease to have any real meaning or consequence. You win your conference and you're automatically in, even if you went 0-4 in OOC play.

Let's say that the PAC12 has a down year where nobody is particularly good. USC is mediocre, but wins the conference because nobody else on the west coast is very good either. They got demolished by all 3 OOC opponents, plus they dropped a conference game or two. Yeah, they're the PAC12 champ with an auto bid into the playoffs, but they'd still be a mediocre 7-5 team with NO business in the playoffs.

 

[Irish YJ]

I agree it would likely lead to better OOC scheduling, but the problem, though, is that it does exactly what opponents of playoff expansion claim: makes the regular season much less meaningful or important (or at least a big part of it meaningless). OOC games would cease to have any real meaning or consequence. You win your conference and you're automatically in, even if you went 0-4 in OOC play.

Let's say that the PAC12 has a down year where nobody is particularly good. USC is mediocre, but wins the conference because nobody else on the west coast is very good either. They got demolished by all 3 OOC opponents, plus they dropped a conference game or two. Yeah, they're the PAC12 champ with an auto bid into the playoffs, but they'd still be a mediocre 7-5 team with NO business in the playoffs.

I'd rather have an ultra rare 7-5 CC that scheduled big name OoC games in an 8 team playoff, than a team that scheduled 3 powder puffs, didn't win their CC or even their division, in a 4 team playoff. The other 7 teams, and especially the 3 at large, will correct for the one 7-5 anomaly.

The season "meaning" something is a facade when a team schedules more than one cupcakes. If I could make any change, For P5 scheduling.... I'd limit FCS teams to one game, plus one non-P5 FBS game. OR two non P5 FBS games. And those two games must be played in the first three weeks. No Mercer before your biggest rivalry late in the season...

 

[Bishop2b5]

I'd rather have an ultra rare 7-5 CC that scheduled big name OoC games in an 8 team playoff, than a team that scheduled 3 powder puffs, didn't win their CC or even their division, in a 4 team playoff. The other 7 teams, and especially the 3 at large, will correct for the one 7-5 anomaly.

The season "meaning" something is a facade when a team schedules more than one cupcakes. If I could make any change, For P5 scheduling.... I'd limit FCS teams to one game, plus one non-P5 FBS game. OR two non P5 FBS games. And those two games must be played in the first three weeks. No Mercer before your biggest rivalry late in the season...

I'm not completely opposed to expanding to 8 teams. I'm just in favor of it, whether it's 4 or 8, being strictly about the best 4 or 8. I don't care what region or conference or if they're all from the same division... just the best teams. I don't want a 7-5 or 8-3 conference champion in while a 12-1 UGA or PSU or TEX sits at home.

As for the FCS and G5 teams, I just don't see the problem. The committee doesn't give any playoff credit for them. Nobody is getting in because they beat Mercer or Akron. The committee knows they're glorified scrimmages and is looking at what you did against the other 10 teams you played. If you did enough against them, who cares about the rest. It's like needing $1 to get into a dance and you have 12 or 13 coins in your pocket. If you have 4 quarters or 10 dimes, who cares whether the rest of the coins are nickels or pennies? You had a dollar. The rest is irrelevant.

 

[Irish YJ]

I'm not completely opposed to expanding to 8 teams. I'm just in favor of it, whether it's 4 or 8, being strictly about the best 4 or 8. I don't care what region or conference or if they're all from the same division... just the best teams. I don't want a 7-5 or 8-3 conference champion in while a 12-1 UGA or PSU or TEX sits at home.

A 12-1 UGA would definitely not miss the playoffs in an 8 team system. They could however miss it in a 4.

As for the FCS and G5 teams, I just don't see the problem. The committee doesn't give any playoff credit for them. Nobody is getting in because they beat Mercer or Akron. The committee knows they're glorified scrimmages and is looking at what you did against the other 10 teams you played. If you did enough against them, who cares about the rest. It's like needing $1 to get into a dance and you have 12 or 13 coins in your pocket. If you have 4 quarters or 10 dimes, who cares whether the rest of the coins are nickels or pennies? You had a dollar. The rest is irrelevant.

It's not about the playoff committee giving them credit. It's about teams not playing a full slate of real games, while others do. And teams using FCS opponents as more or less a second or third bye before big games.

An FCS team isn't real money. They're more or less like the slugs we used to use as kids to fake out the pop machines and video games.

 

[greyhammer90]

I agree it would likely lead to better OOC scheduling, but the problem, though, is that it does exactly what opponents of playoff expansion claim: makes the regular season much less meaningful or important (or at least a big part of it meaningless). OOC games would cease to have any real meaning or consequence. You win your conference and you're automatically in, even if you went 0-4 in OOC play.

Let's say that the PAC12 has a down year where nobody is particularly good. USC is mediocre, but wins the conference because nobody else on the west coast is very good either. They got demolished by all 3 OOC opponents, plus they dropped a conference game or two. Yeah, they're the PAC12 champ with an auto bid into the playoffs, but they'd still be a mediocre 7-5 team with NO business in the playoffs.

I feel like people who give examples like this have more interest in seeing "good" games during the playoffs rather than seeing the actual best team get crowned the National Champion. Even your example yesterday that you brought up in another thread spoke to this with the NFL teams. If a conference has 4 NFL teams in it, the team that wins that conference should get rewarded for winning the unquestionably hardest conference by playing the teams from the weaker conferences. It shouldn't be forced to replay those teams again. It already beat them. They proved they were the best of them on the field already.

Also if you're worried about reducing the "bite" of the regular season, there are lots of ways to make the regular season more meaningful within a conference auto-bids. Rule 1 off the top of my head:

In order for a team which did not win its conference championship to be eligible for an "at large" spot, it must win its division.

You think the Auburn/Alabama, Michigan/Ohio State, or Oregon/Stanford games are meaningful right now? Try living a year with that system in place. Rivalry weekend would be insane. As an example of how much importance that rule would put on the regular season, it would've eliminated Alabama last year for losing the last game of their season and losing their division. (If you're actually concerned with making Regular Season Games Matter Again (MRSGMA), this should strike you as a positive despite your bammer loyalties.)

 

[condoms SUCk]

If the playoff is expanded to 8 teams, then make it point based.
1) Each win against a FBS team gets you 1 point.
2) FCS team DO NOT count.
3) Conference Championships count as 1.5 points.
4) Wins against an out of conf champion gets you 1 point.
5) Wins against top 25 teams get you a 1/2 point. (ranked when played)
6) Wins against a top 25 team on the road gets you a 1/2 point (Neutral site games do not count)
7) Head to head games would be taken into consideration in the event there is a tie
8) Rankings would be from the playoff committee, or something similar, but they release rankings on week 2 or 3.

This would accomplish a few things,
a) Teams can still schedule an FCS team if they want, but they don't count.
b) Encourage teams to play good competition and get rewarded for it.
c) Encourage teams to play out of their conference.
d). Encourage more home and home games against good competition. (so VaTech would have given ND 1 whole point)

It’s not perfect, which is ok please discuss, but this seems to be an objective way to rank teams and pick the top 8 if the NCAA goes in that direction.

 

[Irish YJ]

i'd give road wins a little bonus, and road OoC P5 wins travelling over 500 miles a little bigger bonus.
might encourage certain teams to actually leave the stadium, or leave the south...

 

[NDRock]

I feel like people who give examples like this have more interest in seeing "good" games during the playoffs rather than seeing the actual best team get crowned the National Champion. Even your example yesterday that you brought up in another thread spoke to this with the NFL teams. If a conference has 4 NFL teams in it, the team that wins that conference should get rewarded for winning the unquestionably hardest conference by playing the teams from the weaker conferences. It shouldn't be forced to replay those teams again. It already beat them. They proved they were the best of them on the field already.

Also if you're worried about reducing the "bite" of the regular season, there are lots of ways to make the regular season more meaningful within a conference auto-bids. Rule 1 off the top of my head:

In order for a team which did not win its conference championship to be eligible for an "at large" spot, it must win its division.

You think the Auburn/Alabama, Michigan/Ohio State, or Oregon/Stanford games are meaningful right now? Try living a year with that system in place. Rivalry weekend would be insane. As an example of how much importance that rule would put on the regular season, it would've eliminated Alabama last year for losing the last game of their season and losing their division. (If you're actually concerned with making Regular Season Games Matter Again (MRSGMA), this should strike you as a positive despite your bammer loyalties.)

Exactly. Well said.

 

[phork]

I don't like Autobids for the simple fact that the PAC12 is garbage this year. Not one of those teams, right now, is one of the 4 best. The same could be said of the BIG12. I mean Texas looks ok, but they lost to Maryland, so how good is Oklahoma then?
The bottom line is that 4 superconferences with 16 teams a piece needs to happen. The bottom teams every year get relegated from Super Conference to Sub Conference, the top teams in the Sub move up to Super for the next season. You play 6 games in your conference, 3 games from the other 3 conferences and 3 WildCard Super Conference games.

 

[Irish YJ]

I don't like Autobids for the simple fact that the PAC12 is garbage this year. Not one of those teams, right now, is one of the 4 best. The same could be said of the BIG12. I mean Texas looks ok, but they lost to Maryland, so how good is Oklahoma then?
The bottom line is that 4 superconferences with 16 teams a piece needs to happen. The bottom teams every year get relegated from Super Conference to Sub Conference, the top teams in the Sub move up to Super for the next season. You play 6 games in your conference, 3 games from the other 3 conferences and 3 WildCard Super Conference games.

You can't really talk about auto bids, and say not one of the 4 best. It would be one of the 8 best. And having 8 (5+3) ensures you have, at minimum, the 4 best.

I'd be perfectly fine with the super conferences, and the bottom out rotation.

 

[T Town Tommy]

Just keep winning Irish. We are getting closer and closer to a potential rematch.

College football bowl projections after Week 7

 

[arrowryan]

The South Bend Tribune had an article from the Associated Press in yesterday's paper about college football and it included someone's bowl projections. He had Notre Dame missing the playoffs, but playing in the Peach Bowl against LSU (yuck, this would be like the 3rd time in 4 years).

But he has Michigan and Oklahoma making it. Michigan has a good shot if they win out but I think he's the only one that has Oklahoma in the playoffs. They aren't very good.

If we miss out in the playoffs, fine, but can we please play someone else.

 

[Crazy Balki]

I'm confident ND will put up a much better fight than last time.

I'm not confident in the slightest that they'll come close to winning. My guess is it would be a 31-14, 38-24 type game.

 

[Crazy Balki]

The South Bend Tribune had an article from the Associated Press in yesterday's paper about college football and it included someone's bowl projections. He had Notre Dame missing the playoffs, but playing in the Peach Bowl against LSU (yuck, this would be like the 3rd time in 4 years).

But he has Michigan and Oklahoma making it. Michigan has a good shot if they win out but I think he's the only one that has Oklahoma in the playoffs. They aren't very good.

If we miss out in the playoffs, fine, but can we please play someone else.

That makes absolutely no sense. First, Michigan would have to have us lose twice. They're not getting in over us on account of the head-to-head. Oklahoma lost to Texas, and they would need the Horns to lose twice in the Big XII.

 

[IrishFanJMercy]

It would take a long shot for Oklahoma to make the playoffs. First off ND with one loss gets in over Oklahoma and that’s befause their defense is atrocious. Second a one loss Michigan team gets in over Oklahoma. I think overall Michigan is better than Oklahoma but Oklahoma has two very good WR’s they can score

 

[Irish YJ]

Both scenarios from espn has us playing Clemson, and Bama playing scUM.

 

[Bishop2b5]

I'd love to see us curb stomp MI then meet you guys again for all the marbles.

 

[Irish YJ]

I'd love to see us curb stomp MI then meet you guys again for all the marbles.

out of the realistic, and semi realistic teams that could be there, here's who i'd rather play the most/least in the first round.

1. scUM
2. UGA
3. TX
4. LSU
5. WV
6 UCF
7. OSU
8. OK
9 Clemson
10 Bama

 

[NDRock]

That makes absolutely no sense. First, Michigan would have to have us lose twice. They're not getting in over us on account of the head-to-head. Oklahoma lost to Texas, and they would need the Horns to lose twice in the Big XII.

Not really. If we look bad down the stretch and lose badly, Michigan at 12-1 would jump us. I thought the top two teams in the Big 12 play in the CCG? I can see OU beating Texas in the rematch and getting in at 12-1.

 

[Crazy Balki]

Not really. If we look bad down the stretch and lose badly, Michigan at 12-1 would jump us. I thought the top two teams in the Big 12 play in the CCG? I can see OU beating Texas in the rematch and getting in at 12-1.

I keep forgetting about the obscure Big XII championship.

I think it would take us narrowly escaping practically all of our games and losing to one of them in blowout fashion. Not impossible, but unlikely. I'd say if we narrowly escape one or two, lose one close and then blowout the rest, we're still in over Michigan. We'd have the best win of the bunch. Especially if that close win is against NW, because they can't hold that over us, since they narrowly escaped NW too.

 

[IrishLax]

out of the realistic, and semi realistic teams that could be there, here's who i'd rather play the most/least in the first round.

1. scUM
2. UGA
3. TX
4. LSU
5. WV
6 UCF
7. OSU
8. OK
9 Clemson
10 Bama

1. WVU
2. UCF
3. TX
4. LSU
5. Ohio State
6. Georgia
7. Michigan
8. Oklahoma
9. Clemson

...

10. The 85 Bears

...

11. Bama

 

[BobbyMac]

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">A loss to Purdue didn't eliminate the Buckeyes, but Ohio State's chance to reach the playoff dropped 47 percentage points. Meanwhile no one improved its playoff outlook yesterday more than Michigan, who is now the fourth-most likely team to reach the CFP. <a href="https://t.co/TKJmgWniQ9">pic.twitter.com/TKJmgWniQ9</a></p>— Seth Walder (@SethWalder) <a href="https://twitter.com/SethWalder/status/1054037307446181890?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 21, 2018</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

[Irish#1]

That makes absolutely no sense. First, Michigan would have to have us lose twice. They're not getting in over us on account of the head-to-head. Oklahoma lost to Texas, and they would need the Horns to lose twice in the Big XII.

Don't be too sure about that. The committee has said before they try to pick the four best teams at the end of the season. If ND and scUM each have one loss, I could see the committee putting scUM above ND as our loss would be later in the season.

 

[stlnd01]

I keep forgetting about the obscure Big XII championship.

I think it would take us narrowly escaping practically all of our games and losing to one of them in blowout fashion. Not impossible, but unlikely. I'd say if we narrowly escape one or two, lose one close and then blowout the rest, we're still in over Michigan. We'd have the best win of the bunch. Especially if that close win is against NW, because they can't hold that over us, since they narrowly escaped NW too.

I think if we lose a game, any game, we'll fall behind Michigan in the rankings. Then, assuming they beat OSU and run the table, there will be a loud argument from many quarters that a 12-1 conference champion who beat OSU, Penn State and Wisconsin (twice?) has improved significantly since the first game of the year and is more deserving than a one-loss ND team that only has one marquee win (never mind that it's over that very same team).

These people will not care that we, too, have improved significantly since Week One, or that the Michigan game wasn't even as close as the final score. And they may not win the argument that head-to-head results don't really matter.
But I'd expect there to be a lot of noise to the effect that Michigan should get in over us, based on "momentum" or "the eye test" or "who's playing better right now." Especially because we really don't have any games in the second half of the season that will impress anyone (despite playing USC, FSU, etc.) It'll be infuriating, and it might even be successful.

Best way for us to make the playoffs is to win 'em all. If we lose one we have to blow out the rest of them, because there is a strong bias out there in favor of conference champions. It would also really help us if Stanford could somehow turn it on and win the Pac 12.

Or, as is also quite likely of course, Michigan loses. We'd get in over OSU unless we have a loss as bad as theirs to Purdue.

 

[arrowryan]

out of the realistic, and semi realistic teams that could be there, here's who i'd rather play the most/least in the first round.

1. scUM
2. UGA
3. TX
4. LSU
5. WV
6 UCF
7. OSU
8. OK
9 Clemson
10 Bama

You'd rather play UGA, UM, and LSU instead of WVU or UCF? Lol no thanks.

 

[T Town Tommy]

I think if we lose a game, any game, we'll fall behind Michigan in the rankings. Then, assuming they beat OSU and run the table, there will be a loud argument from many quarters that a 12-1 conference champion who beat OSU, Penn State and Wisconsin (twice?) has improved significantly since the first game of the year and is more deserving than a one-loss ND team that only has one marquee win (never mind that it's over that very same team).

These people will not care that we, too, have improved significantly since Week One, or that the Michigan game wasn't even as close as the final score. And they may not win the argument that head-to-head results don't really matter.
But I'd expect there to be a lot of noise to the effect that Michigan should get in over us, based on "momentum" or "the eye test" or "who's playing better right now." Especially because we really don't have any games in the second half of the season that will impress anyone (despite playing USC, FSU, etc.) It'll be infuriating, and it might even be successful.

Best way for us to make the playoffs is to win 'em all. If we lose one we have to blow out the rest of them, because there is a strong bias out there in favor of conference champions. It would also really help us if Stanford could somehow turn it on and win the Pac 12.

Or, as is also quite likely of course, Michigan loses. We'd get in over OSU unless we have a loss as bad as theirs to Purdue.

Head to head still matters and the last time I checked, the first game of the year still counts. Yes teams improve over the course of the year - but they are suppossed to. ND has to lose to an awful team before a one loss Michigan gets in before them.

 

[Irish YJ]

You'd rather play UGA, UM, and LSU instead of WVU or UCF? Lol no thanks.

It's starts with 1) my belief that our O will continue to improve and the OL and Book will both be a lot better at the end of the year. and 2) Our D will improve a bit, but not much more.

We have not played a top 30 offense. WV, UCF, OSU, Clemson, and Bama all top 30. No thank you to any of those. We've beat UM and LSU in the last year, and took UGA to the wire. I think we match up better with them, and I think our O will be a hell of lot better than it was the last time we played them (UGA, LSU, UM).