Notre Dame fell victim to what could stand as the biggest upset of 2024, losing 16-14 at home against Northern Illinois. It took the air right of the Fighting Irish’s season, just one week after a huge road win at Texas A&M ballooned their hopes for the College Football Playoff and lifted them to the No. 5 spot in the AP Top 25.
Now, Marcus Freeman’s squad is left with the feeling that it has already let things slip away. The Irish had everything in front of them, with a manageable early schedule to build momentum towards the real meat of the slate. Notre Dame could have been, and really should have been, 4-0 for its Sept. 28 contest against a top-25 Louisville team.
Though just two weeks of the season have passed, it’s hard not to think about what implications a loss to Northern Illinois does for Notre Dame’s postseason outlook, especially since the fiercely independent Irish don’t have any sort of conference championship game that could hep punch a worry-free ticket to the College Football Playoff.
As such, it felt appropriate to examine reasons why the Irish can remain in the race, and why they might not.
Why Notre Dame will still make the College Football Playoff
If the 2023 season taught us anything, it’s that the selection committee can be forgiving under the right circumstances. Alabama lost its only meaningful nonconference game in September (vs. Texas) but went on to beat Georgia in the SEC Championship Game, while Florida State went 14-0 with an ACC title but lost its starting quarterback to a devastating leg injury in November. We all know how that situation played out.
And that was with just four spots available. The auto-bid for each Power Four champion eliminates that specific scenario, but it applies to Notre Dame here. If the Fighting Irish can rip off 10 straight wins — and that is a big ask for any college football team — those playoff decision-makers aren’t going to have a Week 2 loss to Northern Illinois at the forefront of their minds. We’ve already seen Notre Dame’s brand and program visibility save it a little bit. Sure, the Irish plummeted in the AP Top 25, but they didn’t fall out of the top 20 by landing at No. 18. That already puts them within shouting distance of a 12-team field.
On top of that, there’s always a chance Northern Illinois, which ranked No. 25 in the most recent AP poll, goes on to beat NC State in a couple weeks and captures the Mid-American Conference championship by year’s end. That would certainly take some of the sting out of Notre Dame’s loss.
It’s not like 10 more wins aren’t attainable for the Irish, either. They’ll have a chance to pad their résumé against ranked teams like No. 19 Louisville and No. 11 USC. Though Florida State has lost its luster, beating the Seminoles still resonates. There are some really good mid-tier teams like Georgia Tech and Army to pad things out. It’s isn’t the strongest schedule, but Notre Dame should be favored consistently until its season finale against the Trojans which, again, sets up nicely as a huge chance to leave an impression on the selection committee. — Backus
Why Notre Dame won’t make the College Football Playoff
Look, Notre Dame technically can still find its way into the field if quite literally everything goes perfectly, but how realistic is it really? We don’t know how good that Week 1 win over Texas A&M is yet. Florida State was supposed to be a signature opponent, but the Seminoles are a disaster at 0-2. Northern Illinois, at minimum, needs to win the MAC and likely be a serious contender for the Group of Five’s College Football Playoff spot (and the Huskies weren’t even picked top two in their preseason conference poll). USC’s resurgence helps matters, but the Trojans probably need to be a CFP lock for a win to really change the calculus, especially since Notre Dame works with only 12 games instead of 13.
Realistically, the path is for Notre Dame — a team that just stumbled against a MAC team — to win 10 straight games, including tricky matchups like Georgia Tech, Army and No. 19 Louisville. Then, it has to hope that these wins actually remain impressive by the end of the year. And then even on top of that, it has to hope that every at-large team in the country finishes with multiple losses. For teams coming from the SEC, a 9-3 record might even be enough to finish ahead of 11-1 Notre Dame, especially if that win over Texas A&M ages poorly.
By the way, all of this rests on the idea that Notre Dame can actually win 10 straight games. If the first two years of the Marcus Freeman experience are any indicator, at least one more inexplicable loss could be on the horizon. The Irish are done. The good news is that El Paso is still lovely in December. — Jeyarajah
