The chair of the College Football Playoff Selection Committee, Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel, not only claims his group doesn’t let the AP and coaches polls guide them in formulating their own Top 25, they don’t even look at them.
Whether there’s even a smidge of embellishment in that statement, where Notre Dame landed in each this Sunday is, at the very least, intriguing, even if it might not be predictive.
Notre Dame was No. 10 in last Tuesday’s first set of CFP rankings. On Sunday, they moved up a spot to No. 7 in the coaches poll and two spots, to No. 8, in the AP writers poll.
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Oregon remains the unanimous No. 1 team among the 62 AP voters. The Ducks are followed by Ohio State, Texas, Penn State, Indiana, Tennessee and BYU before the Irish check in at No. 8. Two-loss SEC teams, Alabama and Ole Miss, round out the Top 10.
What might be more relevant is who the Irish have left on their schedule. And looking at the teams that would be projected into this season’s first 12-team playoff and just beyond that field, Notre Dame has a better potential resume-building schedule than most with two teams with winning records — Virginia (5-4) and Army (9-0), the latter of which is ranked.
Texas, Georgia and Tennessee are the only other teams with that kind of octane — two FBS teams left with winning records — to score with the committee, though the singular meeting between Indiana (10-0) and Ohio State (8-1) stands out as well.
ND has two ranked opponents in its rearview mirror, No. 15 Texas A&M and No. 22 Louisville, with No. 16 Army coming up at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx on Nov. 23.
The Irish (8-1) are coming off a 52-3 walloping of preseason Top 10 Florida State (1-9) in what tied the largest margin of defeat in Seminole football history. Notre Dame hosts Virginia this Saturday (3:30 p.m. EST, NBC/Peacock) in its home finale.
In between, the second set of CFP rankings will be unveiled on ESPN but in a weird and inexact time frame, between games of a men’s basketball doubleheader, so around 8:30 p.m. ET.
Here are the remaining schedules for the top playoff contenders. Keep in mind some of them will have conference championship games as well on Dec. 7, the day before the final rankings and playoff pairing are revealed (AP rankings applied).
No. 1 Oregon (10-0): at Wisconsin (5-4), vs. Washington (5-5)
No. 2 Ohio State (8-1): at Northwestern (4-5), vs. Indiana (10-0), vs. Michigan (5-5)
No. 3 Texas (8-1): at Arkansas (5-4), vs. Kentucky (3-6), at Texas A&M (7-2)
No. 4 Penn State (8-1): at Purdue (1-8), at Minnesota (6-4), vs. Maryland (4-5)
No. 5 Indiana (10-0): at Ohio State (8-1), vs. Purdue (1-8)
No. 6 Tennessee (8-1): at Georgia (7-2), vs. UTEP (2-8), vs. Vanderbilt (6-4)
No. 7 BYU (9-0): vs. Kansas (3-6), at Arizona State (7-2), vs. Houston (4-5)
No. 8 Notre Dame (8-1): vs. Virginia (5-4), neutral site vs. Army (9-0), at USC (4-5)
No. 9 Alabama (7-2): vs. Mercer (FCS, 9-1), vs. Oklahoma (5-5), vs. Auburn (3-6)
No. 10 Ole Miss (8-2): at Florida (4-5) vs. Mississippi State (2-8)
No. 11 Georgia (7-2): vs. Tennessee (8-1), vs. UMass (2-7), vs. Georgia Tech (6-4)
No. 12 Miami (9-1): vs. Wake Forest (4-5), at Syracuse (6-3)
No 13 Boise State (8-1): at San Jose State (6-3), at Wyoming (2-7), vs. Oregon State (4-5)
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