Election 2020 is over, at least on paper. Still, Notre Dame head coach Brian Kelly subtly began a different type of campaign following Saturday’s 45-31 victory at Boston College.
The 11th-year head coach who recorded his 100th win — on paper as well — at Notre Dame earlier this season broke the coaching code of publicly not looking too far ahead when he acknowledged in October that the showdown with No. 1 Clemson on Nov. 7 was on the team’s mind as motivation to get better and to position themselves for an ACC title and national championship.
With the conquest of the Tigers in the books and a No. 2 national ranking at 8-0 heading into this week’s bye and final examinations, Kelly noted how his Fighting Irish have already completed a “full season,” so to speak, in “The Year of COVID-19.”
Among this week’s Associated Press top 25, Notre Dame joins No. 4 Clemson (7-1), No. 8 Brigham Young (8-0), No. 12 Miami (7-1), No. 21 Liberty (8-0) and No. 24 Louisiana (7-1) as the teams to have already played eight games. The only three Power Five schools to have reached eight games in the rankings so far are in the ACC.
Just this past weekend, No. 1 Alabama, No. 3 Ohio State and No. 5 Texas A&M all had games cancelled because of the pandemic.
The Big Ten this year is attempting to play eight regular-season games, and cancellations already have occurred, including for 2-0 and No. 10 Wisconsin, which crushed reeling Michigan 49-11 in Ann Arbor. Meanwhile, the Pac-12 will try to play six regular-season contests if possible.
How the 2020 College Football Playoff committee decides on who gets in will be a major storyline in December based on uneven number of games played. It won’t be apples to apples from a scheduling perspective.
“We’ve already played a Big Ten schedule,” Kelly noted after the win versus the Eagles. “We’ve completed eight games, and that’s clearly more than the Pac-12 will play, and it takes a lot [out of the team]. Our team was tired tonight, and you could see that they were especially on defense because it requires a lot of mental energy.”
The extremely physical nature of the game itself will take a cumulative effect throughout an arduous college football campaign, especially once November arrives. This year, an extra layer of fatigue occurs on the mental side because of the constant protocols and discipline that must be adhered to while battling the coronavirus. Notre Dame itself had the Sept. 26 game at Wake Forest postponed and rescheduled for Dec. 12.
“Certainly the physical [nature] of playing a lot of games — and that takes its toll because we’re testing,” Kelly said. “We tested [for the coronavirus] four times this week, and obviously, the training room, and we played a double-overtime game [versus Clemson]. Those kids, they probably didn’t get to bed until four o’clock in the morning.”
Which then brought Kelly to the subtle crux of his campaigning for a spot in the four-team College Football Playoff this year that will feature semifinals on Friday, Jan. 1 at the Rose Bowl and Allstate Sugar Bowl, with the national title then to be determined at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium Jan. 11.
“All those things matter when we talk about cumulative games across the board,” Kelly said. “So when you’re picking your teams — if this was just for one game and you want to put up one team in one game, yeah, it’s pretty easy to see who’s really good for one week.
“But to stretch it out over … we’re going to play 11 games, 12 games, and that’s a whole different test that we’re going to be facing than some other schools that are not going to play as many games as we are.”
Notre Dame is in the driver’s seat to appear in the ACC championship game Dec. 19 at Charlotte, N.C. — its 12th game — likely a rematch against Clemson.
After final exams this week in the classroom, business must be taken care of first at North Carolina (Nov. 27), Syracuse on Senior Day (Dec. 5) and at Wake Forest (Dec. 12) before what amounts to what could be an “Elite Eight” play-in game on Dec. 19.
A subtle campaign, though, can’t begin too early, though, on what constitutes the four best teams in 2020.
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