Notre Dame Remains No. 3 In College Football Playoff Rankings
Following last weekend’s 48-37 victory against Wake Forest, Notre Dame maintained its No. 3 position in the College Football Playoff rankings released Tuesday night. It is the highest rating for Notre Dame in the four-year history of the CFP.
The Fighting Irish are deemed the best one-loss team in the country because their lone setback was 20-19 versus No. 1 Georgia Sept. 9. Augmenting that status, Notre Dame owns the most quality victories, and all resoundingly, versus No. 11 USC (49-14), No. 12 Michigan State (38-18) and No. 23 North Carolina State (35-14). Stanford (6-3), who the Irish play Nov. 25, dropped out of the rankings after losing to Washington State.
Head coach Brian Kelly’s squad will have an opportunity to solidify its status as one of the top four teams in the country with a victory Saturday at No. 7 Miami (8-0), which owns the longest winning streak (13) in the Football Bowl Subdivision. The Hurricanes moved up three spots after last weekend’s 28-10 victory versus then No. 13 Virginia Tech, which is now No. 17.
The top 10 was as follows.
1. Georgia (9-0)
2. Alabama (9-0)
3. Notre Dame (8-1)
4. Clemson (8-1)
5. Oklahoma (8-1)
6. TCU (8-1)
7. Miami (8-0)
8. Wisconsin (9-0)
9. Washington (8-1)
10. Auburn (7-2)
The College Football Playoff matches the No. 1 seed versus No. 4, and No. 2 versus No. 3 in semifinal games that rotate annually among the Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl, Goodyear Cotton Bowl, Capital One Orange Bowl, Allstate Sugar Bowl, Rose Bowl Game presented by Northwestern Mutual and PlayStation Fiesta Bowl. This season’s semifinals will take place on Jan. 1, 2018, at the Rose Bowl presented by Northwestern Mutual and the Allstate Sugar Bowl. The national championship game will be on Jan. 8, 2018, at Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta.
This weekend is Showdown Saturday with No. 1 Georgia vs. No. 10 Auburn, No. 3 Notre Dame vs. No. 7 Miami and No. 5 Oklahoma vs. No. 6 TCU.
Among the first 12 teams to make the College Football Playoff from 2014-16, only two — Oklahoma in 2015 and Ohio State in 2016 — made it in by playing only 12 games, which is what Notre Dame will have this year.
This marked the third time in the four-year history of the CFP rankings that Notre Dame debuted in the top 10.
In the inaugural rankings in 2014 it began No. 10 but a November swoon dropped it to 7-5 in the regular season.
In 2015 the Irish debuted at No. 5 and moved into the top four, but unimpressive wins against Wake Forest (28-7) and Boston College (19-16), both of whom finished 3-9, dropped them to No. 6 before losing the regular season finale at Stanford (36-35) on the game’s final play to finish the regular season 10-2.
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