Marcus Freeman’s Notre Dame faces a make-or-break moment this Saturday. Kirk Herbstreit warns that if the one-loss Fighting Irish drop Week 10 to Miami, a second loss will leave them on the outside looking in, even in the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff setup.
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Speaking on ESPN, Herbstreit discussed Notre Dame’s position after the first CFP rankings came out. The Irish were placed at No. 11 despite holding a 7-1 record, and the ESPN analyst believes the committee has made its expectations pretty clear.
The discussion started when an ESPN host asked Herbstreit whether the rankings were basically telling Notre Dame that it had to win against Miami. Herbstreit agreed and explained that the Irish simply do not have enough big wins on their résumé.
“I think we all get caught up in the metrics. We look at strength of record, strength of schedule, and if you look at that, Notre Dame is going to be on the outside looking in if they were to lose to Miami because they just don’t have any marquee wins,” Herbstreit said.
He then questioned what Notre Dame would have to show the committee if it lost to the Hurricanes but won the rest of its games. Herbstreit brought up SMU as a possible signature win, but wondered whether that would be enough when compared with other two- and three-loss teams fighting for a playoff spot.
That is where the problem gets bigger for Freeman’s squad. Notre Dame has already lost to BYU, and its remaining regular-season opponents after Miami are Boston College, SMU, and Syracuse. None of those teams appeared in the first CFP top 25. So even with a 10-2 finish, the Irish could struggle to make a strong case against teams with better wins.
Herbstreit also pointed out that Notre Dame is playing Miami at home in South Bend, making the opportunity even more important. The Hurricanes entered Week 10 ranked No. 1 with an undefeated 8-0 record, giving the Irish a chance to earn the kind of win the committee wants to see.
“If they lost both of those games, the optics would hurt them,” Herbstreit explained, referring to Notre Dame’s road game against BYU and its matchup with Miami.
However, Herbstreit did leave some room for the committee to look beyond the numbers. He acknowledged that the selection committee could simply decide Notre Dame is one of the 12 best teams in the country, even without a ranked win. But he believes that would be a much harder argument to make if the committee focuses on strength of record and schedule.
“If you get into the metrics and all the strength of record, then they would definitely have a hard case because they just wouldn’t have any ranked wins,” Herbstreit added.
The 12-team expansion was supposed to give teams more margin for error, but Notre Dame’s path is trickier. As an independent without a conference title game to boost its record, a two-loss Irish squad with zero ranked wins won’t clear the committee’s high strength-of-schedule bar for one of the seven at-large spots.
The ball is now in Freeman’s hands. A win could push the Irish much closer to the playoff, while a loss could leave them relying on other results and the committee’s judgment to keep their season alive.