The College Football Playoff committee has yet again ranked Notre Dame ahead of Mario Cristobal’s Miami despite the Hurricanes’ head-to-head win in Week 1. And if you’re looking for validation beyond the committee’s talking points, you just got it from one of football’s sharpest minds. Frank Reich, Stanford’s interim head coach and Super Bowl LII champion, put the Fighting Irish on tape this week and came away in awe. 

“No doubt, this is a challenge. It’s exciting. This is a good football team. When I put the tape on yesterday, I was like, Boom. I mean, this is a real deal,” Reich said about the challenge facing his Cardinal squad in Week 14 against Notre Dame. “This, to me, looks like the best team we’ve played all year in the film I’ve watched. They’re really well coached. You can just see it jump off the tape. They’re very well coached; they’re high-level.”

“There’s really no weakness for me, mostly looking at their defense right now,” he explained. “I’ll get to the offense a little bit later today. But I’m looking at them defensively, really good across the board. So it’s gonna be a good challenge for us. It’s a great opportunity for us coming off a big win, an emotional win, to be able to lock down against one of the better teams in the country and see how we stack up.” 

The interesting part? Reich’s Stanford also played Mario Cristobal earlier this season. So, making his “best team we’ve played all year” assessment a direct comparison between the two playoff contenders.​ Moreover, this is what the committee is also thinking. The eye test is what separates No. 9 Notre Dame and No. 12 Miami. 

Yet another argument on the same lines is the game against Syracuse. Notre Dame’s suffocating defense showed up in full force against Syracuse, steamrolling the Orange 70-7 in a beatdown that set school records for points scored in the first quarter. 

Meanwhile, Miami went past that same Syracuse team 38-10. Yes, there are arguments supporting Miami because Syracuse was with third-string QB Joseph Filardi when facing Notre Dame, while they were with second-string QB Rickie Collins when they faced Miami. So, defensively, Mario Cristobal can make an argument. However, the offense paints a clear picture of which team is the better one.

The head-to-head argument Miami fans keep making matters only when the quality of losses is remotely comparable. But they’re not. Committee chair Hunter Yurachek spelled it out clearly: “I think when you look at Notre Dame and Miami, we really compare the losses of those two teams. Miami has lost to two unranked teams,” he explained.

Notre Dame lost to Miami in Week 1 and to No. 10 Texas A&M (at the time) in Week 2, both ranked opponents. Miami lost to unranked Louisville and SMU, with the SMU loss coming after the Hurricanes were tied in the third quarter. 

The committee sees what Reich saw

The College Football Playoff committee also has been watching the same tape and arrived at the same conclusion. Committee chair Hunter Yurachek explained the thinking behind keeping Notre Dame at No. 9 ahead of Miami at No. 12 despite the Hurricanes’ Week 1 head-to-head win. And it all comes back to what shows up on film.

“The committee has felt like, as you watched Notre Dame on film, watched their games throughout year, that they have been consistent, even in the early-season games that they lost by three in Miami and by one point to Texas A&M,” Yurachek said during the CFP rankings teleconference.

The word “consistent” keeps popping up. And it mirrors exactly what Reich saw. You’ve got an NFL-caliber coach and a committee full of athletic directors all independently arriving at the same assessment. So, maybe the head-to-head result isn’t telling the whole story.​ Yurachek also made it clear that the committee doesn’t evaluate these teams in a vacuum. This explains why Miami’s September win over Notre Dame hasn’t been the trump card.

“We compare a number of things when we’re looking at teams that are closely ranked together. And so you’ve got some teams that between Miami and Notre Dame, such as Alabama and BYU, that we’re also comparing Miami to,” he explained. 

In other words, the committee is stacking Miami up against multiple two-loss teams and one-loss BYU in the same grouping. And when you look at the broader picture, Miami’s losses to unranked Syracuse and Louisville versus Notre Dame’s narrow defeats to ranked opponents, the Irish keep coming out ahead.