Like It or Not, the Notre Dame Playoff Debate Won’t Go Away

The bigger issue for the Irish is the remainder of their schedule. Their two wins have come against Purdue and Arkansas. The Boilermakers underwent a head coaching change during the offseason, and while better, are far from a quality resume builder. The same can be said for the Razorbacks, whose 56-13 loss to the Irish directly led to the firing of their head coach, Sam Pittman.

And it doesn’t get much better from here on out. The only remaining road games are at Boston College (1-3), Pittsburgh (2-2) and Stanford (2-3), which currently have a combined record of 5-8. To make it worse, they are a combined 1-7 against P4 opposition, with the one win coming from Stanford against Boston College.

The home slate had the potential to be more challenging but is trending in a bad direction. USC (4-1) would have been ranked this week but just lost at No. 23 Illinois. Boise State’s season opening loss at USF immediately knocked them down a few pegs and Syracuse (3-2) looked lost on Saturday without starting quarterback Steve Angeli, who is out for the season with an Achilles injury. Even Navy, which is currently 4-0 and realistically could be 8-0 when they arrive in South Bend on November 8^th, won’t create much buzz considering they were 6-0 last season when the two played and lost 51-14.

But does the remainder of the schedule even matter? As teams currently ranked ahead of them continue to beat one another in the coming weeks, everyone already knows what will happen. Every Sunday you will see the Irish gradually and steadily creep up the rankings. Before you know it, they’ll be inside the Top 20, then the mid-teens and eventually get closer to the Top 10.

It is highly debatable if this is deserved, but no matter what side of the Irish argument you are on, it isn’t a topic that will go away. So, prepare yourself accordingly for two months of Irish frenzy.