On Tuesday, the College Football Playoff officially approved its new 12-team format that will include automatic bids for the four highest-ranked conference champions. Those four conference champions will also receive the four highest seeds in the field and a first-round bye. And that’s a problem for the Notre Dame Fighting Irish.
As sports analyst Joe Pompliano points out, since Notre Dame is an independent team that is not a part of any conference, they will be ineligible for one of the playoff’s top four seeds even if they are the No. 1 team in the country because they will never be a conference champion.
“The new College Football Playoff will put the 4 highest ranked conference champions as seeds 1 through 4. That means that even if Notre Dame is the #1 ranked team in the country, they would get the #5 seed, requiring them to win 4 straight games to win a title. That’s brutal,” Pompliano said in a post on X, the social media website that was formerly known as Twitter.
Yeah, so "brutal" that Notre Dame has to play an extra game against a Top 12 opponent … sounds like a fair replacement for the Conference Title Game they are dodging https://t.co/uxMMzmN0ER
— Pick Six Previews (@PickSixPreviews) February 20, 2024
Guess they'll have to consider joining a conference. *shrugs* https://t.co/hb3SmNX63E
— Marc Givler (@MarcGivler) February 20, 2024
This is a very funny thing to do to ND. Great job, everyone https://t.co/5jggH3NpEN
— Jon (@BigJon865) February 20, 2024
Good. Join a conference or cry about the repercussions of not joining one. Ball is in your court, ND. https://t.co/RHbD1I09L0
— Unbiased Ev (@DoubleVodkaDon) February 20, 2024
No, brutal is having to potentially play USC or Washington or Oregon or Ohio State again in a B1G title game just to make the CFP while Notre Dame rests at home.
It's time to do away with conference title games. https://t.co/KAzRQPmzBE
— M Go Humor (@MGoHumor) February 20, 2024
Tough for Notre Dame, especially since there isn't a way for them to join some sort of grouping of other schools that plays some sort of extra game at the end of the season to determine its best team.
Ah. Well, nevertheless. https://t.co/hXrO0dvkz7
— Jeff D. Lowe (@JeffDLowe) February 20, 2024
It’s cool actually https://t.co/zMLXp6tzyV
— B1G_Ryan (@B1G_Ryan) February 20, 2024
Notre Dame’s football team has fought to remain independent and has resisted joining a conference throughout its history. However, Notre Dame does play five games a year against opponents from the ACC and is a member of the conference for all other sports besides ice hockey.
