Fighting Irish Back in the College Football Playoffs, Will Take on the Tide
Notre Dame landed a spot in the College Football Playoffs for the second time in 3 years. The Fighting Irish come in as the #4 team and will play #1 Alabama in the Rose Bowl on New Years day, a rematch of the 2013 BCS Championship Game (yes, we don’t need to talk about the outcome of that game). It is a bucket list goal of mine to watch the Irish play in the Rose Bowl, but sadly there are two reasons why that won’t happen this year. The first one is the easy, Covid19; but the second reason is the fact that the Rose Bowl this year will not be played at the Rose Bowl. Due to Covid and the fact there would be zero fans, not even parents, the game has been moved to Dallas at AT&T Stadium. So my dream of watching the Irish at the Rose Bowl game is still on hold.
Landing a spot in the top four is no easy task, let alone doing it twice in 3 years, but this year feels different. I felt that no matter the outcome on Saturday, win or lose, the Irish would be in the playoffs this year. Towards the end of the game I questioned if the Irish really would land a spot – and if they did would they be worth it. If I had typed this blog Saturday night, my tone would be very different. Notre Dame got their ass kicked vs Clemson the second time around, there is no question about that; but that was just one game. Even with the loss the Irish are still one of the 4 best teams in the nation and they showed that all year. You can’t base a whole season on just one game.
Now with all that said and the Irish safely in the playoffs, the task at hand is a large one. The Irish saw how great Clemson was with their best player back, and now they will go up against the best team in college football with Alabama. The game preview blog will drop next week, and I know everyone out there doesn’t give the Irish a shot (I might be one of them), but for the next two weeks all the Notre Dame football players will hear is how they have a snowball’s chance in hell in beating the Tide. There are a lot of Irish faithful who would rather have them play in a New Years 6 bowl game and not have to face Alabama in the playoffs. When it comes down to it, the goal every season is to make the playoffs no matter who you play. A New Years 6 bowl game is a consolation prize to the teams who do not make the playoffs. Regardless of the outcome on Jan 1, Notre Dame is playing in the playoffs. Whatever you want to call the group of teams that are right below the “elite” teams like Alabama, Clemson and Ohio State – that’s were Notre Dame is, and landing in the playoffs gets you closer to closing the gap between those two groups. There are other “Blue Blood” programs that would kill to be where the Irish are, like USC, Michigan and Nebraska to name a few. Irish fans as a whole need to realize that the program is trending up. While the match up with Alabama in the playoffs is not ideal, we as fans need to be extremely grateful because the dark days of Notre Dame football were not long ago.