UHND.com - Notre Dame Football, Basketball, & Recruiting

1. there is no history of a committee having to use judgement to pick 12 teams. We simply don't know how they are going to do it and where the key decision points.
2. There will be more "quality" games then there have in the past because of the new conference makeups probably putting a higher emphasis on SOS to pick those final one or two teams. Just because a team is ranked 10/11 doesn't mean thing this year.
3. Whether we like it or not the 500 lb. gorillas, the SEC/BIG, are going to be beating their chests to get as many of their teams in as possible. It probably isn't even questionable that there will be 3 SEC and BIG teams in.
4. There will be a ton of key games that will give the committee more decision reference points than in the past. So they will have to dig deeper into their decision points to make them.

It is hard to predict how the committee will look at a 11-1 ND with the possibility of having beating no playoff contenders much less playing any, versus several teams from the SEC'BIG with 9-3 records who have. Given that possibility, for example, I doubt any committee isn't going to swallow twice letting in 4 SEC teams instead of letting in ND with its mediocre schedule.

In short, not only do we need to ace the rest of the season, we need help and that would be in for the form of 2 out of the 3 of A & M/USC/Louisville are in the playoff o2 seriously considered for it. Beating Army and Navy is going to pale in comparison to beating any combination of PSU/Tenn/Missouri/ Michigan, etc that our prime competition is going to have on their resumes. We lose in any comparison to virtually any 3 loss team in the SEC/BIG. We have to hope the decision comes down to 2 ACC/Big 12 teams or ND and even then we are sitting on the wrong side of maybe.

In other words, the cookies have to crumble the right way for ND to get in. NIU just killed us!