I am still concerned that the media covering ND is inexcusably misleading ND fans as to the certainty of ND's inclusion into the Playoffs if it wins at USC at all, let alone if it is not a convincing victory.
If you read the excerpt below, the Committee clearly has grouped ND, Michigan and Georgia as comparable teams (as it has Alabama and Clemson). If the three win out they presumably will still be comparable, but Michigan and Georgia will be conference champions in which case, if the Protocol that governs the Committee is to be believed, ND cannot be included in the Playoff over Michigan or Georgia because ND will not be "unequivocally" better than either. Assuming Clemson wins out, it will come down to undefeated and independent ND vs 1-loss and conference non-champion Alabama.
The "ND will definitely be in if it wins at USC" crowd are assuming that conference championship is just another tie-breaking criterion, which is neither consistent with the Protocol on its face nor with Mullens qualifying the head-to-head comparison between ND and Michigan as still carrying weight "at this point." The assumption is, at best, questionable.
ROB MULLENS: Good evening, everyone. Week 4 is complete, and here are our rankings: Alabama is No. 1; Clemson is No. 2; Notre Dame is No. 3; Michigan is No. 4. Obviously nothing changed since last week. But that doesn't mean we didn't discuss or consider changes. We did. We talked about whether Alabama and Clemson should flip. Obviously we decided not to. We talked a long time about Notre Dame, Michigan and Georgia and where they should be ranked, especially after looking at their full resumes, including the one head-to-head, we ranked them as the way we did.
....
Q. You keep saying you were having trouble, a discussion about ranking 3, 4, 5. Seeing as Notre Dame has a win over No. 4 and over four top-25 teams, what's keeping them in that 3-to-5 range for you as opposed to being lumped in with 1 and 2?
ROB MULLENS: I want to be clear. We said there was a deep discussion on 3, 4, 5, and the head-to-head at this point still does carry the weight. That's why Notre Dame is 3, Michigan is 4, and Georgia is 5.
Link: College Football Playoff Media Conference, November 20, 2018
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The obvious means that, absent upset wins, that 1,2, and 3 are set. So the committee is just keeping the conferences happy making more people think that some of these other games are still important and keeping fans tuned in.
They'd have a lot of explaining if Michigan was ranked above a 12-0 ND. How can they not say with a straight face that ND was unequivocally not better given the head to head?
If they did, it would completely eliminate face-to-face as a criteria.
It certainly is possible that a combination of one loss Georgia, a one loss Alabama or a one loss Oklahoma forces ND out. But it won't be Michigan.
I think there is a bigger risk of Michigan getting bounced out than ND. But if the committee did that now, it eliminated the drama for the Big Ten.
Any "eye" test applied to ND would also have to be applied to Michigan and there is nothing that inherently favors Michigan over ND except for their whims, which is all the "eye" test is.
They can't even explain their ratings now so they duck the questions so they can keep their options open.
It doesn't matter when the game was played.
We lead the whole way!
Michigan was never close to winning!
There weren't "weird" plays or weather, making it a "lucky" win for ND.
We beat a common opponent on their field by a greater margin that Michigan did.
I'd rather play Clemson with them at #2 thinking they are better than we are, than with us having taken "their spot" so that they have that to use as motivation.
Then again, if you need motivational tricks by the time you make the CFP, maybe you've got problems.
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because we'll 1) have a better record 2) have the head to head victory 3) have the better win vs common opponent(s)
after Michigan (hypothetically) defeats Ohio State at Columbus and Northwestern? That makes no sense.
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get the sand out of your twat, you are fretting over nothing...if you wanna worry about something worry about if we actually win on Saturday, that is more in question than our playoff spot 'if' we win.
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*3 of 9 if you take into account 2012 being vacated.
Let the jerked off committee suck on that
ND would move up to 2 Meat-Chicken to 3
and the Irish get a bye into the National championship. Another ND - Mich. game would be a blow out.
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he was a steaming piece of shit, so you are fine to use that term in that context.
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All politics aside (as I'm very non-political) anyone who can't agree on that has something very wrong with them, imo.