So even with ranked #1 they still have the play in game. Price of not being in a conference I guess. So ND needs to win 3 games for a title.
We don’t play league playoff championships against a very strong opponent on a neutral site but instead play a relatively weak opponent… and probably at home… as a tuneup for a tough semi. Could not be a better scenario for us.
or even lose because of overlooking a relatively weak but more motivated team.
Every bye equals zero % of losing and 100% of advancing. When you swim upstream against odds you come up on the wrong end most of the time.
A 12-0 Notre Dame playing at home vs. say an 8-4 BC is the perfect way to set up a season ending upset or even get into a dogfight that has you limping into the next round vs a rested 11-1 Bama type team.
The no chance for a bye is a bad deal for ND, there is just no way around it.
Profit, not NCs are the motivation.
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Columbus, Ann Arbor or Happy Valley. Not an easy task!
So, 2-3 weeks off and a game against a relatively weak opponent and then another week or two before the quarterfinals.
Others will play a conference championship game against a very tough team and then a full month off before they play again.
We get a weaker opponent and we get our games split up so that there’s no huge layoff. I think it’s better all the way around for us than the rest.
Jack did this well.
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Because we don’t play that coveted 13th game against Mercer or The Citadel (or Tennessee State), we can never be higher than #5.
Thank you Jack, you worthless POS.
So ND stadium in late December! Love it.
only throws in another x factor that may or may not help the lesser team, but also may or may not help the better team. No advantage.
of the beholder.
It's called acclimatization!
A kid who lives and practices in South Florida humidity all season will have a much different opinion of perfect football weather from a kid who lives and practices off Lake Michigan. These are simplicities that exist in the real World that just shouldn't need to be explained.
The more complex side of your ridiculous take, is the "better team". Any given day, one team could beat another when you are talking about the upper (playoff) level. If team A beats team B twice in the regular season (home and away) but loses to them in the playoffs at a neutral site, who is the better team? Which one counts? In '88 could we have beat Miami in a best of 5 at a neutral site? Would we have won if that game was AT Miami instead of in South Bend? We beat Clemson in '20 but then got smashed in ACC Championship.
All that matters is who wins when it counts...that is who the better team is and if one team is more acclimated to the cold then that WILL give them an advantage playing in the cold while if another is more acclimated to heat or humidity it will give them an advantage playing in those conditions.
make the result less predictable for the favored team. Now it can hurt either team but I feel the favored team would like less x factors. So if we are the home team and are supposed to win, I don't want x factors coming into play. This is not to say that it might not work in the actual game in the favor of the perceived better team, I just think the risk for the better team is less if every condition was perfect. And there is not that much of a difference come playoff time other than rain or wind unless a southern team comes up north in a cold, nasty environment. I promise, I am not lost in the sauce.
He was talking specifically about ND getting another home game in late December, which if you think about it would likely be an advantage for us vs most playoff type teams excluding Tosu and michigan.
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There is a reason they will NEVER agree to schedule a game in SB after early October. And it is not their PAC 10 obligations. Teams not used to playing or practicing in cold weather fear playing in it. How often does the SEC cone north for a game after Columbus Day? Right - never.
tougher for Northern teams to go down south and play in the heat they are not used to. Who the hell knows? You may be right. But I do agree with the above logic in a thread about too much time between games makes a team stale and I have noticed, it seems that a lot of injuries occur in the first or second game or in the bowl game and have always wondered if this was the players were just getting up to game speed. I think a one week layoff is nice but beyond that not sure.
You don’t hear about football players dying in the cold and snow. You definitely hear about them succumbing to the heat and humidity.