Where Notre Dame moved to in Week 12 College Football Playoff rankings
A 49-point win and two teams ahead of Notre Dame in the inaugural College Football Playoff rankings suffering a Week 11 defeat had to mean good news for the Fighting Irish. Right? Right. Sure enough, the Irish moved up in the Week 12 edition of the CFP poll, which was unveiled Tuesday night.
Notre Dame (8-1) is now No. 8.
If the playoff started today, the Irish would be the No. 9 seed playing at No. 8 seed Tennessee (8-1) because both teams are getting jumped by Miami. The Hurricanes (9-1) are No. 9 in the rankings but are No. 4 in the seeding because they are currently one of the projected four highest-ranked conference champions.
With where the Irish sit with only three games remaining and only one of those matchups being against a team currently ranked in the CFP poll, No. 24 Army (9-0), the playoff prospects for head coach Marcus Freeman 's team remain simple. Win out, and the Irish are in — and they might even move up enough to host a first-round playoff game. Lose one of those three games, the others being vs. Virginia (5-4) this week and at USC (4-5) two days after Thanksgiving, and you're more than likely on the outside looking in.
Notre Dame has two wins over teams currently ranked in the CFP poll stored away. The Irish beat No. 15 Texas A&M (7-2) in the season opener by a score of 23-13, and they held serve at home against No. 19 Louisville (6-3) in a 31-24 final in the last week of September. Navy was ranked No. 24 in the Associated Press Poll at the time of kickoff of what was ultimately a 51-14 win for the Irish, but the Midshipmen have not appeared in either set of CFP rankings to this point.
USC not being ranked hasn't done the Irish any favors in the way of a chance at another résumé booster at the tail end of the season, but the other side of that coin is Notre Dame has a clearer path forward to 11-1 because of the Trojans' shortcomings. Take care of another middle of the road ACC team, beat a service academy at a neutral site and hold onto a rivalry trophy. Those are all things Freeman's team has already accomplished this season.
