Entering Week 3 of the 2024 college football season, we were reminded that realignment still doesn’t sleep. On Thursday, the Pac-12 announced that the conference would be adding four schools from the Mountain West in time for the 2026 season — Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State and San Diego State. There used to be a time when this stuff played out in the offseason.
Thank goodness, however, that we can turn our attention to actual games this weekend to distract us from realignment roulette. Plenty of storylines are abound in Week 3, including Notre Dame looking to get itself back on track.
On the preseason bingo card, absolutely no one had “Notre Dame needing Northern Illinois’ schedule strength for its College Football Playoff hopes.” But as it turns out, that may be the Fighting Irish’s only path to a CFP berth. As bad as the loss was, if NIU wins the MAC, suddenly that’s somewhat of a “good” loss — at least more tolerable — if the Irish win out, which may actually be required. The remaining schedule contains exactly two currently ranked teams — Louisville and USC.
But the unwritten rules still apply. It’s Notre Dame in the minds of the selection committee, so it will be given every consideration to get in the field. The committee won’t say it, but they know it.
That’s ignoring the obvious: What the hell is wrong with Notre Dame? Marcus Freeman was only the second Irish coach to win at least nine games in his first two seasons. Now he has lost three years in a row to (at least) 14-point underdogs at home. Once is bad enough, but three times is a distressing trend.
Somehow, Freeman hasn’t communicated an age-old cliché properly: Notre Dame gets everybody’s best shot. Even an inferior opponent is going to take a…
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Author : Dennis Dodd
Publish date : 2024-09-12 16:50:30
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