It's not like we were expecting anything different tonight, but it still stings a bit to see the Notre Dame Fighting Irish ranked #15 in the newest College Football Playoff poll.

Notre Dame's 2nd loss in three weeks knocks them out of any playoff talk, and probably even a New Years Six bowl game.

With most of the Top 25 most likely locked inside the rankings even after next week's championship games, Notre Dame faced six CFP ranked opponents in 2017. The Irish went 3-3 against:

Next week's conference championship games make it almost appear as if we have an 8 team playoff rather than just a 4 team playoff.

The games next week will force quite a bit of movement inside the top 15, but the chances of Notre Dame moving up more than a spot or two is unlikely. More importantly, the results of those games will help shape the exact pairings for all the bowl games.

As it stands right now, Notre Dame is most likely headed to Orlando, Florida to play in either the Camping World Bowl (formerly Champs Sports Bowl) or the Citrus Bowl.