Photo Credit: Athlon Sports

After beating USC this past Saturday Notre Dame now has a 99% chance to earn a spot in this year’s College Football Playoffs, but do they truly deserve a spot?

The College Football Playoff committee’s goal is to put the current best four teams in the country head to head, but this does not necessarily mean the four teams with the best records. The committee takes many things into consideration when deciding the best four teams, factors include: Conference Championships won, the strength of schedule, head to head competition, the comparative outcomes of common opponents, and simply the “eye-test.”

Notre Dame has been able to boast an undefeated season, but does that mean they are a better team than Oklahoma or Ohio State assuming both win their respective conference titles. That will be left to the committee to decide. Notre Dame being an independent team hurts their chances as they will be unable to add “Conference Champions” to their resume, not being in a conference also decreases the strength of their schedule as they do not play heated inter-conference games that might result in a surprising loss like Ohio State took against Purdue, and Oklahoma took against Texas, both of which have a chance to redeem themselves and further add to their case for a playoff spot replacing Notre Dame.

Being undefeated should not always guarantee you a spot, just last year UCF had an undefeated record but the strength of their schedule ranking at #83 drastically hurt their position, why should the same not happen with Notre Dame whose strength of schedule ranks at #61 this year while Ohio State’s ranks at #48 and Oklahoma’s at #34.

Lastly, the “eye-test” should never be overlooked. In 2014 Ohio State suffered an embarrassing loss to an unranked Virginia Tech, most were quick to rule them out of the playoffs, but a dominating performance in the biggest rivalry in sports vs. Michigan, and then an absolute annihilation against Heisman candidate Melvin Gordon’s Wisconsin team with a score of 59-0 holding Gordon to only 76 yards rushing put Ohio State in the last playoff spot over Big 12 Co-Champion TCU, who many felt had the spot unfairly taken from them as they claimed the record spoke for itself. The committee, on the other hand, did not ignore the “eye-test”, as they did not deny that Ohio State was one of the best four teams in that time. Their decision was made valid as Ohio State went on to win the National Title.

With all of that taken into consideration, Notre Dame may not be a lock after all regardless of their unimpressive undefeated record assuming Ohio State follows up their 62-39 slaughter against rival Michigan with another dominating performance in the Big Ten title game vs. #19 Northwestern, and Oklahoma redeems their only loss against rival #14 Texas. The final College Football Playoff rankings may yet again come to a controversial finish.