With fall camp closing in and the new season about to kick off, Notre Dame is still drawing plenty of buzz. Ari Wasserman added to it on Tuesday with a College Football Playoff prediction that gives the Irish the kind of headline fans love and the kind of bracket twist nobody wants.
In Wasserman’s projection, Notre Dame lands at No. 1 in the country when the CFP field is set. That fits the logic a lot of people have been circling already: Marcus Freeman’s team has a path that, at least on paper, avoids a long list of heavyweight opponents. If the Irish get through Miami, BYU and SMU, a 12-0 finish is right there.
That perfect record, in Wasserman’s view, would put Notre Dame at the top of the playoff and earn a first-round bye. The catch is what comes next.
After sitting out the opening round, the Irish would be waiting for the winner of No. 8 Oregon and No.
9 Ole Miss.
That’s where the prediction turns sour for Notre Dame. Wasserman has Oregon advancing past the Irish in the quarterfinal round, then beating Miami - after the Hurricanes knock off Georgia on the other side of the bracket - to reach the championship game.
He sees Texas taking the other path to the final. The No.
3 Longhorns, in Wasserman’s bracket, get past No. 11 Oklahoma and then No.
2 Ohio State before meeting Oregon for the title. In that matchup, Wasserman has the SEC finally breaking through, with Texas winning its first national championship since 2005.
For Notre Dame, the frustrating part is obvious: a No. 1 seed, a bye, and still a second-round meeting with a team like Oregon. It’s a reminder of how strange the 12-team playoff can look on paper.
Still, the Irish have already shown they can blow up expectations. The last time Marcus Freeman’s team reached the CFP, it made a run all the way to the championship game.
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Books path now sits at an interesting intersection of possibility and reality. He has not closed the door on the NFL, yet he is also openly weighing what comes next as fatherhood and other opportunities take on a bigger role. For Irish fans who watched him become a familiar part of the programs recent history, the question is less about what he meant in college than where his next chapter ultimately leads. [Read more 🡒]