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Notre Dame Football: 5 reasons the Irish will be in 2019 College Football Playoff

By Quinn Douglas

SOUTH BEND, IN - SEPTEMBER 01: Zach Gentry #83 and Khalid Kareem #53 of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish celebrate a 24-17 win over the Michigan Wolverines at Notre Dame Stadium on September 1, 2018 in South Bend, Indiana. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
SOUTH BEND, IN - SEPTEMBER 01: Zach Gentry #83 and Khalid Kareem #53 of the Notre Dame Fighting Irish celebrate a 24-17 win over the Michigan Wolverines at Notre Dame Stadium on September 1, 2018 in South Bend, Indiana. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images) /
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Notre Dame football currently holds its most talented team since the days of Lou Holtz, here’s why the Irish will be playoff bound come January.

Coming into the season, many of the Notre Dame faithful believed they would have a good team that would compete in every game on the schedule. However, I doubt many of them believed they would be this dominant of a team in this point of the season. The Irish currently sit at 7-0 and ranked fourth in the nation. If it the College Football Playoff poll were to come out this week, many would be willing to bet that Notre Dame would be one of the four teams in as of now.

With the way the Irish have played this season, I have no doubt in my mind that Notre Dame will be in the playoff come January. Yes there’s a lot of football left to be played, but I believe my reasons are convincing enough.

5. Notre Dame’s resume

One of the biggest criteria that needs to be met according to the playoff committee is your strength of schedule or resume. As of right now, there is no team in college football that has a better resume than Notre Dame. Currently, their signature win is their season-opening against Michigan, where they completely dominated the Wolverines for three and half quarters. Michigan has now found their way back into the top ten in the polls.

That’s not the only impressive win on their resume, as Notre Dame beat a then-No. 7 Stanford squad at home in a top ten match-up. It was a tightly contested game for much of the first half, with Notre Dame leading at halftime 21-14. The Irish only allowed three more points the rest of the game and decimated the Cardinals in the second half, pulling out a 38-17 victory. Perhaps the most impressive stat was the Irish holding the Stanford offense to -23 yards in the fourth quarter.

Their third big win was their demolition of then-No. 24 Virginia Tech at Lane Stadium in Blacksburg. Lane Stadium is definitely one of the toughest places to play in all of college football, Enter Sandman and all. The Irish went in and annihilated the Hokies in the second half, outscoring them 28-7 behind Dexter Williams 178 rushing yards and three touchdowns, including a back-breaking 97-yard sprint.

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