College Football 2018: 5 takeaways from Conference Championship Week
3. Notre Dame makes CFB history
For the first time in its five-year history, the College Football Playoff will have an independent team in the playoff field thanks to Notre Dame landing in the No. 3 spot to conclude the season.
This development comes a year after the first playoff in which two teams from the same conference (Alabama and Georgia, both in the SEC) were included in the same playoff field.
Not only is Notre Dame the first independent team to make the playoff, but they are also the first team sponsored by Under Armour to make the College Football Playoff. Previously, only teams sponsored by Nike had reached the playoff.
In the College Football Playoff semifinal, the Irish will, oddly enough, meet Clemson –– the winner of the ACC Conference. Notre Dame, while considered to be an independent team, plays a joint ACC schedule in which they face five ACC opponents each year.
While Notre Dame finished the year a pristine 12-0, there might be some questions lingering. For instance, will the extra week without a game benefit or harm the Irish?
I would argue it helped Notre Dame in the sense that it didn’t have to play an extra game in a matchup that counted. In their position, it allowed for a much-needed rest and recovery period that the rest of the playoff field simply didn’t have the luxury of.
The extra week without a game could also prove disadvantageous. Once Ian Book supplanted Brandon Wimbush as the starting quarterback, the offense became a more well-oiled, cohesive unit.
The ground game has proven to be effective as well, largely in part because of veteran Dexter Williams, who is about 60 yards shy of 1,000 rushing yards this season.
Some called Notre Dame’s strength of schedule into question considering the teams that are normally much more competitive –– like Stanford, USC and Florida State –– weren’t nearly as good as previous years.
However, Notre Dame won all 12 of its regular season games and earned the right to play for a national title. In light of that, the Irish face arguably their most arduous task ahead, having to face a Clemson team that knows how to win in the College Football Playoff.
Historically, though, this will be Notre Dame’s eighth Cotton Bowl appearance and of those games, five of them have culminated in victories.