College Football Playoff: Ranking likelihood of each team winning it all

The College Football Playoff is now less than a week away and here’s a look at how likely it is that each participant will walk away as national champions.

The bowl season has been underway since Monday, but now as we move past Christmas, you can feel the College Football Playoff creeping closer.

We are now just six days away from the highly-anticipated semifinal matchups as Alabama and Notre Dame will battle it out in the Rose Bowl in Texas, while Ohio State and Clemson will square off in the Sugar Bowl.

There may have been some debates about the participants and some folks had questions about both Notre Dame and Ohio State. But the committee has spoken and we rank the likelihood for each team to win the College Football Playoff.

4. Notre Dame

This is the obvious choice and the reason is that Notre Dame was just clobbered by Clemson in the ACC championship game last week and Alabama is probably even better than the Tigers.

The Crimson Tide are at least that good and while it might be unfair, the previous appearances in the College Football Playoff and BCS national title game don’t make you feel too strongly about Notre Dame’s chances.

And this Alabama team is so good that it’s going to take a near miracle for the Fighting Irish to pull it off. Now, Brian Kelly is a great coach and the Irish have an experienced quarterback, plus lots of talent and maybe the element of surprise if Bama overlooks them, but if even if the Irish upset the Tide, they would face a juggernaut in the title game.

One upset could certainly lead to another and we have seen the No. 4 seed win the College Football Playoff before (Ohio State) but that seems like a mountain just too tall to climb.

Most likely, Notre Dame goes out in the first round and in lopsided fashion.