CFP Playoff Rankings: Recapping Week 13 for the top 6

6. Notre Dame (11-1)

Week 13 result: Defeated Stanford 45-14

It has definitely been a roller-coaster week for the Fighting Irish. After dominating Stanford on Saturday and having a great chance at making the playoff, Brian Kelly has shockingly left the team to be the head coach at LSU. I don’t think anybody saw this one coming.

The timing of all this is extremely odd considering his team is ranked 6th and can still make the college football playoff if teams above them lose. I definitely feel bad for the Notre Dame players and fans. They did not deserve this drama as they were having such a great year.

It was truthfully one of Kelly’s best coaching jobs. This team was not this good at the beginning of the season and now they’re maybe the most improved team in the country. Regardless of Kelly leaving, this has still been a special year for the Irish. They finished the regular season 11-1 with their only loss being to Cincinnati.

They capped off their regular season with a blowout win against Stanford. The offense continued its stellar play scoring 45 in this one. They had 509 total yards all attributed from the likes of Jack Coan, Kyren Williams, Kevin Austin Jr, and Michael Mayer. All of these players came on strong in the second half of the season and rejuvenated this Fighting Irish team. Notre Dame, unfortunately, doesn’t have a conference championship or any more games to impress the committee.

So their fate is out of their hands at this point. They now will just have to wait and see how the games play out this upcoming weekend to see if they’ll get an opportunity in the college football playoff. The Irish will definitely be rooting for upsets.