{"id":69697,"date":"2024-12-04T19:00:42","date_gmt":"2024-12-05T00:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/?p=69697"},"modified":"2025-09-20T14:33:18","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T18:33:18","slug":"notre-dame-seeded-no-6-in-penultimate-playoff-bracket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/2024\/12\/04\/notre-dame-seeded-no-6-in-penultimate-playoff-bracket\/","title":{"rendered":"Notre Dame Seeded No. 6 in Penultimate Playoff Bracket"},"content":{"rendered":"

No. 4 Notre Dame is in the No. 6 spot on the College Football Playoff Committee’s penultimate playoff bracket. Released on Tuesday ahead of conference championship weekend, the projection has Notre Dame (11-1) hosting No. 11 Alabama (9-3), seeded 11th<\/sup>, with the Crimson Tide traveling to South Bend for the opening round on Dec. 20 or 21. In that scenario, the winner would face third-seeded Southern Methodist at a neutral-site bowl game on either Dec. 31 or Jan. 1.<\/p>\n

The projected bracket could change, however. If Penn State (11-1) loses to Oregon (12-0) in the Big 10 Championship on Saturday night, Notre Dame could potentially be the No. 5 seed by Selection Sunday. Notre Dame, which was ranked 7th<\/sup> in last week\u2019s bracket, concluded its regular season with a hard-fought 49-35 win over USC<\/a> on Saturday. For comparison, Penn State defeated the Trojans 33-30 in overtime on Oct. 12.<\/p>\n

Warde Manuel, selection committee chair, said on ESPN that the teams not playing in conference title games are set.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose who are not playing, we will not adjust those teams because they don\u2019t have another data point, obviously,\u201d Manuel said. \u201cBut in terms of those who are playing, how they will move, if they will move at all, we could adjust, depending on the outcome of the games.\u201d<\/p>\n

Can Notre Dame Rise Further in CFP Rankings?<\/h3>\n

Led by an elite defense and an offense deep with playmakers like Riley Leonard<\/a>, Jeremiyah Love<\/a>, and Jadarian Price<\/a>, Notre Dame is 6-1 against teams with winning percentages above .500. The Irish are 1-0 against teams currently in the CFP rankings, having defeated No. 24 Army. Penn State is 3-1 and 1-1 by the same metrics. A loss to Oregon would further weaken the case for the Nittany Lions. On the other hand, Notre Dame ranks 57th<\/sup> in strength of schedule. Penn State is 36th<\/sup>. Notre Dame has played opponents with an overall record of 73-69. Penn State\u2019s rivals this season have a cumulative record of 66-78.<\/p>\n

If Penn State upsets the Ducks on Saturday, both teams will be ranked ahead of the Irish. That would likely seed Notre Dame in sixth. If Oregon wins, Notre Dame is likely to be the No. 5 seed ahead of Penn State. The four conference champions with the highest rankings are seeded No. 1- No. 4 and receive first-round byes. Notre Dame, an Independent, was ranked No. 4 by the CFP selection committee on Tuesday\u2014behind just Oregon, Texas, and Penn State. The highest CFP seeding possible for Notre Dame is at No. 5.<\/p>\n

Marcus Freeman\u2019s squad can take solace in the fact that they secured a spot in the newly expanded 12-team playoff. Especially after a surprising Week 2 loss to Northern Illinois. The Irish will need a little luck and a Penn State loss to Oregon to move up in the final CFP rankings.<\/p>\n

\"Notre
Photo courtesy: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

No. 4 Notre Dame is in the No. 6 spot on the College Football Playoff Committee’s penultimate playoff bracket. Released on Tuesday ahead of conference championship weekend, the projection has Notre Dame (11-1) hosting No. 11 Alabama (9-3), seeded 11th, with the Crimson Tide traveling to South Bend for the opening round on Dec. 20 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4854,"featured_media":69723,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10906,35574,8,11,35676,35610,2056],"tags":[35,6850,259,277,309,33966],"class_list":["post-69697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cfb","category-alabama-crimson-tide","category-fbs","category-independents","category-notre-dame-fighting-irish","category-penn-state-nittany-lions","category-top-25","tag-alabama-crimson-tide","tag-marcus-freeman","tag-notre-dame-fighting-irish","tag-oregon-ducks","tag-penn-state-nittany-lions","tag-warde-manuel"],"modified_by":"Michael Kovacs, ADMIN","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4854"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=69697"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69724,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69697\/revisions\/69724"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=69697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=69697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/collegefootball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=69697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}