Predicting where Notre Dame lands in the CFP rankings before Week 14

So far Notre Dame football has mirrored its ranking in the US LBM Coaches Poll with the College Football Playoff rankings.

The initial rankings of Week 11 saw the Irish at No. 10, moving up to No. 9 the following week and staying there in last week’s update. We’ll find out later tonight if it will happen again.

The reason why the Irish didn’t move up last week was due to Oklahoma defeating Alabama on the road, and the Sooners did get another top-25 win, this time over Missouri. It wasn’t as convincing as what Notre Dame did to Syracuse, but you do have to account for the talent level of the opposition.

It will be interesting to see how the CFP committee treats each of those wins, as it would be hard or Alabama, BYU or Utah to jump the Irish. The wildcard is Miami, but none of those teams lost this past weekend.

So the biggest question is if Notre Dame can make up enough ground with Oklahoma and jump them, and it’s important because being the No. 8 seed is the last team to host in the first-round. Having home-field advantage last year helped propel the Irish to the CFP Championship Game and could do the same this year.

That’s the current goal, and has to be one of the reasons why head coach Marcus Freeman didn’t let off the gas against the Orange. He won’t publicly say it, but Notre Dame needs some “eye test” wins now to potentially make that jump.

I’d say as of right now, the two teams stay the same, and once again mirror what we saw in the polls. Hopefully I’m wrong, but I think that a top-25 win, regardless of how it happened, will be viewed higher than a blowout of an inferior team.

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This article originally appeared on Fighting Irish Wire: Predicting where Notre Dame lands in CFP rankings pre-Rivalry Weekend