Notre Dame Football: Week 13 Rooting Interest Guide
Identifying which teams can help Notre Dame's playoff chances
Time for the second installment of this year’s rooting interest guide, where I try to identify which games have implications on Notre Dame’s playoff odds.
As a reminder, I look at games played by the Top 25 in the College Football Playoff rankings with a spread of 14 or fewer points. This is to identify games with a realistic chance of an upset that could help the Irish.
One thing to note: I made some changes to my playoff rankings model that resulted in Notre Dame’s chances of hosting in the first round dropping from my previously optimistic estimate of ~80% to 48%. This isn’t anything to be worried about; my model gives the Irish a 96% chance of staying at home for the 1st round if they beat Army and USC. It just means there’s a little more business to take care of.
Now let’s get to the games. According to my model, Notre Dame enters the week with an 86% chance to make the CFP and a 48% chance to host a 1st round game (highest in the country). Let’s start with their chances of just making the CFP.
Notre Dame’s playoff chances
Notre Dame has full control over their chances to make the CFP. I simulate the season 10,000 times each week, and if Notre Dame wins out my model doesn’t have them being left out.
As a result, the outcomes of other games really only impact the likelihood that the Irish will host a first-round matchup rather than go on the road.
Notre Dame winning this week would increase their chances of making the CFP to 95.9% and their hosting chances to 54.3%
Chances of hosting in the 1st Round
There are seven games this week in which the outcome has at least a 1% swing in the likelihood that Notre Dame will begin the playoff in South Bend.
Note: The probabilities in the chart assume Notre Dame beats Army on Saturday.
A Minnesota upset over Penn State would have the biggest impact on Notre Dame’s hosting chances since it would slide the Irish one more spot up the rankings. As for Indiana, I think the rationale is the committee has largely stuck to rank-ordering teams by the number of losses they have, giving Notre Dame a leg up on the Buckeyes who would similarly have one marquee win.
But the general theme is the best outcome for the Irish is that these conferences cannibalize themselves with upsets, resulting in more teams in the playoff race with multiple losses.