SOUTH BEND -- Somewhere early Sunday afternoon, former Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick surely smiled.
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Whether watching on television or a tablet or his phone or maybe waiting to read all about it the next day in the newspaper (yeah, right), Swarbrick likely felt a sense of satisfaction at 12:29 p.m. when he saw the Notre Dame football name appear where he long believed it should appear.
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That was tucked comfortably inside the new 12-team College Football Playoff, where the Irish earned the No. 7 seed and will host a home game (Friday, December 20, 8 p.m., ESPN/ABC) against No 10 Indiana (11-1).
This new CFP format was Swarbrick's ultimate pet project as athletic director at his alma mater, where he served from 2008 to 2024. Swarbrick was a founding father -- without the white wig -- of this CFP, which gives Notre Dame playoff access while protecting its cherished independence.
For at least this season, for this first season, it worked exactly how Swarbrick hoped. Notre Dame didn't have to join a conference. It didn't have to play a conference championship game. Most refreshing of all, not once did anyone of university consequence -- athletic director Pete Bevacqua (who doesn't do interviews) or head coach Marcus Freeman (who does) -- need to stand and shout to the sky over the last month about why Notre Dame deserved CFP inclusion.
Sunday went about as well as expected for Notre Dame. It got in. It got a home game. It sidestepped suffering any collateral damage about why this team or that one was/wasn't selected.
For the first 90 minutes of the selection show, the only time the Notre Dame name came up was when the pairings were announced. Nobody's talking about Notre Dame, and that's ideal.
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Sunday's selection show started at noon and was scheduled to run until 4 p.m. There was real concern (dread?) that ESPN would fill the time with so much fluff that it would get around to the 12-team field by 3:46. It only felt like it took that long to get there. We only had to wait 22 minutes. It felt longer.
Notre Dame earned its bid where it mattered -- on the field across the last three months. It earned it despite suffering the most embarrassing/puzzling loss any of the 12 teams suffered this season. When Notre Dame lost at home to Northern Illinois in early September, many figured its CFP hopes had gone up in flames.
Instead, Freeman and his staff and that team went to work. It let that NIU hurt help/heal them. It closed out the outside noise and won. Week after week. From one coast to the other. Notre Dame won. While the likes of Indiana head football coach Curt Cignetti (we deserve a home game) and radio show host/SEC apologist Paul Finebaum (Alabama deserves to get in) and Atlantic Coast Conference commissioner Jim Phillips (we deserve two CFP teams) each shouted from their respective bully pulpits, Notre Dame quietly, confidently went about its business.
This CFP thing worked, even if some fans are a bit confused about the whole seeding/ranking system.
When running tack Trevor Etienne barreled into the end zone in overtime to help Georgia beat Texas for the SEC championship a few minutes before 8 Saturday night, it all but determined Notre Dame's CFP rankings fate. It was sealed later that night. Had Texas trucked Georgia and Oregon obliterated Penn State in the Big Ten championship, there was a case for Notre Dame to climb to as high as the No. 5 seed.
It didn't slide to No. 7 as much as it was cemented.
No conference championship game (that dreaded 13 data point in the eyes of the CFP) and with that NIU albatross, Notre Dame did the best it could do. Take a No. 7 seed, take a first-round home game and go chase a championship.
It all left Irish fans a bit flustered around social media, never a bastion for level-headed thinking. No way, many asserted, would Notre Dame drop lower than third, or fourth. If so, how? It couldn't finish third or fourth. The top four seeds are four teams who won their respective conference championship games. The highest Notre Dame could finish was fifth. That got wiped out when Texas lost. Horns down, indeed.
Notre Dame's place in the weekly CFP rankings through November mirrored that of someone trying to navigate the snowy-icy roads last week around Michiana -- all over the place. One week, Notre Dame was headed to Penn State. The next, Tennessee. Then it was hosting Alabama. As the CFP selections neared, some feared that Notre Dame might not get a home game at all.
Win out and the Irish would get a home game. That was sealed the second Irish cornerback Christan Gray stepped in front of a potential game-tying touchdown pass from Jayden Maiava and raced 99 yards east into the end zone eight days ago in Los Angeles.
With Sunday's announcement, college football enters unfamiliar territory. So does Notre Dame (11-1). Only Oregon (13-0) and Boise State (12-1) have done what Notre Dame has done this season -- win at least 10 consecutive games. Oregon is the popular pick to win the national championship, but don't dismiss the Irish.
Notre Dame is the second-best team in the country. The Irish get a chance to go and show it. At home, then maybe in New Orleans against No. 2 Georgia. Time for Notre Dame to get greedy. Time for Notre Dame to go and be something that Freeman thought it could be all season, even after the NIU loss.
Great.
Follow South Bend Tribune and NDInsider columnist Tom Noie on X (formerly Twitter): @tnoieNDI. Contact Noie at [email protected]