NEW ORLEANS – Fourteenth-ranked Notre Dame will play 17th ranked LSU in the Citrus Bowl today. But the Irish fans are tired of New Year’s Day consolation prizes.
Notre Dame has yet to appear in a College Football Playoff, dropping out of contention this season with two November losses to Miami and Stanford. The 9-3 Irish had risen to No. 3 in the AP poll before getting worn down by playing four of its last six games against ranked teams.
Brian Kelly has been struck in between a rock and a hard place. The Irish fan base wants their team to play the best teams in the country. But they have been increasingly frustrated by the team’s failure to compete for a national championship. The idea of a perfect season has become unrealistic.
The dilemma has Kelly searching for solutions to a growing problems, including softening up a brutal schedule. It might be time to make room winnable games against a MAC and AAC opponent other than Navy before major opponents on a regular basis so they can get a 2 for 1 deal and will rarely be burdened by travel.
“We didn’t have that breather game the week before one of our rivals,” Kelly told ESPN. “There’s some other conferences that have it built in, and they do it for a reason, and it works out well for them. That’s really an institutional decision, and we’re going to have to sit down, we’re going to have to look at it hard. We thought the 13th [data] point was really important, right? But that doesn’t seem to be that important anymore.
“It seems like the goal posts shift and move a little bit as it comes to how you get in, and this schedule is really, really difficult.”
Notre Dame has no intention of joining a conference. But it’s scheduling agreement with the ACC calls for five games per season against league members. The Irish have annual rivalries with USC, Stanford and Navy and frequent series with opponents like Michigan State that it visited this season. That’s probably too much considering the various styles the Irish are forced to confront during this cross country schedule.
Notre Dame’s 2018 schedule opens with Michigan at home, and features road games against USC, Virginia Tech and Northwestern and home games with Stanford and Florida State. Future opponents outside ACC opponents, USC, Stanford and Navy include Michigan in 2019, Georgia in 2019, and Wisconsin and Arkansas in 2020.
“You can’t keep everybody happy,” Kelly said. “What do you want to do? Do you want to get in the playoffs?”
