College Football Rewind, Week 2: I was wrong about Notre Dame

I was wrong about Notre Dame.

After the Irish bludgeoned Texas A & M on Aug. 31, I declared ND a lock for the College Football Playoff.

Northern Illinois had other plans.

The Huskies won an ugly game 16-14 on Sept. 7 in South Bend. It’s NIU’s first win over a top-10 team and the MAC’s first win over a top-5 team. Huskies coach Thomas Hammock was understandably emotional after the game, in a visual that should remind everyone why they love college football.

Notre Dame on the other hand finds itself looking for answers after another early season loss as a favorite. The Irish in Marcus Freeman’s first season in 2022 in Week 2 lost to Marshall as a big favorite. ND that season went on to beat three ranked teams on its way to an 8-4 finish.

The Irish are going to have to do something similar to give themselves a shot at the playoff.

Notre Dame right now has two matchups with ranked teams left on its schedule: Sept. 28 vs. Louisville and Nov. 30 at USC. I don’t think the Irish should be favored in either of those games. At this point in the season, it doesn’t look like ND could keep up with either the Cardinals or the Trojans on offense, and both those teams have shown enough on defense to lead me to believe the two games could be big losses for Notre Dame.

Going 1-1 in those games wouldn’t be good enough to get ND into the playoff. The rest of the schedule just isn’t strong enough, especially with Florida State being a dud so far this year.

The Irish defense is stout and could win some games on its own, but ND needs quarterback Riley Leonard to play much better than he did on Saturday. Leonard threw two picks in the loss to NIU. Notre Dame in the game was 3-10 on third down and lost the time of possession battle. The Irish don’t have a touchdown pass and are 110th in scoring offense.

It’s early in the season. We saw on Saturday that a lot of well-thought of teams are still in the developmental stage of the season. Notre Dame can get better. It likely will, but the team needs to pray to Touchdown Jesus if it wants to still have a shot at a playoff.

If I voted
The AP top 25 continues to be a joke.

Notre Dame is seven spots ahead of Northern Illinois. Ohio State drops a spot after another huge win, but Penn State stays at No. 9 following a scare with Bowling Green.

As a dork who watches college football for 13 hours each Saturday, I decided to do my own rankings. These will change each week, but they’ll be fair. I think.

1. Georgia
2. Texas
3. Ohio State
4. Tennessee
5. USC
6. Missouri
7. Miami
8. Ole Miss
9. Alabama
10. Penn State
11. Kansas State
12. Utah
13. Oregon
14. Oklahoma State
15. Louisville
16. Nebraska
17. Michigan
18. Iowa State
19. Oklahoma
20. Arizona
21. Northern Illinois
22. Syracuse
23. Clemson
24. Notre Dame
25. LSU

Week 2 Heisman ballot
1. Ashton Jeanty, Boise St. RB
2. Quinn Ewers, Texas QB
3. Jaxson Dart, Ole Miss QB
4. Tetairoa McMillan, Arizona WR

Ranking the best of the Week 3 slate
1. Alabama at Wisconsin
2. Arizona at Kansas State (Friday)
3. Boston College at Missouri
4. Texas A & M at Florida
5. Washington State at Washington
6. Oregon at Oregon State
7. Notre Dame at Purdue
8. Georgia at Kentucky
9. Colorado at Colorado State
10. UNLV at Kansas (Friday)