We just witnessed the perhaps the greatest day in college football history. Hell, go ahead and throw in Thursday night into the mix and I’ll kick the “perhaps” to the side with a pair of Red Wing steel toe boots. Despite Katy Perry and her crystal ball of corn dogs, no one saw this coming.
Ole Miss fans storm the field in a wild celebration after beating Alabama.
How could they?
I’m not sure what the odds were on the AP #2, #3, #4, #6, and #8 losing in the same week, but betting a nickel on it would have set you up for early retirement. Watching the day unfold was like reliving something out of my past. I remember sitting around with my father talking about our Fighting Irish, and hammering out all the details about who needed to win or lose to help push Notre Dame ahead in the polls. Sometimes a little of what we hoped for would happen, and sometimes none of it would. And then sometimes, a gigantic ball of crap would get dropped on our laps.
We live in a different world now. In this world, these polls have essentially no meaning to who will be crowned champion, and they won’t even help in finding the top two teams to play for the title now that the BCS is dead. All of that responsibility now resides with the College Football Playoff Selection Committee. However, it still doesn’t take away from the excitement of Notre Dame rising to the #6 spot in this weeks AP Poll.
I suppose there are some out there that might be shooting bottle rockets at the moon over the fact that 5 teams ranked ahead of Notre Dame lost and yet the Irish only rose 3 spots, but given all that happened on Saturday (and Thursday night) this reporter finds the ranking quite fitting. The great and terrible truth of it all, is that none of this is even close to being over. This week alone sees three huge games with (what do we call it now) CFB Playoff implications:
- #2 Auburn @ #3 Mississippi State
- #9 TCU @ #5 Baylor
- #3 Ole Miss @ #14 Texas A&M
If things go a certain way, the Irish could be heading down to Tallahassee ranked #3 to play the #1 ranked Seminoles. I will be sure to make a phone call to my father that week, and see if we can’t conjure up a little old magic.
The point of all of this is that there is no order, There is no path. College football is in complete chaos right now- AND IT’S FANTASTIC. The addition of the 4 team playoff has done what playoff opponents had previously protested… the playoff is truly making the regular season and every game count. Rather than a murky version of “do or die” throughout the season, we have this awesome anarchy that is playing right in front of us each week.
At least for now, Notre Dame holds its own destiny in its hands after a HUGE domino in Stanford fell last Saturday. If more dominoes start falling, we could be reliving that sweet chaos in L.A. that we had 2 years ago, and anarchy will reign supreme.
