A lot of people are asking after last night's beat down, if the Irish should have been in the National Championship. Most of this concern comes from the over reaction of the blowout but I do believe it is a valid question.
In today's system, there was no other team in the land that deserved to be number one purely to the fact that the Irish went undefeated. Were they the best team in the country, clearly not but Notre Dame was the only team that took care of business and won every game. While their schedule obviously does not line up with an SEC schedule, the Irish played formidable opponents like Michigan and Stanford.
Everyone will point out the magical escape of the Pittsburgh Panthers in Triple Overtime but every championship team has a game like that over the course of the season. For example, tears and all, AJ McCarron led a comeback victory in Baton Rouge earlier in the season. Of course Pitt and LSU do not match up but the theme is winning a game they had no business in winning.
Playoff System:
Thankfully, the NCAA board or whoever made this decision has chosen to institute a 4 team playoff in the 2014 season. In this system, Notre Dame would have faced Oregon who, after seeing this game, would look like a Duck blowout. But in fact Notre Dame is similar to Stanford who were the Duck's kryptonite this season. Florida would've faced Alabama and probably showed up for the game in an SEC clash. An Alabama-Oregon championship was every fan's dream and in the new playoff system it would have been made possible.
Deserving?
I honestly do believe Notre Dame did belong in the title game. They set themselves up with tough opponents throughout the season and took care of business. You can't fault them for going undefeated. The final point comes from the talk that I saw this coming. My response to that is 20-20 vision. Unless you had it in writing before the game thats a load of ___. I was one of the people that thought Notre Dame's defense would be able to keep them in the game but the first quarter and 4 seconds proved me wrong. I'm proud enough to admit it but would you if you were wrong?
Alabama-42
Notre Dame-14
No comments:
Post a Comment