Marcus Freeman Confused By Notre Dame's Fall in College Football Playoff Rankings

For the last two weeks, Notre Dame sat ahead of Alabama in the College Football Playoff rankings at No. 9 and No. 10, respectively.

The Fighting Irish won 49-20 at Stanford (4-8) on Saturday, while the Crimson Tide picked up a 27-20 road win over Auburn (5-7). Yet when a new set of CFP rankings came out Tuesday, Alabama and Notre Dame switched places.

Many wondered, including Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman, why the sudden change?

"Obviously, you're disappointed, but more so because a little bit of confusion," Freeman said Wednesday. "You're confused in terms of what we could have done differently and why we fell when we won, 49-20. I think we were up 42-6 going into fourth quarter and that's the only thing that. I don't spend time talking about other teams, but it's just like, okay, what could we have done differently?

"I don't know, right? It is just that you always look for cause and effect, you look for a reasoning why you go up or you fall. And for me it was just you didn't see a great explanation for why we fell when we had a performance we did last Saturday. So, disappointed that we fell just because I don't necessarily agree with it because I think our guys did a good enough job versus to warrant not falling in the rankings. And I don't know if a team did something that much better than us to jump us. I don't know. That's for the committee to address."

Jack Ankony's take

The most egregious aspect of this situation is the timing. If Notre Dame had been better than Alabama the last two weeks, nothing about its win over Stanford –– or Alabama's narrow win over a subpar Auburn team that fired its coach –– should have led to a switch.

What really happened, in my opinion, is the committee realized it faced a tricky situation. So they asked themselves, who would we rather have in the playoff between Alabama and Notre Dame? They answered Alabama for one key reason.

Teams are not typically punished for losses in the conference championship game. So in order to guarantee Alabama a spot in the playoff –– regardless of the SEC championship result against Georgia –– the committee had to move the Tide ahead of Notre Dame. Because if BYU wins the Big 12 championship game over Texas Tech, the Cougars are now in over Notre Dame and Alabama still gets a spot.

Then it becomes a debate between Notre Dame and Miami. And for the last several weeks, the committee has favored the Irish. Neither team plays this weekend, so there should be no movement. If Notre Dame is ahead of Miami now, nothing could possibly change.

Those would have been my thoughts, but after seeing Notre Dame and Alabama flip last week, it's clear that nothing set in stone. It's hard to feel confident predicting how the committee will act, setting up a nervous weekend for Irish fans.

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