While there has been a lot of talk about how good the Notre Dame football team could be this year, few people are talking about the fact that the Fighting Irish might not need to go undefeated in order to make the playoffs.
Last year, there were real doubts whether Marcus Freeman and company would make the playoff field if they had even one loss. Part of that was the loss was to Northern Illinois. But the Irish also had an easy enough schedule that their season opener against Texas A&M was considered the biggest of the bunch.