It could have been a restful holiday, a chance to lie around and watch television, maybe take a few naps.
It could have been another weekend of predictable games, the type that had kept the same four teams stop the College Football Playoff standings for almost a month.
By the time third-ranked Notre Dame held off USC at the Coliseum on Saturday night, the selection committee’s 13 members found themselves with some work to do, some decisions to make, before they issue their penultimate rankings on Tuesday.
Two games were all it really took: Michigan’s collapse at Ohio State and Oklahoma’s win over West Virginia in a Big 12 Conference showdown that featured 115 combined points and — a couple of fumble returns notwithstanding — pretty much zero defense.