CFP chair explains why Penn State stayed ahead of Notre Dame in latest rankings

Some thought Notre Dame could — or perhaps should — jump Penn State in the latest edition of the College Football Playoff selection committee rankings. That didn’t happen.

Penn State retained its No. 4 spot in the CFP committee’s latest top 25. Notre Dame, meanwhile, moved up one spot to No. 5, taking advantage of Indiana’s loss to Ohio State.

But there were arguments made heading into the rankings that the Fighting Irish deserve to be ahead of the Nittany Lions after Notre Dame dominated Army and Penn State narrowly beat Minnesota. Those points were made again in light of Tuesday night’s rankings.

Notre Dame’s only defeat was a shocking home loss to Northern Illinois back in September. Since then, Marcus Freeman’s team has rolled to nine straight wins. All nine wins have come by double digits, and seven of them were by 20 points or more. The Fighting Irish have wins over four teams ranked at the time of playing: Texas A&M, Louisville, Navy and Army.

Penn State’s only blemish is a seven-point home loss to Ohio State in October. Since then, the Nittany Lions have blown out Washington and Purdue before narrowly escaping with a 26-25 win over Minnesota. Penn State’s lone ranked win of the year is over Illinois.

While it sounds like Notre Dame has a strong case to be ranked No. 4, the numbers actually lie with Penn State. According to ESPN’s metrics, the Nittany Lions’ “strength of record” is fourth and their strength of schedule is 32nd nationally. Notre Dame’s “strength of record” is 10th, and its strength of schedule ranks 78th — just ahead of Western Kentucky and Miami (Ohio).

To shed light on the Penn State-Notre Dame debate, CFP chair Warde Manuel was asked during his post-rankings media teleconference about the two teams’ resumes.

“Well, you know, there was a lot of discussion about those teams and how they performed,” said Manuel, Michigan’s athletic director. “Penn State’s only loss is to the No. 2 team in the country. They have a win over No. 23 Illinois.

“Notre Dame has (a win) now over No. 20 Texas A&M as of today. Army is not in the rankings. Notre Dame’s loss was to Northern Illinois at the beginning of the year. But they’ve won nine straight games in pretty dominant fashion since then. And so from our standpoint, resumes are pretty close in terms of how we see them. Obviously, with them ranked four and five.”

Based on current rankings, both teams are projected to host first-round playoff games. Penn State is the projected No. 6 seed while Notre Dame is the projected No. 7 seed.

But it’s an important discussion because, depending on how conference championship weekend goes, one of those teams could be pushed from hosting a first-round game to going on the road to open a College Football Playoff run. The home/away cutoff is the No. 8 and No. 9 seed.

It’ll be interesting to see if Penn State and Notre Dame’s rankings switch after the final weekend of the regular season. Penn State is a significant favorite at home against Maryland. Notre Dame travels to face USC — which Penn State beat in overtime back in October.

“They both have games this week that we will watch,” Manuel said. “We’ll be watching how they perform and start assessing when we get together on Monday (of next week, to look at what transpired over the weekend.”

Penn State hosts Maryland at 3:30 p.m. Saturday, airing on the Big Ten Network. For those curious, Notre Dame’s game at USC kicks off at 3:30 p.m. Saturday, airing on CBS.