Heather Dinich: Notre Dame 'doing everything right' to get back into projections for CFP

Notre Dame was not anywhere near playoff projections following an 0-2 start in South Bend. But, three weeks later as they’re back above .500, the Fighting Irish are trending back towards the picture for the CFP.

ESPN’s Heather Dinich discussed the Irish’s chances to be in the College Football Playoff on ‘SportsCenter’ on Monday. She thinks they’ve done everything right, namely in fixing their early defensive issues, to start being under consideration again as a potential playoff team despite being 3-2.

“Notre Dame is doing everything right in terms of coming back into this,” said Dinich. “The reason they should be the committee’s highest-ranked two-loss team right this second is because the defense is playing so much better in each of the last couple of games. That was the biggest criticism for the Irish, and they seem to have corrected that at least for now.”

First and foremost, it’s not as if that the Fighting Irish have a bad loss between their two to open this season. They lost by three on the road to Miami, which is now at No. 2 in the AP Poll, and lost by one on a go-ahead touchdown throw to Texas A&M, who is now No. 5 per the AP. Dinich then has the Hurricanes and Aggies, who beat the Irish by a combined four points, at No. 1 and No. 4 overall, as the ACC and SEC Champions respectively, in her updated projections for the CFP from Saturday.

With that, Notre Dame, as an independent, likely would have had to win out at that point to again make the playoff. They’re now three games into that ten-game feat with victories over Purdue, at Arkansas, and against Boise State by an average margin of 30 points.

During that stretch, the offense has remained impressive in posting 46.7 points and 522.7 yards overall, with their season’s averages being at 40.8 points and 461.6 yards. However, the defense has been much better against these opponents in allowing just 16.7 points and 353 yards against the Boilermakers, Razorbacks, and Broncos, which is down from 34 points and 413.5 yards in their losses to The ‘U and A&M.

For reference, Dinich has not yet included Notre Dame in her own top-twelve from the weekend, and neither did On3’s Brett McMurphy or those at CBS Sports or ESPN. On3’s Andy Staples does have them in consideration to soon be back in, though, as the Irish were in the Next Four Out for him on Sunday.

Notre Dame has a ways to go still to actually be in the playoff by season’s end, as they’ll likely need to finish at 10-2, pending what else happens around college football, and still have games left against NC State, USC, Navy, Pittsburgh, and Syracuse. That said, the Fighting Irish are back in the right direction with the first three wins of their season.