No team wants to lose in the first round of the College Football Playoff, but there’s more at stake here than just wins and losses. For each team, a loss could confirm worst nightmares and validate what outside noise has been saying all season.
The first round of the 12-team CFP era kicks off on Friday night as No. 7 seed Notre Dame hosts No. 10 seed Indiana, and the action lasts through Saturday with three more games on the slate featuring the top teams in the country. The stakes have never been higher amid College Football Playoff expansion, and when you’re considered one of those top teams in the country, the pressure to win only intensifies after a grueling season.
For the eight teams scheduled to play in this inaugural postseason format, here’s what losing this weekend might entail for each squad taking the field.
(10) Indiana at (7) Notre Dame
Indiana: The Hoosiers are entering a prove-you-belong game. You know the deal by now. Indiana hasn’t looked great against the only two opponents of significance it’s faced this season — Michigan and Ohio State. Now the Hoosiers get another crack at proving they are in fact in the weight class, and what an opportunity it is against the Golden Domers. But a brutal loss in South Bend on Friday would only fuel the narrative that Indiana just is not yet ready for the big-time spotlight.
Notre Dame: If it is at all possible for Notre Dame to ever fly under the radar, that’s what it’s doing this season. Since the worst loss of the season by any title contender against Northern Illinois, the Irish have been a buzzsaw behind a bludgeoning defense and an offense paced by running back Jeremiyah Love on the ground. Now, they host the in-state opponent they’d much rather thumb their noses at. It’s one thing to lose in the playoff, but it’s another thing to lose to the team some people may not even realize you share a state with. They’ve only played once since the 1950s, and without another game on the schedule, the bragging rights at stake here are monumental.
SMU: If the Mustangs get blown out, you can hear them now, a chorus of SEC sycophants as far as the eye can see standing arm-in-arm together with one voice raring to exclaim: Alabama belonged in over the ponies. It is a fallacy to judge whether a team’s resume is befitting of qualification for a tournament based solely on their result in said tournament, but that won’t stop people from trying who believe the Crimson Tide got the raw end of the stick.
Penn State: This isn’t the one Penn State is supposed to lose — at home, “White Out” conditions and an opponent not named Ohio State or Michigan square up for an eminently winnable game. It’s almost a toss up which is the more embarrassing way for the Nittany Lions to get bounced here: a winnable opening-round game or quarterfinal against Boise State or a semifinal against the blue blood-level opponent the Nittany Lions have struggled to beat in the last couple seasons.
Clemson: A Tigers loss brings us right back around to the old refrain: Can Dabo Swinney survive in the transfer portal era without changing his stripes? Bookending the season with losses to Georgia and Texas — teams that have made targeted forays into the portal for key players — represent where Clemson wants to get back to and how they should be operating within the landscape. Being the big dog in the ACC can only serve you for so long.
Texas: The Longhorns played three games this season in which they were truly pushed. One was the win against Texas A&M, while the other two were the losses against Georgia. So are the ‘Horns in the UGA echelon of programs or not? A loss here would point at the latter if you combine it with last year’s defeat to Washington. There will be serious questions about whether Quinn Ewers held this team back no matter how healthy he is and an understanding that it is probably his last game in burnt orange one way or another. The Arch Manning era looms.
(9) Tennessee at (8) Ohio State
Tennessee: Besides the Georgia game on Nov. 16, the Volunteers had a pretty uneventful final month of the season. But a loss here with the continued inability to hit in the vertical passing game that showed up multiple times during the regular season will intensify concerns that the money spent on star QB Nico Iamaleava was misplaced. The defense will come to play for Big Orange, but the offense has to as well. If the deep ball isn’t hitting, what’s the point of this fancy offense with its wide splits and turbo tempo?
Ohio State: Well, this one’s the most obvious … just win baby. The vibes around Ohio State are borderline toxic after the Michigan loss and calls for Ryan Day’s job. My opinion is that you shouldn’t fire Day, win or lose, but if the Buckeyes do lose this game with the most talented roster in college football, it will truly be full on panic mode in Columbus, Ohio. If social media is to be believed, Rocky Top will be audible in an Ohio Stadium that will have more orange than you might expect.
