Is Notre Dame a CFP Lock? Committee Chair Explains Ranking amid Miami, Alabama Debates

The College Football Playoff Committee bumped Alabama ahead of Notre Dame in the rankings this week, leaving open the possibility of Notre Dame being left out of this year's CFP (though currently they are ranked 10th, which would be the final at-large berth).

CFP chair Hunter Yurachek explained the reason for the No. 9 Crimson Tide leapfrogging the Fightin Irish this week.

"The debate between Alabama and Notre Dame over the past three weeks has been one of the strongest debates we've had in the room for the past two years that I've been a member of the committee," he said. "I think this week as we looked at those two teams and how closely they have been over the past three weeks, Notre Dame went on the road, had a strong win at Stanford, but Alabama went on the road and a rivalry game looked really good, especially in the first half, getting up 17 to nothing. 
Ran the ball well. Auburn came back at them. They had a great gutsy call on 4th-and-2, late in the (fourth) quarter to get a touchdown, and then got the turnover late in that game. 
And I think that was enough to change the minds of a couple of committee members to push Alabama up ahead of Notre Dame in this week's rankings."

That has left open the possibility that Miami could ultimately jump Notre Dame as well. The Hurricanes won the meeting between the teams this year and are now ranked No. 12. Because idle teams can move in the rankings, it's possible that there will be even more movement next week after the conference championship games.

As you might imagine, folks on social media have some thoughts on all of the various scenarios involving Alabama, Notre Dame, BYU and Miami:

The good news for Miami is that it is still alive:

The bad news is that it will probably need not only BYU to get blown out in the Big 12 Championship Game (which would hurt Notre Dame's strength of schedule and quality wins), but it will also need the CFP Committee to finally do something it seemingly hasn't done to this point—weigh Miami's head-to-head win over Notre Dame more heavily than other aspects of each team's résumé.

One interesting subplot in all of this is that it's hard to imagine the committee would bump Alabama out of the CFP with a loss in the SEC Championship Game, even if it came in a blowout. Punishing a team for reaching its conference title game would set an awful precedent.

But by that same logic, why should BYU drop in the rankings if it loses the Big 12 title game? If Indiana or Ohio State loses in the Big Ten title game, should either be bumped out of the top-two despite having just one loss?

It's all a bit of a mess, but for Notre Dame, a BYU win almost assuredly keeps them out of the playoff, while a BYU blowout loss could have the same effect depending on how the rankings shake out.

The expanded College Football Playoff has brought plenty of excitement to the sport, but the opaque and inconsistent criteria the committee employs to decide its participants has only grown more frustrating. Just ask any Alabama, Notre Dame, BYU, Miami or Texas fan.