Notre Dame AD: Blowout Loss to Clemson Won't Affect Future CFP Standing

Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick told David M. Hale of ESPN.com that he didn't feel the Fighting Irish's 30-3 loss to Clemson in the College Football Playoff on Saturday would affect future ND teams' abilities to make the Top Four.

"No, I don't think it will," Swarbrick said.

ACC Commissioner John Swofford backed Notre Dame, saying that the Fighting Irish's inclusion and ensuing loss doesn't point to a larger playoff problem.

"I think you look at it from the perspective of, Were the right things considered at the time? You make that selection based on the information they have at hand when they make it -- not after the semifinal games. So a lot of things can happen in a game, and if a team doesn't show well, it doesn't necessarily mean they didn't deserve to be here. They might've just had a bad day."

Each season brings its own set of challenges and judgment calls for the CFP selection committee, but none of them involve a past season's performance. Teams are judged by their body of work in a given year, and that includes record, strength of schedule and results against common opponents.

It also includes conference championships, which is something Notre Dame is exempt from doing as an independent.

That status potentially hurts the school. Of note, the Fighting Irish don't get the benefit of an extra game in a potential league title matchup to prove its playoff case, a la Oklahoma when it won the Big 12 over Texas and jumped over Georgia.

Swarbrick acknowledged this fact earlier in the week, per Hale, although school president Reverend John Jenkins is satisfied with the football team's independence:

"We're very happy with our relationship with the ACC. It's a great conference. It fits us. We're very happy there, and that allows football to retain its independence. It's a great situation for us. We're not looking for anything else because we're very happy with the current situation.

"We're an independent not because it helps or hurts us with the College Football Playoff, but it really is who we are. We started in the 1910s, 1920s. We couldn't get into what was then the Big Ten. ... Our fan base is in California, it's in New York, it's in Pennsylvania, Ohio. We're an independent because it allows us to have a national profile, and really, that's who we are."

Reverend Jenkins has a point, as the team's national brand is strong despite not having won a big-time bowl game since the 1994 Cotton Bowl. As a university that is identified by its football program by a large swath of sports fans across the country, that's pretty important.

But making (and succeeding in) the playoff can enhance the brand as well, and Notre Dame frankly doesn't have any margin for error a la other schools.

It also doesn't help that the ACC, which Notre Dame faces five times a year as part of its partnership with the conference, is going through a bit of a rough patch right now with only two teams making the Top 25 of the CFP rankings.

To be frank, if college football adopted a 68-team playoff bracket like men's Division I hoops does, then we'd be having arguments about whether a good mid-major program should have gotten in over a middling Power Five school, which is a debate that churns itself over every March.

But with the playoff field so small, the arguments will remain loud every year and bring teams' resumes under a heavy microscope before and after the postseason. Notre Dame is no exception after its loss.