Pitt Sits at the Notre Dame-Central Florida-Undefeated Nexus

Now here’s where it gets weird.

Last year, Central Florida was the only undefeated team in Div. I-A/FBS, but were left out of the College Football Playoff, winning a different major bowl. This year, Central Florida is undefeated thus far, at 5-0, sitting in the top-10, with one issue being whether they have a path to the playoff.

Meanwhile, Notre Dame is undefeated, with some discussion occurring about the strength of their remaining schedule.  In the rankings, Notre Dame is currently #5, while Central Florida is at #9/#10.

Notre Dame faces a Pitt program notorious for knocking off highly ranked opponents in recent years (a Pitt program that itself has won a modern era national championship).  Perhaps more to the point, Pitt also has played Notre Dame like a rabid conference rival at times, across multiple coaching eras.

The one common opponent for Notre Dame and Central Florida thus far – the ONLY power conference opponent on Central Florida’s schedule – is none other than … Pitt.

Central Florida did also schedule North Carolina, for Sept. 15, also from the ACC, yet that game was cancelled because of Hurricane Florence.

When Central Florida played Pitt just two weeks ago, on Sept. 29, Central Florida blew out Pitt, 45-14 in Orlando.

So the sequence was, two weeks ago, Central Florida routed Pitt by three touchdowns, while Syracuse was beating Clemson on the road late, before the Orangemen got edged out in the final minute.  Last week, Pitt beat a presumably war-wearied Syracuse in overtime.  And now Notre Dame gets Pitt, just two weeks after Pitt’s blowout loss to Central Florida, but with Pitt playing well enough to knock off Syracuse in OT.  Meanwhile, with the big win, Pitt sits right at .500, licking their chops at the thought of building on the win over Syracuse by knocking off top-5 Notre Dame … with Pitt undoubtedly all remembering all the times Pitt took Notre Dame to the wire, including in OT, sometimes even handing Notre Dame a loss.

Even if Notre Dame manages to hold off Pitt – a big “if” – what can they expect to result from a close game (other than hopefully a win)?

Let’s say Notre Dame, perhaps exhausted by mid-term academic demands (hopefully this was not secretly a flu week), simply allows Pitt to stay in the game and make it a dogfight.

If both Central Florida and Notre Dame remain undefeated, knocking on the door of the playoff, we better believe that there are going to be commentators and non-Notre Dame fans zeroing in on how both did against a common opponent, Pitt, in games played within a few weeks of each other.

It gets worse – even though Central is locked into its American Athletic Conference, they actually have multiple ranked opponents left, South Florida and Cincinnati. There could be onlookers highlighting whether Central Florida did better against Pitt, and whether Central Florida goes on to beat a few ranks opponents late, and perhaps goes on to a conference title game.

And it gets even worse still – Central Florida does have another common opponent with Notre Dame, and it’s Navy.

Navy, of course, is yet another Notre Dame rival used to the idea of upsetting Notre Dame in recent eras, and otherwise taking Notre Dame to the wire.  For the record, last year Notre Dame struggled to beat Navy by a touchdown, while Central Florida beat Navy by 10 points.

So, if Notre Dame and Central Florida continue being undefeated, will both make it into the College Football Playoff? Or will there be howling over power conference champions being left out, causing commentators and anti-Notre Dame football fans to start ruminating about whether Notre Dame and Central Florida should be an ‘either-or,” and parsing details about how to compare them.

As mentioned above, Central Florida was indeed left out of the playoff last year, yet did make it into the post-BCS expanded major bowl framework, beating Auburn in the Peach Bowl (yes, a reminder, the Peach Bowl is a major bowl now).

Central Florida was #12 and #10 in the final regular season playoff rankings, #10 in the final regular season AP after the bowl game. [click here for archived poll: http://www.espn.com/college-football/rankings/_/week/15/year/2017/seasontype/2 ]; they finished #6 and #7 after the bowl game http://www.espn.com/college-football/rankings/_/week/1/year/2017/seasontype/3

This year, while Central Florida only plays one power conference opponent, Pitt, Notre Dame plays 10, and Notre Dame partners with the ACC, with the ACC making up nearly half their regular season schedule (a full half some years), with the PAC-12 and B1G/Big Ten making up another third of Notre Dame’s schedule, and an SEC team tacked on as the tenth power conference opponent.  The final two opponents for Notre Dame are Navy and a MAC team, Ball State.

Additionally, the ACC lineup, of course, is dialed up in a mix worked out with the ACC.  Heading into the year, anybody would have assumed that a mix that included Virginia Tech, Florida State, Syracuse, Pitt and Wake Forest would have been a solid mix, to complement other power conference games against Michigan, Stanford, Southern Cal, Northwestern and Vanderbilt.

The issue that comes up though, also mentioned above, is that Central Florida has two currently ranked opponents coming up down the line, late in the season.

Notre Dame, of course, will have played at least three teams ranked when Notre Dame played them.

Still, one has to wonder what will be made of how Notre Dame and Central Florida fare against common opponents.  And Pitt seems likely to bring special attention at this juncture.

Of course, at this time, all these considerations also provide a reminder of why it’s a good idea to hold off on the college football playoff rankings until later in October.

Yet, if both Notre Dame and Central Florida keep winning, and keep creeping up the rankings, the issue will become more and more pointed.

Truth be known, even if conference titles can play a persuasive factor in deciding playoff berths, there is no particular reason that any particular power conference champion should not be left out.

Already, the unofficial polls, the Coaches Poll and the AP, are disrespecting Central Florida by ranking some power conference teams with a single loss ahead of them, namely Washington and Penn State.  Washington is particularly insulting, given that Washington already lost to an Auburn team with multiple losses, while Central Florida beat Auburn in their bowl game of last year.  Of course, last year’s results are irrelevant to specific standings, yet somehow the whole combination of factors adds to the ambience.  And there is such a thing as program reputation carrying over a bit in people’s perceptions.

Meanwhile, as Lou Holtz once pointed out, Notre Dame’s job in any given week is not beat the rest of the country; their job is beat the next team on the schedule.  Nevertheless, since that next team is Pitt, will all the above factors in play, Notre Dame better coming ready to play like it’s already the post-season.