LOS ANGELES — Notre Dame’s captains decided it was in the team’s best interest not to watch the College Football Playoff rankings shows this season. When the show would come on, the TVs in the dining room would be shut off.
Following a 24-17 victory over USC on Saturday night, which capped a 12-0 regular season for the Fighting Irish, that will no longer be the case.
“The first thing they said to me is they’ll have it on on Tuesday,” Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly said.
It won’t be official for another week, but with no more games to play, the third-ranked Irish effectively clinched a playoff spot.
“I think the way we played consistently — to win all of our games against four Top 25 teams, to win every week in the schedule that we play,” Kelly said. “We’re in LA this week — I think. We’re like an on-Broadway show. We open up in a city near you. We were in New York last week, Chicago, San Diego. Travel affects people and it doesn’t affect this group.
“If you give us a little bit of a rest and allow us to play in a neutral site, I think we’ll play even better.”
If No. 1 Alabama wins the SEC championship game and No. 2 Clemson wins the ACC title game, it would be hard to envision a scenario in which the Irish don’t finish No. 3 and play the second-ranked Tigers in the playoff.
The latest rankings will be revealed Tuesday at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN.
“All year we believed we could be there,” Notre Dame quarterback Ian Book said. “It was never like we looked and wondered where we were. It was week by week. We knew that by the end of the year, it would unravel the way we wanted it to.”