Ohio State finally broke it's four-year losing streak to hated rival Michigan on Saturday. The No. 1 Buckeyes went into Ann Arbor and downed the No. 15 Wolverines 27-9, clinching the final spot in the Big Ten Championship Game and an undefeated regular season.
That's not the only thing they clinched, though. Notre Dame head coach Marcus Freeman should be sending Ohio State head coach Ryan Day an edible arrangement for essentially locking the Fighting Irish into the College Football Playoff bracket (barring a shock loss to Stanford later Saturday night).
Notre Dame entered rivalry week as the No. 9 team in the country according to the CFP Selection Committee but doubts swirled over whether the independent giants could be knocked out of the penultimate at-large bid by some final week chaos. Ohio State's victory shut down the scenario with the most plausible case to do just that.
How Ohio State secured a CFP bid for Notre Dame
The main argument over Notre Dame's CFP qualifications came when being compared to No. 12 Miami, which beat the Irish in Week 1 but later lost two ACC contests. They have identical records with the Hurricanes owning the head-to-head tiebreaker but Notre Dame passing the eye-test with flying colors.
Ultimately, Miami's standing in the ACC (fifth) despite being the highest ranked in the conference left it most vulnerable to being left out. The Hurricanes likely won't be competing for the league title and the ACC will not be a two-bid conference in the 12-team bracket. That means Miami will probably be the first team left out of the field.
This is where the outside help comes into play. Had No. 15 Michigan upset No. 1 Ohio State, it would've knocked the Buckeyes out of the Big Ten title game but not out of the CFP. Michigan would have a case to be the last at-large team in the field, which would've pit its resume against No. 10 Alabama and Notre Dame.
Now, if Alabama wins out -— including claiming the SEC title — that would make the Crimson Tide immune to this discussion. And it would be unlikely for the conference runner-up (likely Georgia) to be out of the 12-team field either. Hence, why Notre Dame would have been sweating things out by this point.
To throw even more fuel on this fire, if No. 11 BYU defeated No. 5 Texas Tech in the Big 12 title game, the committee would have little reason not to include both teams in the field. That would certainly push Notre Dame to the edge of the bubble even without the SEC playing out as stated above.
The Irish (2-2 against ranked teams) and Wolverines (1-1) would leave the committee with a tough decision to make. Neither would be playing for a conference title, but the eye-test becomes a real question because Michigan just beat the defending champions and top team in the country whereas Notre Dame has lowly Stanford as its final opponent.
There's no guarantee the committee would've sided with Michigan in that case, but Ohio State ended all possibility of the Irish being left out by nipping this South Bend doomsday scenario in the bud.