There are only a couple more weeks left in the 2025-26 college football season and the 12-team playoff bracket is looking clearer and clearer with each passing game.
One team most folks see as an automatic lock for the College Football Playoff is Notre Dame. The 8-2 Fighting Irish are ranked No. 9 in the latest AP poll and will await the judgement of the playoff selection committee in just a couple days time heading into Week 13.
By virtue of its Independent status, Notre Dame cannot claim a conference title to secure an auto-bid into the bracket. Instead it must take care of business over its final two games and await the final committee rankings to see if its resume earned an at-large bid.
There's still a lot of football left to be played and that means there's still a chance the Fighting Irish actually miss the College Football Playoff altogether.
This is the one scenario Notre Dame gets excluded from the CFP
Let's start in the Big 12. No. 6 Texas Tech and No. 11 BYU appear to be on a collision course to meet in Dallas for the conference championship game. Irish fans will be rooting for the Red Raiders to avoid the upset as there is little chance the team that has sat atop the Big 12 standings and been included in every CFP Top 10 will get dropped out for failing to claim the conference crown against the team it beat earlier in the season.
Texas Tech also has a better resume than the Irish despite Notre Dame's two losses coming to ranked teams. Tech owns two wins over higher ranked opponents (including a top 10 victory over BYU) compared to Notre Dame's which were to foes ranked No. 20 or lower. If BYU wins the Big 12, then it justifies handing the league two bids.
Next, Notre Dame will need anyone but Miami to win the ACC. According to a scenario run through playoffpredictors.com, the No. 14 Hurricanes can punch a ticket to Charlotte if they win out against Virginia Tech and Pittsburgh, and then all of SMU, Georgia Tech and Virginia lose at least once each. Obviously, Miami winning the ACC gives them an auto-bid but by virtue of getting two Big 12 teams in, Notre Dame's spot is now on the chopping block.
Texas Tech, we've seen, has the better resume over Notre Dame. Other at-large bids would come from the SEC — of which five teams are likely to be selected including its champ — and the Big Ten. The fourth and fifth teams to be picked out of the SEC are likely No. 8 Oklahoma and No. 10 Alabama. Both have better resumes than Notre Dame (four ranked wins each).
The Big Ten will send three squads, likely No. 1 Ohio State, No. 2 Indiana and No. 6 Oregon. The Ducks would need to lose at least once in their final two games to be compared to Notre Dame but even so, they also have two ranked wins and could add a third against No. 16 USC in Week 13.
All of this would see Notre Dame sitting at the No. 11 or No. 12 ranking come the final reveal. Those are spots of death because regardless of where the Group of Five champion sits, they get a spot in the bracket.
And before anyone complains that the committee wouldn't drop a team two or three spots if it wins out - they would if those final two opponents aren't high quality or give the Irish any kind of trouble while other teams beat higher-quality opposition. Syracuse and Stanford are who Notre Dame plays in the final two weeks.
Let's take all of this with a huge grain of salt. It's a very slim chance that Notre Dame, the national runner up from last season, is excluded from the CFP. But sometimes the math is the math and the committee could value conference championship performances over regular season resumes.