if Clemson wins and ND were to lose, does Clemson jump the Irish?
I doubt it.
Clemson doesn't have much on its bones. The only team it has beaten that has won more than 5 games this season is Pitt. It got to play mostly the worst teams in the ACC.
Also, they have multiple shared opponents and ND beat every one by a larger score and beat L'ville where Clemson lost by double digits. I think the L'ville results would keep Clemson behind ND.
I did a deep dive on the one loss teams yesterday and a quicker look at 2 loss teams. My rankings looking at that - and really looking at their schedule and results and trying to ignore names and conference logos leads me to a fairly different outcome than what the committee is currently doing.
1. OR (undefeated power conference gets #1 overall)
2. OSU (only loss is to #1 by 1 point on road. 2 wins over teams with 10 wins, no FCS opponent)
3. ND (has a wtf loss, but otherwise has alot of beatdowns and wins over 6 teams with 7+ wins including A&M on road, no FCS opponent)
4. SMU (sneaky good record, 5 wins over teams with at least 7 wins, only loss is to BYU and that is with a different QB, 8-0 with Jennings - ACC and SMU should be playing that up)
5. PSU (Only loss being to a 10-1 team and a win over 8 win ILL)
6. UGA (no bad losses and some very good wins - could talk me into putting them higher - sometimes looks like the best team in the country, other times not even Top 25)
7. Miami (loss is to a 7-win GT, solid wins over Duke and L'ville, but otherwise a little light)
8. Az St (wins over teams with 7, 8, and 9 wins respectively)
9. BYU (similar to Az ST, Slots here due to loss to Az St, win over SMU - though that was pre-Jennings)
10. TX (way overranked due to name and conference. Has no wins over a P4 team with more than 6 wins, no wins over teams with a winning conference record, 6 wins over bottom 7 SEC teams)
11. IND (Similar to TX, but even worse, only 3 wins over teams with winning records - 6 win Neb, Wash, and MI)
12. TN (good win over AL, but not much else on the schedule - no other wins over teams with more than 6 wins, loss to ARK)
13. Boise (good loss to OR, solid win against Wash St and UNLV, could argue for them to be ahead of TN)
Texas ended up with a golden ticket from the SEC this year. Their 6 SEC wins come over teams with a combined 13-31 conference record.
In this new age of superconferences they are less conferences and more federations due to their size. SEC may be the best overall conference, but it has plenty of mediocre to weak teams so if you get the right schedule you actually have a relatively easy path. This applies to all the conferences - Clemson had the same in the ACC, basically lost to the only good conference team it played. AZ St had a much more difficult schedule in the B12 than Iowa St or Col who mostly got to play the weaker teams in the conference. Indiana and to a lesser extent PSU in the B1G.
You can't just say they played an SEC schedule, or they played a B1G schedule. There is no such thing anymore since you are basically only going to play half your league. The schedules vary widely.
