How this weekend will affect Notre Dame's bowl scenarios

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Notre Dame only fell two spots to No. 8 in the College Football Playoff rankings this week, teeing it up for a New Year’s Six bowl bid. 

The pairings for the Sugar Bowl, Rose Bowl, Fiesta Bowl and Peach Bowl will be announced Sunday by the College Football Playoff selection committee at 2 p.m. CT. Notre Dame is poised to earn a bid to the Fiesta Bowl or Peach Bowl as an at-large team.

The Rose Bowl will take a Big Ten team to play the winner of the Pac-12 Championship (barring a string of massive upsets that get Stanford into the playoff), while the Sugar Bowl is an SEC-Big 12 matchup. 

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Heading into the weekend, Notre Dame’s opponent will likely be one of the loser of the Big Ten Championship (either Iowa or Michigan State), Ohio State, Florida State, North Carolina or Houston. Here’s how the Irish could play each of those teams:

Iowa: The Hawkeyes lose their first game of the season in Indianapolis on Saturday and are passed over for the Rose Bowl in favor of Ohio State. 

Michigan State: The Spartans lose the Big Ten Championship, don't go to the Rose Bowl and aren’t dropped below No. 11 TCU/No. 12 Baylor. Given the Spartans are ranked No. 5 and playing the No. 4 team in the country, that seems unlikely.

Ohio State: The Rose Bowl bid goes to the loser of the Big Ten Championship, and the Buckeyes aren’t shipped off to face Florida State or the highest-ranked group of five team.

Houston: Tom Herman’s Cougars still have to beat Temple in the AAC Championship Saturday to earn a New Year’s Six bid. If Temple wins, its in a New Year’s Six bowl and would likely not play Notre Dame given the two teams played on Halloween this year. 

Florida State: The Seminoles are probably locked into the Peach Bowl unless North Carolina upsets Clemson and the ACC doesn’t get a team in the playoff. While Notre Dame-Ohio State would be one of the best premier bowl matchups in recent years, a rematch of 2014’s Notre Dame-Florida State game — with Everett Golson on the other sideline — would be outstanding as well. 

North Carolina: If the No. 10 Tarheels beat No. 1 Clemson but don’t get a playoff spot — they probably wouldn’t — this could set up a Notre Dame-North Carolina Peach Bowl. This is probably contingent on Clemson holding on to a playoff spot despite losing the ACC Championship. 

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The only concern for Notre Dame here is if Clemson loses its playoff spot and the selection committee tabs Stanford instead of Ohio State to replace the Tigers. If that happens, the four at-large bids would probably go to Clemson, North Carolina, Ohio State and Houston — the three at-large teams would likely be ranked Nos. 5-7, plus the group of five “champion,” freezing out Notre Dame at No. 8. But that’s the most unlikely of these scenarios, one which requires a ton of stuff to happen over the weekend. 

More than likely, Notre Dame will head to either Glendale, Ariz. or Atlanta around New Year’s for its bowl game. Games against Iowa, Michigan State, Ohio State and Houston would probably be played at the Fiesta Bowl; an ACC opponent would probably send Notre Dame to Atlanta. We’ll find out this weekend. 

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