Notre Dame Is Embracing The Villain Role and College Football Fans Are Already Seething About It

Alright, listen up, because CBS Sports bowl expert Brad Crawford just dropped ten College Football Playoff guarantees for 2026, and if you thought June was too early for absolute fire takes, you were dead wrong. This dude isn't messing around, and one thing is crystal clear: Notre Dame is about to become the league's biggest bad guy, and nobody, I mean *nobody*, is ready for the chaos it's gonna unleash. Post-spring intel is out, the picture is clearer, and the expanded playoff means getting in isn't the ultimate goal anymore. Seeding, matchups, and November momentum? That's the real game now.

Notre Dame: The Playoff's New Big Boss

Forget feeling sorry for the Fighting Irish. Those days are GONE. Crawford is calling it: Notre Dame is once again a legitimate national championship contender. They've got a top-end roster, a path to the playoff that looks surprisingly smooth, and enough preseason hype to paint a giant bullseye on their backs. Fans love underdogs, yeah, but they *really* love rooting against the blue bloods. Add in that independent factor, where they sidestep the brutal nine-game conference schedules that chew up the SEC and Big Ten teams? Oh man, the complaints from those fanbases are gonna be glorious. They'll be screaming that Notre Dame benefits from avoiding the grind, and honestly, can you blame 'em? With the new CFP rules, it's gonna take at least two, maybe even three losses, to keep the Irish out of the final top 12, especially after last season's highly publicized omission. This isn't the program that just makes maj

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or bowls anymore; they're consistent playoff participants, winning double-digit games every single year and recruiting at an elite level. When you're winning that much, people stop rooting *for* you and start rooting *against* you. It's a total shift in the conversation.

The ACC Is Ready to Crash the Party, Twice

While Miami is clearly leading the charge for the ACC, Crawford's got his eyes on two other programs poised to shake up the playoff picture: SMU and Louisville. SMU isn't just a feel-good story anymore, my friends. They're annual contenders. With multi-year starter Kevin Jennings at quarterback and a loaded roster around him, they're set to win double-digit games if they can handle the league's upper-middle class. That's a serious threat. Louisville? They're dangerous for a completely different reason. Balance, physicality, portal-built depth, you name it. They've got the tools to snatch some of those resume-building wins early on, especially with matchups against Ole Miss and SMU. For an expanded playoff, the ACC doesn't need two perfect teams. They need a couple of double-digit-win contenders with momentum, a top-25 profile, and a marquee win or two. SMU or Louisville could absolutely be that second team behind Miami, and get this: neither of them even has to play the Hurricanes during the regular season! Talk about a clear path. So, get ready. The college football season is gonna be a wild one, with Notre Dame embracing the hate and the ACC flexing harder than ever. And yeah, you can bet your bottom dollar a handful of top-20 SEC teams are gonna be crying foul when the selection committee makes its final picks. It's gonna be epic.

This article was created with AI assistance and reviewed by Seattle On Tap editorial staff. Always verify information with official team sources.