Paul Finebaum won't put Notre Dame in College Football Playoff if Irish lose to Miami

Paul Finebaum put the pressure on Notre Dame this coming weekend to beat Miami, otherwise they can kiss any hope of the College Football Playoff goodbye. Notre Dame missed out on the CFP last year at 10-2 overall, but with a head to head loss to Miami. This year, they are in an eerily similar situation. Going into Week 10, Miami will be No. 1 in the country and the favorite, so an Irish win would go a long way for their resume. A loss, and Notre Dame has no quality wins as Finebaum sees it. $19.99 gets you a FULL year of On3 | Rivals national coverage “Notre Dame is the one everyone will be watching this week,” Finebaum said on The Matt Barrie Show. “It’s the marquee game of the week, which is saying a great deal, by the way. I mean, I’ve already said it, and a lot of people have already said that they’ll be left out (if they lose). But that may be more difficult because of the absolute carnage. But it will be a healthy debate, though. It won’t be as clear cut as last year, but I would argue that they have no business being in the playoffs if you can’t win at least one important game.” Was the Navy game important? Maybe in a historical context. Notre Dame defeated the Midshipmen Saturday 35-13 after a slow start and a slim 14-13 lead at halftime. Head coach Marcus Freeman was asked about Miami looming and if that affected any of Notre Dame’s play. “Look, I can’t get in every person’s head,” Freeman said. “Nobody can, except for that person. All I can focus on is, let’s talk about why you didn’t do what we expected you to do, or hey, what do we have to do differently as coaches to get a better result on this play? “Like, you don’t want to create chaos and panic about why something happened. That’s why I talked to this group about, it’s 14 to 13, we can create a narrative that, ‘Oh, they were thinking about Miami,’ or, no, we have to focus on, ‘Why didn’t you—what did they do to execute versus our defense, and what did we not do on offense in the three-and-out set to make sure we execute?’ “If we say, if I say, ‘We were thinking about Miami,’ I’m blaming it on something that’s—we gotta make sure it’s up to us to go and execute on this play and do our job. So we, I, all of us have to do this and say, ‘How do we make sure we do a better job on that play?’”