Notre Dame exits its bye week knowing full well it controls its own destiny for a College Football Playoff berth. Win and you're in. All that's left to do is a

For much of the time after Notre Dame lost to Northern Illinois, the Action Network’s Brett McMurphy was not empathetic. He consistently had the Irish in the Pop-Tarts Bowl, thus rendering their first season in the expanded College Football Playoff era a failure.

And as we sit here in the first week of the final month of the regular season, there are more than two dozen teams with a path to the 12-team CFP. Some are the teams still in the mix because they're alive in their conference races,