The #11 Notre Dame Fighting Irish and #8 Alabama Crimson Tide both sit at 6-1 through seven weeks of the 2015 college football season -- both right on the fringes of the current College Football Playoff chase. A case can be made for both teams as potential CFP party crashers, but which team actually has the better chance to jump the field and secure a spot in this year's final four? Here's the case for both teams.
The Case For Alabama
Want to know why Alabama is currently our pick for the best one-loss team in the nation? Per TeamRankings.com, Alabama has played the toughest overall schedule of any team in the FBS. Road wins over Georgia and Texas A&M loom large, along with the Tide's season-opening neutral site win over Wisconsin. Looking forward, Bama still has a game against LSU and always-tough road games against Mississippi State and Auburn to go.
If Alabama wins those and finds its way to the SEC title game, they will undoubtedly be faced with a win-and-in CFP scenario. This scenario is far from out of the realm of possibility, especially with how dominant the Tide's run defense has been throughout 2015. If any front seven is going to rein in LSU's Leonard Fournette this season, it's Alabama's.
On offense, there's plenty to like about what Jacob Coker has done over the past few weeks to make the jump from question mark to legit SEC starting quarterback. There's also Derrick Henry who is the only SEC running back who can legit matchup with Fournette in a back-and-forth rusher's duel.
Alabama has all the talent to run the table and they have Nick Saban pulling the strings. That's enough, innit?
The Case For Notre Dame
If any Top-25 team has license to be in a lot worse shape than they are right now, it's #11 Notre Dame. Notre Dame's injury report is absolutely jam-packed with impact talent from both sides of the ball. The Irish have already lost six starters to season-ending injuries: QB Malik Zaire (broken ankle), RB Tarean Folston (ACL), TE Durham Smythe (ACL), DT Jarron Jones (MCL), CB Shaun Crawford (ACL) and S Drew Tranquill (ACL).
The paragraph above likely seems to be an indictment of Notre Dame's chances at first glance, but it's not. The Irish have weathered more adversity than any team in the nation, fighting back every challenge they've faced except one -- a 24-22 loss at #6 Clemson which could very well have gone Notre Dame's way if an epic late-game comeback hadn't fallen one two-point conversion short.
On offense, sophomore QB DeShone Kizer is acclimating nicely, factoring in as a rushing threat while completing 65.4% of his passes for 10 touchdowns against just four interceptions. For a Notre Dame team still fresh off Everett Golson's turnover-laden end to 2014, Kizer's consistency is a blessing. In fact, if the season ended today, Kizer's 156.9 rating would be the best of any Notre Dame first-year starting quarterback, slightly ahead of 1964 Heisman Trophy winner John Huarte.
Kizer's dual-threat skill has been a boon for the offense, especially for Heisman contender CJ Prosise. Prosise has 10 touchdowns on the ground over his past five starts (and 11 total), functioning as the engine in the middle of an Irish offense that just keeps churning. Both Kizer and Prosise have made up for inconsistency on defense which still remains a concern, but there's enough talent present on the D to assume that they've got what it takes to come up big when the right shootout asks for it.
They've done it before.
Advantage...
In what some might view as an upset, we're picking Notre Dame. They have road games in four of their last five games, but three of those road games comes against teams who are offensively...challenged -- Temple, Pittsburgh and Boston College. A ranked Temple team will be a tough draw on Halloween, but there's no reason for us to think the Irish won't run through that obstacle and three others before November 28th's massive season closer at Stanford.
Alabama, on the other hand, still has LSU on the schedule. They also have two trap road games (Miss. State and Auburn) and the threat of an upset in the SEC title game if they happen to get that far. Alabama may have the more well-rounded squad altogether, but they're a heck of a lot more vulnerable to an upset than Notre Dame is right now.
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