One thing hasn't changed in the 12-team College Football Playoff picture: Independent Notre Dame is still an X factor. When the 13-member CFP selection committee meets next week for its first ranking of the season, one of its most significant discussions will center around one-loss Notre Dame, which each week continues to distance itself from the home loss to Northern Illinois and also has a critical head-to-head win against surging Texas A&M.
Head-to-head results are one of several tiebreakers the committee uses to separate teams with the same record — just like last season, when Texas won at Alabama in Week 2.
And it continued to matter through Selection Day, when the Longhorns were kept above the Crimson Tide all season because of that win.
Head-to-head results, though, aren't always the final answer — like in 2021, when the committee ranked Michigan ahead of Michigan State in spite of a Spartans win on Oct.