The subject of a 5-7 Notre Dame team going to be a bowl game was broached earlier this past week with Brian Kelly. Thanks to the events that transpired in Week 12, that’s still a theoretical possibility even as it’s an unrealistic probability.
Up 31-21 on Virginia Tech heading into the fourth quarter, it looked as if the 4-6 Golden Domers would keep their flickering bowl hopes alive. 15 minutes and 13 Hokies points later, the Irish were assured of, at best, APR playing a role in backdooring its way into a postseason bid.
The loss was Notre Dame’s seventh of the season, assuring the football program of its first losing record since Charlie Weis’ third season in 2007 (3-9).
Entering Saturday, there were 60 teams that had reached the six-win threshold toward filling up the 80 bowl openings. As of this posting, four other teams were added to that pool, with five more a possibility by day’s end.
If the requisite 80 teams don’t reach six wins, that would open the door for 5-7 teams to be added to the postseason. While it seems unlikely with the way their opponent is rolling, Notre Dame could get to 5-7 with a win at USC in the regular season finale. Kelly seemingly indicated that, if they were extended a bid as a 5-7 team, they’d accept it, if for nothing more than the dozen practices it would afford his squad.
"[I]f you look at what our options are, we’re going to practice for about 12 days, you know, and then that’s it. And then we’re going to play one game,” Kelly said Tuesday. “So they’re not going to be inactive very long, one way or the other.
“So I’d like to practice. I want to go to a bowl game. I want to win our last two games. But I’m not losing sleep over it.”
Even if they were to upset the Trojans and get to the five wins, a bowl bid might be a pipe dream because of the APR scores of the teams that could be around them. From the Indianapolis Star:
Last year, three 5-7 teams “earned” bowl berths.