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Does Cincinnati have a real shot at the College Football Playoff? | College Football Enquirer

Yahoo Sports’ Dan Wetzel and Pete Thamel, and Sports Illustrated’s Pat Forde discuss Cincinnati’s win over Indiana, and how its matchup with Notre Dame in two weeks could prove to be a deciding factor in the Bearcats’ hope for a spot in the College Football Playoff.

Video transcript

[BAT HITS BALL, CROWD CHEERS]

DAN WETZEL: All right, let's tee up this Cincinnati game. It was a dogfight, pulled out late, 38-24. At the end of the day, you got a 2 touchdown victory on the road against a Big Ten team that, certainly, we thought of. Both of you guys were there for that game. Since he gets a bye week and then Notre Dame coming-- or they go to Notre Dame in a couple of weeks. Pat, your thoughts on the Bearcats. And can they pull this off? Can they go undefeated?

PAT FORDE: I mean, I didn't see anything Saturday that says no, they can't. I didn't watch them and say, oh, my gosh, they can to be Alabama. But they did certainly enough to win in front of the biggest non-conference crowd Indiana's had since 1987. I mean, it was a legitimate atmosphere, which at Indiana is very rare. But they filled the seats. And they were loud. And they had a ton of student turnout, which always helps.

And it affected Cincinnati early. My gosh, their line? Yeah, they couldn't commit enough penalties. And Ritter was throwing the ball high for the first quarter. But then they got it going. And they settled in like a veteran team, like you would expect them to.

But look at the way things set up. How good does Notre Dame look? We've been talking about these teams that are winning. But how good are they? They've wheezed by three straight opponents. So if you're Cincinnati, you're saying, hell yeah, we can go into Notre Dame and win that game. Why not?

You get into the AAC, Central Florida's lost Dillon Gabriel for no who knows how long, maybe for the season, maybe for two months, broken clavicle. Memphis, yes, a legitimate challenger probably. But they could run through that conference. And if you get to 12 and 0, 13 and 0 and you've won at Indiana and you've won at Notre Dame, you're going to have a shot.

PETE THAMEL: So I spent a majority of last week with the Bearcat team for an all-access story that'll run next week on Yahoo, so the week going into Notre Dame. It was a really interesting peek at Cincinnati at a really interesting time.

People around that program don't hesitate to say the Notre Dame game is going to be the biggest game in school history. Now, they could still lose. And there's a good chance Cincinnati's favored in that game, which is crazy to think about Cincinnati.

And it's just a really cool moment for that place and that school. Again, biased from recency and biased from just proximity of being around them for a week. But they're an impressive group. And there's a reasonable estimation that eight players will get drafted off that team this year. I would think six, seven with some certainty.

So this isn't some goofy scheme. I really think, starting with that Notre Dame game, do we take Cincinnati seriously, is Cincinnati a factor becomes a loud conversation. And everything Cincinnati has needed to happen so far has happened to give them a chance to do this. And as we know from tracking the Utahs, the Boises, the Cincinnatis under Kelly, UCF, the saboteurs, the outsiders trying to get inside-- I know I'm forgetting somebody-- TCU--

Everything kind of has to line up and go right. And you need the schedule. And it's pretty cool that we're going to be sitting there in early October, and Cincinnati's got a chance.

DAN WETZEL: Yeah. And it goes to what we started with because could be some chaos at the top that makes people open up. OK, so Notre Dame remains one of the potential saboteurs. Obviously, we've seen them in the playoffs numerous times. They're 3 and 0. They did beat Purdue. But I don't think we've spent a lot of time talking about--

They don't look great. They kind of look to me exactly what we thought, would be maybe the 12th best team in the country or something. But they are 3 and 0. And that does set up, potentially, a really big game. They're playing Wisconsin though, this week. They are entering a stretch where they can prove it.