Why Notre Dame should make College Football Playoff: Fighting Irish's dominance speaks for itself

Understanding No. 10 Notre Dame's case for inclusion in the College Football Playoff doesn't require an advanced analytics degree or an in-depth comparison of at-large candidates all boasting comparable resumes. The Fighting Irish's case is pretty simple.

They have demonstrated a distinct level of dominance while winning 10 straight games that no one in their neighborhood of the rankings can match. Outside of No. 1 Ohio State and No. 2 Indiana, no team in college football has been as systematically ruthless in acing the eye test as Notre Dame.

If the CFP is about determining college football's best team, and it should be, Notre Dame should be in without much debate. Among the cluster of five teams slotted between No. 8 and and No. 12 in the CFP Rankings after the regular season, the Fighting Irish are the only one with a top-15 scoring offense and scoring defense.

Over the course of the 10-game winning streak, which includes five victories over bowl teams, the Fighting Irish have outscored the opposition by an average margin of 29.7 points. That margin would be even greater had their last three opponents not tacked on garbage time scores.

Notre Dame's two losses came in its first two games by a combined four points against No. 7 Texas A&M and No. 12 Miami. Both are ranked in the top 12 and are a combined 21-3.

Had Notre Dame been blown out in those two games and then narrowly won its next 10 contests, this would be a different discussion. But even in those close losses against quality competition, Notre Dame showed flashes of the dominant team it would soon become.

ESPN's FPI, which is a predictive rating system, ranks Notre Dame No. 3 behind only Ohio State and Indiana. Sports Reference's simple rating system, which takes average point differential and strength of schedule into account, slots the Irish at No. 4.

If you look at Sagarin ratings, which are a long-established tool for judging team strength, Notre Dame registers at No. 2.

Metrics aside, the thesis of Notre Dame's argument can be summarized like so: the Fighting look far more capable of winning a national championship than the teams around it in the rankings.

No. 8 Oklahoma is an offensively lifeless team surviving off turnover luck. No. 9 Alabama has regressed offensively in the season's second half (and has an ugly loss at Florida State on its ledger). No. 11 BYU looked totally inept in its only regular-season game against a team projected to make the CFP field. 

No. 12 Miami owns a head-to-head win against the Fighting Irish from Week 1 but then suffered two losses against teams currently unranked. While No. 13 Texas has a strong resume as a 3-loss team, it also lost to a bad Florida team and hasn't been nearly as dominant as Notre Dame.

The Fighting Irish did this last year, too. They suffered an unimaginable Week 2 loss against Northern Illinois that dropped them, for a time, from the national discussion. They roared back with 11 straight wins to reach the College Football Playoff and then won three CFP games before losing to Ohio State in the title game.

This year's squad isn't weighed down by an ugly loss. It also boasts a more dynamic offense than last year's team and a similarly strong defense.

That team was good enough to reach the national championship game, and this team is good enough to finish the job.