Missing signature

The W hid from them, down there are the end. Hid in those famous Sanford Stadium hedges, perhaps. Hid in Jake Fromme's impeccably accurate throws. Hid ... somewhere ... as Ian Book took the snap and scrambled madly as the red helmets chased him, looking downfield, looking downfield ...

Nope. No W in sight.

And so Book's last pass, and Notre Dame's last hope, fell incomplete from the Georgia 38. And the Bulldogs did what all the wise guys said they were going to do, which is win at home against the Irish. And Notre Dame, for all intents and purposes, remained a program almost good enough to get into college football's toniest precincts, but not quite.

They were good enough to lead early and good enough to lead at the half, 10-7, but then Fromme started throwing back-shoulder routes to Lawrence Cager and Georgia's D reduced the Irish to one dimension -- Book threw the football 47 times, while the Irish scratched out a mere 46 yards on the ground in 14 mostly fruitless tries. And suddenly it was 23-10.

It ended 23-17, and the Irish had that one last shot from the 38, but the signature win they needed went unsigned. A good try, but good tries don't get you in the door.

And so what last night proved was only that the Irish were a legit No. 7, which is what they were ranked going in. And maybe that's good enough to get into the playoff if the Georgias and Auburns and 'Bamas and LSUs start knocking one another out, which they surely will. So the headline on ESPN's website this morning about how the Irish are in "trouble" in the College Football Playoff race is woefully premature.

Here's the thing, see: There is absolutely nothing coming their way in October and November that should prevent them from arriving in December at 11-1. Absolutely nothing.

ND's remaining schedule is, frankly, soft as butter Charmin, although it might not appear so to the untrained eye. Oh, they've got some marquee names down the road -- Michigan and USC and Virginia Tech and Stanford -- but none of them are marquee teams these days. They're just not.

Michigan, with two weeks to prepare, looked utterly lost and unprepared as Wisconsin worked the Wolverines over 35-14. Virginia Tech, a long jaunt from the Frank Beamer days, is 2-1 and needed a major second-half rally to beat, um, Furman last week. USC beat Utah using a third-string quarterback, but has already lost to BYU. And Stanford isn't Stanford anymore, either, standing 1-3 after losing to USC, Central Florida and Oregon.

Unbeaten Virginia and always-pesky Navy are probably the highest hurdles left for the Irish. And even they're not all that high.

So, yeah. No reason at all to think Notre Dame won't be 11-1. It may not be a good enough 11-1 resume to get them to the playoff, but how many 11-1 teams are going to be left, come December?

In which case, they may get in by default.

And you can sign that.