Playoffs?! Yes, playoffs

Or, in other words, the first College Football Playoff rankings come out two days from now --  appropriately, on Halloween.

Appropriately, because fan bases who've deluded themselves into thinking they're close will run screaming in horror when they come in, like, 13th or something. And fan bases whose schools at least come within striking distance of The Four will say, like kids after visiting the Haunted Castle, "That wasn't so scary."

In any case, you can probably pencil in Alabama and Ohio State, because Alabama is still cruising despite feasting largely on cupcakes, and the Buckeyes managed to elude capture against Penn State. If there's any justice, Penn State will be one of The Four, too, because the Nittany Lions only lost to the Buckeyes by one in the Horseshoe after leading virtually all the way, and still look like one of the top four teams in the country.

Which brings us to Notre Dame, who smash-mouthed once-beaten North Carolina State 35-14 in its latest impersonation of an I'm-scared-to-death-of-Rice Lou Holtz team. The Irish, it seems, win in a way unseen in South Bend since the Holtz era: They punch people in the mouth, ramming the football down everyone's throats and strangling them defensively. Like Holtz's teams, they aren't just beating decent teams up front where football games are won, they're punishing them -- the way, say, an Alabama punishes people up front.

It's why the Blob is starting to think the Irish wind up in the playoff. I know, heresy.

Heresy, because, in Brian Kelly's hands, Notre Dame has fooled us before. They suck you in with a big win or two, and then they lose to a Navy or a Boston College or a West Virginia. And so the possibility still exists they could impale themselves on a Wake Forest or a Miami or a Stanford.

But I don't think so this time. Back in 2012, when the Irish ran the table until Alabama ran them out of the national title game, any objective observer knew they were as phony as Monopoly money. Far more lucky than good, they were barely beating teams they should have been crushing.

This team?

This team is crushing everyone.

Its only loss was by one point to an unbeaten Georgia team that is itself crushing everyone. It's a different team with an entirely different look, and that's why I don't think this is the traditional Notre Dame over-hype this time.

It is, however, still Notre Dame -- and more to the point, Brian Kelly's Notre Dame.

Dining on the aforementioned words therefore remains on the table. So to speak.