Every once in a while, the college football world has what I like to call an “oh yeah” moment. Those moments trigger our brains allow us to realize, “oh yeah, that totally can happen.”

We got one of those Saturday night. Somewhere between another Sam Darnold turnover and a long Josh Adams touchdown, the college football world realized that one-loss Notre Dame is a pretty good football team. The Irish stomped all over USC and knocked the preseason darling Trojans out of the College Football Playoff hunt.

That led to some — like myself — taking a closer look at Notre Dame. Perhaps I was guilty of writing off the Irish after the Georgia loss. Maybe because Notre Dame is independent, I wasn’t considering an all-important conference title game as a key late-season boost.

Oh yeah, that doesn’t really matter with Notre Dame. A one-loss Irish team can absolutely punch a Playoff ticket.

And oh yeah, that could have big-time implications for the SEC.

Credit: Matt Cashore-USA TODAY Sports

Let’s dig into Notre Dame with a couple of basic things in mind. For starters, these things tend to work themselves out. The season’s first College Football Playoff poll will be released a week from Tuesday, which is strictly for entertainment purposes. By the time the final, only poll that matters is released, Notre Dame could have two or three losses.

For argument’s sake, consider all of the following possibilities as they relate to a one-loss Notre Dame team. Got it? Good.

Obviously the more the Irish win, the more it helps Georgia’s Playoff résumé. The fact that the Bulldogs won in South Bend should all but guarantee that Notre Dame isn’t stealing a Playoff bid from them if they have one or zero losses. That’s the easy part.

It gets murky if Alabama only has one loss and no SEC Championship. Real murky.

Why?

Picture this scenario. Alabama loses to Auburn in the Iron Bowl OR it loses to Georgia in the SEC Championship. Could the Tide pull off what Ohio State did last year? That is, fail to win a Power 5 conference title and still make the field? One-loss Notre Dame would be a serious threat to that.

So far, Notre Dame has two wins vs. teams that will be in the Associated Press poll for at least another week. One of those wins came on the road. Alabama, on the other hand, has zero wins vs. teams that will appear in the Week 9 AP poll. Just for fun, take a look at the rest of their two schedules (these rankings will change):

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Notre Dame’s schedule is more challenging than Alabama’s. Plain and simple. The Irish could potentially have five wins vs. current top-25 foes (that’s how the committee evaluates) compared to two for Alabama.

Yes, a 12-0 Alabama team would still have an SEC Championship against Georgia. But remember, we’re talking about one-loss Alabama vs. one-loss Notre Dame. The fact that Notre Dame only lost by one against Georgia would help if Alabama’s lone loss came against the Dawgs, too.

The Tide’s ace in the hole is always its dominance. That’s the reason Alabama is always the top-ranked one loss team. But in the past five weeks, can you guess which team won every game by at least 20 points and by an average of 28.4 points?

Notre Dame did that. And again, two of those games were blowout wins against currently ranked opponents. If the Irish continue to dominate like that, it will have the more impressive résumé than a one-loss Alabama team.

That’s the current state of the SEC. A team like Alabama, which has been plenty dominant, could have its résumé picked apart if it doesn’t run the table through another SEC Championship. In a year in which it could finally have a worthy SEC East counterpart, that’s significant.

Despite all of that, there’s still a scenario in which a one-loss Notre Dame team — which could have as many top-25 wins as Alabama and Georgia combined — gets left out of the Playoff in favor of two SEC teams. If undefeated Alabama beats undefeated Georgia in the SEC Championship, Notre Dame still likely wouldn’t leapfrog the Dawgs, especially without a conference title game to play in.

But we’re only having that discussion if Notre Dame gets through that gauntlet stretch to end the season.

I apologize for using the word “if” so many times to get to this point. I’m usually not big on mapping out hypothetical scenarios several weeks in advance. Perhaps it was just Notre Dame sneaking up on me that led to such a reaction.

Whatever it was, hopefully this prevented any future “oh yeah” moments about the Irish.