By losing to Clemson, did the Fighting Irish end their hopes for making the playoffs? Technically, they've only lost one game- to a good team. And last year, three of the four teams to make the playoffs had lost a game:

• #1 Alabama- Ole Miss (ranked #11)
• #2 Oregon- Arizona (unranked)
• #5 Ohio State- Virginia Tech (unranked)

#4 TCU also only had one loss- against Baylor, which was ranked #5 at that time. But TCU got jumped by Ohio State- despite the fact that their only loss was against a much better team. The explanation was that Alabama, Oregon, Florida State, and Ohio State had all won their conference championship games...

So, since Notre Dame doesn't have a conference, are they basically done? I get that "anything can happen".