Column: Notre Dame-Florida State is key game in first four-team playoff season

Notre Dame (6-0) at Florida State (6-0) promises to be terrific surround-sound theater with a circus-like atmosphere.

Jameis Winston alone could fill three rings and maybe clean up after the elephants.

It is a morality play, on a macro level, with more offshoots than a bamboo forest. It is also a pivot point in the first four-team playoff season.

The first hope is that the game is competitive.

Notre Dame has been mostly bark for 25 years. The Irish are the Dodgers of college football, proud in tradition but lacking in modern-era, postseason follow-through — neither franchise has won a “national” title since 1988.

That was the year quarterback Tony Rice navigated South Bend to a wire services No. 1 and pitcher Orel Hershiser led the Dodgers to the World Series crown.

The fear Saturday is Notre Dame at Florida State will be a repeat of Notre Dame versus Alabama in the 2012 Bowl Championship Series title game.

Notre Dame tightrope walked to 12-0 that season and seemed a good match for the Crimson Tide right up to the time the teams came out for warmups.

The size difference between the teams was striking. Alabama’s offensive line could have headed straight from that game in South Florida to the Miami Dolphins.

Alabama was up 28-0 before you could say “Knute Rockne,” and the Tide cruised to a 42-14 win.

How might Florida State physically compare?

To win last season’s BCS title, Florida State defeated Auburn, which defeated Alabama to win the Southeastern Conference.

Since 1999, Notre Dame is 1-16 against teams ranked in the top five.

Neither of these teams has played like it’s a powerhouse. Notre Dame needed a fourth-down pass to beat Stanford and gave up 43 points at home to 2-4 North Carolina.

Florida State has front-line talent and swagger but is playing nowhere near last season’s pace, when the Seminoles rolled every regular-season opponent by 14 points or more.

A win for Notre Dame moves the Irish one rung closer to a playoff spot that would knock a major conference champion out. Even without Notre Dame — the Irish don’t belong to a football conference — there are only four playoff spots available, and there will be five major conference champions.

A win for Florida State almost cinches a spot in the four-team playoff because the Seminoles enjoy the luxury of being a good team in the weak Atlantic Coast Conference.

Florida State, playing without Winston, defeated Clemson, the only other ACC team currently ranked team in the Associated Press media poll — the Tigers are No. 24.

Florida State does close with archrival Florida, but few think the Gators have a chance in that one.

There are other potential season-changers looming down the schedule. Top-ranked Mississippi State and No. 3 Mississippi play in Oxford on Nov. 29, yet there is no guarantee it will look as good then as it does now.

Oregon at UCLA was supposed to be last week’s stop-what-you’re-doing game — before both schools prefaced it with losses.

Auburn at Alabama is always a clash of titans, but Notre Dame at Florida State is the only mega matchup we know is going to happen.

It has implications for the Pac-12, especially USC, which must put aside rancor to cheer, cheer, cheer for Notre Dame.

Luke Holthouse, sports columnist for the Daily Trojan, mapped out a way for two-loss USC to still make the four-team playoff.

This mousetrap chain reaction must start Saturday. “We all must swallow our pride and root as hard as we can for the rival Fighting Irish,” Holthouse wrote.

USC needs Notre Dame to win all the way to its late-November visit to the Coliseum. If USC also wins out, with victories against top five Notre Dame and top-10 Oregon in consecutive weeks, it is conceivable the Trojans could be in the Final Four.

USC also needs Arizona State to lose once more in the Pac-12 South, but isn’t that why God created Arizona?

This is all Hail Mary stuff we’re talking about, though. In other words, not a scenario USC can easily defend.

chris.dufresne@latimes.com

Twitter: @DufresneLATimes