We played 2 games, lost both, and were steamrolled in one of them. Thats a tier 4
team.
That the committee is sending a message to good old Jack. Get in a conference !!!!!
Oregon is 1-1 vs Top 25 teams, plus a loss to an unranked team.
Utah is 0-1 vs Top 25 teams.
I'll concede that Utah passes the "eyeball test" but FFS they haven't beaten a team better than 7-5.
And how exactly is Oregon's 10-2 season impressive enough to be ranked #13? Did the committee think that narrow wins over 7-5 Washington & Cal, and 6-6 WSU were more impressive than the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th best wins that other teams had? It's nitpicking to split hairs anywhere below #12, but it's their job to nitpick and I just don't understand the rationale.
The best argument I can think of is "margin of loss". Both Utah and Oregon can at least say that they were only a couple plays away from going undefeated, but I think Oregon struggled to put away too many unranked teams to justify their ranking.
And ended up ranked exactly one spot higher than after the Michigan debacle.
if we won Nov!?
FU BK, JS & your lemmings
Brian?
You’ve got it.
Not that he has to care about whether fans continue supporting the football team. His money is guaranteed and so is whatever length of extension he wants.
Agree Wisconsin is too high. Auburn, Alabama and Florida should be higher than Bucky. Wish higher than us with wins over Iowa, Michigan and Minnesota.
In some scenarios you would be correct. Not this year. They embarrassed us. We have no reason to gripe
The AP Poll has 65 sportswriters and broadcasters.
The Coaches Poll has 62 head coaches voting.
The only poll that agrees with you has 13 members. Most of whom are former coaches (3), ADs (5), a former USC player, a former Chief of Staff (Army), and a couple of guys from the academic world. None of whom have any affiliation to Notre Dame that I am aware of, with the exception of Ronnie Lott as our chief rival. Michigan has the benefit of a fellow Big Ten member on the committee.
• Rob Mullens, Chair (University of Oregon)
• Gary Barta (University of Iowa athletics director)
• Frank Beamer (Former Virginia Tech head coach)
• Paola Boivin (Arizona State University professor)
• Joe Castiglione (University of Oklahoma athletics director)
• Ken Hatfield (Former head coach)
• Chris Howard (Robert Morris University president)
• Ronnie Lott (Former Southern California All-American)
• Terry Mohajir (Arkansas State University athletics director)
• Ray Odierno (Former Chief of Staff, United States Army)
• R.C. Slocum (Former head coach, Texas A&M interim athletics director)
• Todd Stansbury (Georgia Tech athletics director)
• Scott Stricklin (University of Florida athletics director)
Two of the main reasons that two out of the three polls agree with me are that late losses and the number of losses count. Michigan just got rolled while Notre Dame has been rolling opponents since the knock down in Ann Arbor. How will Michigan respond? We know how ND got off the mat...Rick
Even watch the games. Most coaches have a flunky underling submit their votes. Stop trying to shill for this shit sandwich of a season. In no world should we be ranked ahead of Michigan based on the data we have. Our bullshit November scheduled wins does nothing to erase the ass-raping we received in Ann Arbor (whore).
know more football than you.
Michigan was also raped. At home, in front of Ann Arbor. Four days ago.
They were also beat on two other times...Rick
Which makes me more qualified than most voters.
And Michigan lost to teams ranked ahead of them, just like ND. Their ass rapings came at the hands of the number one and number 8 teams. Ours came at the hands of a mediocre big ten team that deserves to be ranked ahead of us.
ahead of Michigan, but behind Appalachian State, Memphis and Boise State?
Not sure I agree with that.
in the AP and Coaches Polls, respectively, so I am not sure what you talking about Wilber.
I just re-read my post and realize I may have been a little obtuse.
I thought you/we were isolating two specific points of comparison when trying to rank one team vis-à-vis another team (total number of losses and late season losses).
I was working under the assumption that you would rank Boise State, Memphis, and Appalachian State ahead of Notre Dame, on the basis of those two specific points of comparison. Sliding those teams up in the rankings would push Notre Dame down to #17.
The number of losses are not as important when comparing upper tier to lower tier teams that play decidedly weaker schedules like App State.
...but what happened in Ann Arbor was not just a loss.
It was complete and utter destruction.
It was a Viking raid level of destruction: village burned to the ground, fields salted, men left to die in the cold, and women taken away as slaves. Notre Dame looked like a high school team while Michigan looked dominant.
Ten wins, beating a ranked opponent, gaudy point spreads...none of it matters. There's simply no way to recover from the disaster in Ann Arbor.
Our season ended that night, pure and simple.
Otherwise I think I know the answer to who makes it between Utah & OU should both win this weekend.
a team in their conference.
Assuming he is permitted to vote both for his team and for Utah, he could attempt to sandbag the process, but the voting format limits this. My recollection is they vote in tranches of six teams. Unless this has changed, he could defensibly vote Oklahoma 4 and vote Utah 6 behind UGA. That could overcome two other voters who voted Utah 4 and Oklahoma 5. But if there is a clear consensus of Utah above Oklahoma, he can't overcome that. If it's pretty split, he can makeup one additional vote. Of course, since Baylor is ranked 6 spots ahead of Oregon, next week's games could sway someone to flip Oklahoma over Utah.
Of course, this also assumes that no one has a two-loss Georgia team in front of one-loss Oklahoma. Given that Utah is currently ranked above Oklahoma, it's possible someone decides to slot UGA between them. In particular, Oregon's AD has an incentive to sandbag OU to prop up Utah. And since Oregon's AD doesn't have to recuse himself for either Utah or OU, he can wax poetic about margins of victory or whatever factor helps Utah to overcome it's fairly weak schedule.
But make no mistake, the committee is absolutely railroading Notre Dame.
Wisconsin is 10-2 and lost to Illinois and got drilled by Ohio St. and the Badgers are #8.
Notre Dame is 10-2 and lost to #4 Georgia by 6 on the road and got drilled by #14 Michigan and the Irish are #15.
Here's what Mullens said about the Badgers being ranked #8: "Three wins over Top 25 teams, losses to Ohio State and "close loss" to Illinois. "We see them as a balanced team."
Guess who else has three wins over Top 25 teams? Notre Dame does. And they damn sure didn't lose to a team like Illinois - yet Wisconsin is sitting there seven spots higher.
So yeah, ND's reputation in the eyes of the committee is clearly in the shitter.
Michigan #8.
I often can't make sense of the relative rankings of a computer ranking like Sagarin.
But it's objective. And it backs up the committee.
The purpose of the committee is to decide the top 4. No teams ranked after #7 have a chance to make the playoff so it doesn't really matter how the remaining teams are ranked. The committee doesn't put out a post-bowl ranking because their opinions are no longer relevant.
There are 3 undefeated teams who are truly elite. UGA and OU aren't far behind but are weak on one side of the ball. Bama would be in this second group with Tua. After that, there are about 10 teams that are difficult to differentiate in any consistent and meaningful way, but they can't stay within 2 scores of the top 3.
As we keep being told we should.
Wisconsin crushed them, they crushed us. Not hard to comprehend.
The committee is not "railroading" us. They are appropriately ranking us for mediocre results against a thin schedule.
All three ranked teams that Wisconsin beat are ahead of the teams we beat, including the Michigan team that beat the piss out of us.
Our ranking is about right, which is a sad commentary on Kelly.
Is that the committee is very mean and biased against us and still gave us no worse than we deserve.
The damages associated with their alleged bigotry are $0.00.
I’ll spend my agita elsewhere.
Please list the signature wins of the Kelly era.
I’ll wait.
If they beat The Ohio State, the committee can justify moving them into the playoff.
If they get drilled as expected, the committee will drop them to where they belong.
I have zero issue with the committee's ranking. The Michigan game was a key marker for comparing us to Wisconsin and Penn State.
Our wins are just not as good. This year especially, the top 15 are significantly better than the pack. While are in that group, we should be at the bottom of it.
Any of the team above us would be heavily favored over Navy and Virginia and favored over USC.
And the Miami and Stanford games.
And all the games where ND has been blown out while Kelly stands on the sidelines with a 30-mile stare having no earthly idea what to do.
ND isn't getting railroaded. The committee has decided what a Kelly-coached ND team does, and has decided to no longer give them the benefit of the doubt.
What I wouldn't give for an alum up in the booth to really give us the info we need during the game! I bet Joe Theismann would even hum "Here Come the Irish" during TV timeouts!
But it is worth mentioning that this logic did not exist last year when ND won the game yet some idiots though Michigan should be ranked higher.
Yes, the question of ranking Michigan above ND was grist for the mill on the sports talk shows during November. But the only people who actually took the argument seriously were butt-hurt Michigan fans who couldn't believe their unbeatable team got smacked down by Notre Dame. For everyone else it was just a way to capture eyeballs.
crash and burn.
This is probably a message to ND for the future.
Conference or die,” but rather “you can stay independent, but you damn well better have only one loss and it best be a top-4 team.”
If our one loss were 23-17 at Georgia, life could be different.
I am willing to take that deal in order to remain Independent.
some on the committee who fit in the former.
100% agreeance on remaining independent but let's clean up our act and make no doubt about it.