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.