hmmm
fans of teams going nowhere are here bashing a team that is currently positioned higher than those teams!
fans of teams going nowhere are here bashing a team that is currently positioned higher than those teams!
Notre Dane out of the Top 4
- Thread starter 1Redrum
- Start date
I never tried to make the case that you should remain in the same spot until you lose. I was making the point that I think it seems obvious the committee is suddenly applying a style points metric that they previously weren't using. Your explanation above sounds good until you actually look beyond OU and MSU. Iowa jumped us. How did their body of work improve over 1 week to the point where suddenly they should be ranked ahead of us? Beating a crappy Purdue team and barely beating a bad Minnesota team the week prior can't be it. They've only beaten 1 top 25 team which is obviously less than the 2 top 25 teams that we beat, one of which is ranked ahead of the 1 top 25 team that Iowa beat. Keep in mind Jeff Long had been saying the previous 2 weeks that ND was "solidly" in 4th place. How did Iowa suddenly become 2 spots better than us? And how do you explain Alabama's ranking? Their resume keeps getting worse every week. They've only beaten 1 top 25 team as well and their loss was worse than ours. Their marquee win against LSU has gone up in flames and is no longer in the top 25. If OU and MSU surged in the rankings because of who they've recently beaten while at the same time Alabama's resume is getting worse then why not stay true to the philosophy of "what happened until that point" and rank either OU or MSU ahead of Alabama?
Maybe you missed it. We're 9-2 with a freshman QB, a
Now that I think about it. You're right. I'm so off today. It wasn't just being you in 2014 that made it the best day ever though. It was beating you and getting Chick-Fil-A.
Since the Michigan series restarted in 1978 we are something like 75-52-1 (58.5%) against current Big 10 teams, including Nebraska and Penn State. It is higher if you take out Nebraska and Penn State. Yeah, we are really afraid of the Big 10.
I would rather go 0-12 than join the Big 10. ND has done just fine against the Big 10 historically. Have fun playing Maryland and Rutgers.
We haven't played either yet and won't next year. Maryland is in 2017. Rutgers 2018. Neither in 2019. I think that's all that's currently scheduled. In other words, we're in the West. They're in the East.
Do you work in the media? You're great at quoting mining and taking things out of context. You should try covering politics.
My last post on here. Have a great Thanksgiving and GO CARDINAL (I'll be rooting for them to help our strength of schedule).
OU didnt have its best QB Mayfield after a illegal hit for the second half and both running backs Perine and Mixon missed several series including both and Mayfield at one time...so I'd say they were about even in player substitutions it was 23-7 at half before the boys were taken out of the game. We've had to run a 3 game gauntlet of ranked teams to get in and it isnt over yet. You may still be right back in it!
Last post? I doubt it.
With a win against Eastern Illinois and squeaking by Ball State, your schedule will need a lot of help. Then again, you can take solace in the last two games against ND being the biggest things to ever happen to your nice little program.
The problem you have with Iowa is that they are undefeated. They have a better record, so it doesn't take much to put them over the top. Again, Boston College and Wake Forest brought down some of the metrics. Yeah, Purdue and Minnesota aren't good either, but better than Boston College and Wake Forest. Couple that with Iowa being undefeated, and it makes it possible for them to jump ahead.
Alabama isn't a mystery at all. I'm surprised they aren't #1. You have to understand how the committee calculated strength of schedule. They take the records of all your opponents, plus the records of all the teams your opponents played. They add all that up, and you get an overall SOS percentage. On Alabama's schedule, they have five 8-3 teams, and two 7-3/4 teams. Nobody else really has that, at least up to this point.
You could make an argument for or against any of these teams, but the committee isn't pulling rankings out of their butt, like many people want to believe.
I know you weren't directly saying I think the committee was pulling the rankings out of their but by throwing that comment in there at the end of your argument you seem to imply that maybe I think that. I don't. I do think they are not consistent with their message and justifications and that is what I was pointing out. Nothing you wrote above changes the fact that an ND team that was "solidly" at number 4 a week ago should not have been jumped by Iowa. Iowa was also undefeated last week and ND was still "solidly" ahead of them. You may think the difference is BC and WF are worse than Purdue and Minn, I don't. If there is any difference between the 2 groups of 2 teams it's negligible. And by the way, I get why ND fans should be somewhat upset by only beating WF 28-7 but the committee shouldn't look at that 21 point win as a negative. When you go to, "well, WF actually out-gained ND" it really looks like people are going out of their way to look at negatives for ND. Again, I know why ND fans were underwhelmed with that game because we know we should have played so much better, but outsiders and especially neutral outsiders should be less critical considering the margin of victory. ND was up 21-0 at half-time in that game. It is hard to maintain your enthusiasm when you are beating an opponent by 3 TD's. Yes, they should have maintained their enthusiasm and beaten them by more but the margin was still better than Clemson's 20pt margin against them this past week. All the outsiders are lumping that in with the BC game as underwhelming performances but I don't see them picking the same nits with the other teams who also have had underwhelming performances. And if people are going to start to nitpick at least be fair. If you are going to look deep for negatives then you should also consider anything that might mitigate those negatives like the fact that both WF and BC had 2 weeks to prepare for us and that we still controlled both games from beginning to end and were never in any danger of losing either game.
Look, if Jeff Long had been saying all along that "we look at when teams don't perform well in a win" and the committee had been ranking teams accordingly all along then I could accept this week's rankings, but they haven't said that and they haven't done that. This is the first week they are using that criteria and they don't seem to be using it the same way for all teams.
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Dig Deep TWalsh. The further back you go to hide the painful reality of the last 20 years, the more you sound like a Minnesota fan. There was a time when they too were an elite college football power. My sons are in their late 20s and early 30s. They attended ND. And neither has any first hand experience with ND being an elite college football program. They have never seen ND win a major bowl game against a top team.
It's only a matter of time before ND jumps all in with the ACC. Swarbrick has said as much when he has openly admitted the changing landscape of the game may dictate joining a conference. Should you beat Stanford and get left out as I expect, the evolving landscape of the game will be one large step closer to forcing ND's hand. Should you lose to Stanford? Well ... you will have had a nice season with a high point of beating Navy. That's a much better than average year for ND football in the eyes of those who don't cling to a distant past.
GOUNUII
What Walsh posted is true. ND has done well against the Big 10. The best thing about ND's 2015 schedule is that we played not a single Big 10 team.
The only sensible place to start a Big 10 v ND discussion is 1978, since we consistently have played as many as 3 or 4 Big 10 teams almost every season since then. Minnesota's glory years were well before I was born, and I'm pretty old. Bad analogy.
This isn't a Big Ten vs. ND discussion TWalsh. It's a where does ND stand today discussion. It stands at the end of a 20 year period when it did not compete for national championships and did not have a single bowl win of any consequence. During that time, it experienced losses at home to the likes of Navy and Northwestern. A time when 7-8 wins became the most common over/under number. There are many reasons for that fall from elite status. Poor coaching hires hurt. Four consecutive poor head coaches really hurt. Relatively indiscriminate admissions standards hurt too. Way too many transfers, decommits and academic disciplinary distractions/suspensions to sustain an elite program where you have to go to class and turn in the work. And now ND's independent status is really putting the squeeze on them. Just as Kelly is fielding perhaps his best team.
My point about the BIg Ten is only to say that it was never an attractive option for ND. You can talk about ND's independent identity all you want, and there is certainly some truth to that. But no way does ND jump into the Big Ten when it would have to go through OSU and Michigan and MSU to get to even a top bowl game. That's to say nothing of PSU or Wisconsin or Nebraska or Iowa or even lowly NU. All of those latter teams have demonstrated the ability to beat top rated teams. So the Big Ten would never have been a good choice. Will the ACC hybrid arrangement help? Not when you beat UVa, BC, Wake and Pitt, but lose to Clemson.
Their are currently 6 players for 4 playoff spots. The champions of the Power 5 conferences and ND. With the PAC 12 down this year, that leaves ND fighting with the Big 12 champion for the 4th spot. So although ND's 2015 resume compares favorably to Oklahoma's, a Sooner win this Saturday will virtually eliminate ND. That in my opinion is almost entirely a function of ND's independent status. 11-1 independent seasons with less than impressive wins vs. the likes of Wake and UVa and BC won't get you in over an 11-1 conference champion. And when the Pac 12 gets its act together, it will only be made more difficult for the Irish. If I'm Swarbrick, I now have to make the choice between the inherent disadvantage of ND's independent status (necessitating either an unbeaten season or help from others to make the playoff) vs going all in with the ACC. Is the Shamrock series and your football history of independence more important than placing the program in the best possible position to compete for national championships? Do you care that the ND HC position has been a difficult one to fill since Lou hung it up? And that future coaches you would be interested in will want to be on a level playing field with other top programs?
Just my two cents. I'm an underdog fan, but would like for my family to experience what it was like back in the day when ND football was really good.
GOUNUII
As I tried to explain to you, the committee isn't basing all this on Notre Dame's "bad" performance. I explained to you how SOS is calculated. Notre Dame's SOS is lower than it was 2 weeks ago, because Boston College and Wake Forest have such bad records. Here's the thing. Iowa is 11-0. Notre Dame is 10-1. All things being equal, Iowa would be ahead. However, Notre Dame can jump Iowa with metrics like SOS, quality wins, etc. With Boston College and Wake Forest being on the schedule, that brought Notre Dame's metrics closer inline with Iowa's, which brings 11-0 vs. 10-1 into play.
Now regarding the "solid" comment by Long, that goes back to what I said. Notre Dame was solid 2 weeks ago. Their metrics were ahead of Iowa/Oklahoma, Michigan St. However, as they got deeper into the schedule, those metrics evened out. You said earlier that you understand that it's not like the old days, where ranked teams generally kept their slot, but you really don't. You have to understand, 2 weeks ago, as far as the committee was concerned, Boston College and Wake Forest didn't exist. (And Ohio St and TCU didn't either.) Because of that, then yes, the poll really can fluctuate that wildly.
Well, at least you aren't implying anything. You finally said I don't know what I'm talking about. Get over yourself. You aren't educating me on anything. I can acknowledge your arguments are at least not off base but, no, you are not making a solid point for Iowa or the committee. Iowa's schedule has been very weak all year. It didn't get any stronger by playing Minn and Purdue and really we're only talking about Purdue because, despite your focus on 2 weeks ago, Long didn't just say ND was solid 2 weeks ago, he also said it last week. Yes, playing WF and BC weakened our overall SOS, but playing Purdue would have also weakened Iowa's already weak schedule, and overall our schedule is still a lot better than theirs. If the difference between Iowa and ND was to the point where us beating a bad team would put us behind Iowa who was playing, at best, an equally bad team (at least BC can say they have the #1 D in the country, what can Purdue say?), then it's obvious the difference between Iowa and ND would have been razor thin. You are saying it took just 1 week of playing a bad opponent for our SOS to go down enough to justify Iowa not only jumping us but jumping us by 2 spots. If the difference between Iowa and ND was that thin then Long shouldn't have said we were solidly ahead of them, and yet he said it. He said the only problem they had last week were spots 5-7.
So while you are full of yourself, instead of trying to educate me and bloviate about knowing exactly why the committee ranked Iowa higher than us why don't you actually show me where Long or anyone else on the committee used that justification for Iowa passing us? Hint: You won't be able to. In fact, if you looked at another thread you will see exactly what Long actually said about ND's ranking.
"I think that combination of them not playing well the last couple of weeks combined with the [quality of wins of Oklahoma and Michigan State]."
He didn't mention Iowa but he also didn't mention SOS either. And look what he said at the beginning of that sentence. "Them not playing well the last couple of weeks" doesn't have anything to do with SOS. Just to educate you, what that translates to is style points which is what I've been saying all along. Now that we've established that, show me where Long has said anything of the sort about any other team after a less than impressive win over the last few weeks. You won't be able to do that either.
"Where does ND stand in today's discussion".....
In the past 6 season they went to one BCSNCG, and in great position to compete for a playoff beirth don't you think?
