Hey, Herbie probably still thinks they should be playing for the NC. :hihi: Make no mistake about it, Notre Dame is a good, solid team. But I have to agree with Weiss' own assessment: they're good, but nowhere near upper echelon, e.g., USC, Michigan, OSU, UF, LSU, etc. But it goes back to the queston: if ND didn't start the season with their #2 ranking hitched to their media bandwagon, would they have finished their regular season schedule in the top 10-15? Probably not, IMO. Maybe #20-25.
I think you have to go down the list of those who won their bowl games and simply figure out which teams are most deserving to be ranked higher. Then look at which teams competed and which ones folded. Arkansas had a decent team that just ran into three top 10 programs in a row. They don't deserve to be dropped all that far. Tennessee psychologically packed their bags. They deserve to be dropped. I would have to say that Notre Dame put up a good fight but were simply outgunned. I personally would not drop them out of the top 25.
What the Sugar Bowl loss showed is that there is a big drop-off between the top five teams and the rest of the teams in the top 25. ND lost, but so did half of the teams that played in a bowl game. A team like GT that won its bowl game, and was tied for #25 will go up in the polls. But, ND beat GT and was clearly better than ND. I don't see how you could ranke ND below GT in that situation. ND lost three games this season, but they were all to top five teams in the country.
If I'm not mistaken, GT choked miserably in their bowl game like they did against you overrated domers, and they LOST. Know before you post! Now go away.
So Notre Dame possibly ends up ranked behind Boise State, Louisville, Rutgers, Wake Forrest... Strange times, indeed. :wink:
Do you really think that if those teams played the same schedule as ND, where they had to play against UM and SC, those teams would have fared any better? If ND had Boise State's schedule, it too would have gone undefeated.
