COLLEGE FOOTBALL RANKINGS: Notre Dame Rises to #3 During Bye Week; Irish Probably Should Be #1 — ND Only Top-5 Team to Beat Another Top-5 Team, As Currently Ranked

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Notre Dame rose to #3 in both the AP and Coaches Poll during their bye week, thanks to previous-#2 Ohio State getting blown out at Purdue.  The Fighting Irish are the only top-5 team that has beaten another top-5 team, as currently ranked. That fact alone should have propelled Notre Dame into the #1 spot, since neither #1 Alabama nor #2 Clemson can make the claim that they have beaten a top-5 opponent.  (In fact, ESPN’s NCAA football analytics already have Notre Dame at #1 for “Strength of Record” (click here to open graphic in new window))

Notre Dame opponent Michigan climbed into the #5 spot, with the Wolverines’ only loss on the year coming to Notre Dame in the season opener, when the Irish prevailed 24-17. (The only loss for #4 LSU was to current-#9/#11 Florida, who, themselves, have a loss.)

In fact, there is an argument to made that Notre Dame and Michigan should be #1 and #2.

The first official College Playoff Rankings, however, will not come out for nine days, on Tuesday, Oct. 30.

In addition to beating current-#5 Michigan, Notre Dame also beat then-#7 Stanford, who are currently ranked #24 /#23. Notre Dame opponent Syracuse is in the “also receiving votes” category in the Coaches Poll. Additionally, Virginia Tech was in the top-25 when Notre Dame beat them on the road.

Nominal-#1 Alabama’s only win against a ranked opponent was against then-#22 Texas A&M, who are now unranked. Nominal-#2 Clemson’s only win against a ranked opponent was this past weekend, against North Carolina State, who promptly dropped from #16/#15 to #22. The only loss for #4 LSU was to current-#9/#11 Florida, who, themselves, have a loss. Keep in mind that the “SEC conference,” for example, might function more like two separate mini-conferences, where teams are sometimes insulated from playing each other, instead of functioning like a bona fide, unified conference.  For example, most recently, Georgia and Alabama have only had one regular season game scheduled in 10 years.  Georgia has not played in Tuscaloosa since 2007.

(first-place votes in parentheses) (Notre Dame opponents marked in dark blue)

Notre Dame, of course, partners with the ACC, with roughly half of Notre Dame’s schedule being against ACC teams, with the mix worked out with the ACC itself.  Another third of Notre Dame’s schedule this year is against the PAC-12 and B1G/Big Ten, plus one SEC opponent.  So Notre Dame plays a mix of ten power conference opponents, plus Navy (of the American), plus one MAC opponent.

In any event, if Notre Dame can get past Navy next week in San Diego, and if “the math” is done in a rational manner, one wonders how Notre Dame could not be #1 in the first College Football Playoff Rankings that come out a few days after the Navy game.

With regard to other Notre Dame opponents, Northwestern, at 4-3 overall, is first in the B1G/Big Ten West and plays top-20 Wisconsin next week, at home in Evanston, before hosting Notre Dame in two weeks.

Notre Dame opponent Florida State is hovering above .500 and has a date with top-25 North Carolina State coming up.  If Syracuse continues returning to their winning ways, they might start knocking on the door of the rankings again, by the time Notre Dame plays them in Yankee Stadium in November.  Southern Cal also is hovering above .500 and has a few weeks left to gain a stronger footing.

A side note — when looking at “SEC” teams in the rankings, and contemplating the weak schedules for some of them, one point to keep in mind is that, as a practical matter, the SEC is not really a single, unified conference.  The “SEC,” in football, is more like a de facto partnership between two mini-conferences that schedule a postseason game yet, otherwise, sometimes insulate each other from actually playing head-to-head.

So it would not really make any sense for so-called “SEC” teams to feed off each other’s rankings for prestige purposes, since they do not necessarily even play each other.

For example, Alabama has only played in Athens, Ga., once in the past 10 seasons, the only regularly scheduled game between Alabama and Georgia since, and including, 2009.

As a practical matter, it is possible that, in football, even independent, ACC-partner Notre Dame has a closer conference-like relationship with teams from the ACC, and a few of the PAC-12 teams, than the would-be football relationship that exists among some of the so-called “SEC conference” teams.

As a result, it does not really matter if “SEC” teams clog the rankings. Rankings by one separate gaggle of “SEC” teams should not really have a logical bearing on the prestige of another separate gaggle of SEC teams, if they do necessarily even play each other, or do not play each very often in the regular season, and therefore do not really function as a combined conference.

To put it in perspective, by comparison, back when the WAC had a football conference, there was a conference official, from either the Mountain West or the WAC, who proposed having the WAC champion and the Mountain West champion play each other in a special post-season game, with the winner getting an automatic BCS bid.

If that had ever happened, the relationship between teams from the WAC and Mountain West might have been similar to the supposed “conference” relationship between the two mini-conference “divisions” that form the so-called “SEC” — perhaps playing some regular season games here and there, with the two lead teams meeting in the ad hoc post-season game.

On another note, when it comes to strength of schedule, there are the “SEC” scheduling extremes where, on the one hand, they are called upon to schedule a non-conference game against a power conference opponent (or the equivalent), while, on the other hand, they continue to schedule weak Div. I-AA/FCS opponents.

This year, Alabama plays The Citadel (luckily for The Crimson Tide, Alabama gets The Citadel right after the Bulldogs take on Samford — not STANford … rather, SAMford).  LSU played Southeastern Louisiana, who just lost to Abilene Christian.  Georgia played Austin Peay.  Florida played Charleston Southern (the Buccaneers, who did just defeat the Presbyterian “Blue Hose”).

Notre Dame Head Coach Brian Kelly has pointed out that the inclusion of those minor league games effectively diminishes any claim a team might make about having an “extra” game if they end up making it to a conference title game.

Now, that all-important, self-styled “conference title” game did make the difference where Alabama has played Georgia a whopping two times in the past ten years under SEC auspices, instead of just one game, which was how it was originally scheduled.  There was a fourth game between Alabama and Georgia since 2009, under the auspices of the NCAA in last year’s College Football Playoff Final.  Of course, the only reason either team got to the playoff in the first place was that the “SEC” insulated them from playing each other in the regular season.  Had the “SEC” functioned as a true conference and had Alabama and Georgia play each other, the loser would have had two losses, and probably would not have made the College Football Playoff.

With that said, Notre Dame, of course, has had a rich tradition playing “SEC” teams, dating back a number of years, including in bowl games as well as regular season games. And some individual “SEC” teams, of course, are elite programs. As rankings go, however, one should take aggregate assessments of “SEC” top-25 rankings with a big, big grain of salt, because they do not necessarily even play each other, and the ranking of one does not necessarily have much bearing, at all, on the prestige of others.

An added note — Central Florida, the only team in Div. I-A/FBS to go undefeated last year, who were still left out of the College Football Playoff but beat Auburn in a major bowl, the Peach Bowl, are undefeated right now.  Yet they still seem to be facing a kind of glass ceiling at the #10 spot.  They play undefeated South Florida later in the year, with the Bulls now sitting at #22/#21.  There needs to be serious consideration about whether an undefeated American Athletic Conference team needs to be ranked above 1-loss SEC teams, especially if that team is a Central Florida team that beat Auburn less than a year ago.  Last year’s results do not count for this year, yet undefeated is undefeated, and Central Florida has demonstrated that they are a strong program.

In fact, perhaps the rankings should be Notre Dame, Michigan, Alabama, Clemson and then Central Florida, with Central Florida then jumping ahead of an Alabama or Clemson that picks up a loss, if Central Florida can keep winning.