Notre Dame is 0-2 and as bad as Irish fans feel about that fact and the prospects for the rest of the season… poll voters aren’t remotely as down on the Domers as we might have been following the 41-40 loss to Texas A&M. The AP Top 25 kept the Irish ranked at #24 with the 3-0 USC Trojans behind them at 25 (by quite a bit too). The Coaches Poll was even more forgiving of Notre Dame and only dropped them to #21.
Look… it’s a rare week when a team loses by one point to the #16 ranked team and tumbles
13 or 16 spots. Even rarer that there is zero pushback from Irish fans about the ranking. Why? Because it is what it is. The placement on the schedule and the overall result of the Miami and Texas A&M games made for some weird action in the polls. I read somewhere that this is the first ti,e since 1988 that a team started the season 0-2 and was still ranked in the AP Top 25.
There could be a rare opportunity of poll redemption next month for the Irish. If Notre Dame can beat its next four opponents (Purdue, @ Arkansas, Boise State, NC State) and USC win its next three opponents (Michigan State, @ Illinois, Michigan) then you could have a Top 15 showdown in South Bend that could be a catalyst for a spot in the playoff.
But that doesn’t matter right now (and also it looks pretty unlikely). What matters right now is that the Irish fix the issues at hand — which are more than a handful of things. Fix the things that need fixed, and we’ll see what happens later. Until then… this is just the fun part of college football.
