What is the story about?
One of the really fun things to do over the course of the college football season is to critique all of the AP Top 25 voters each week about their Notre Dame ranking (or whatever). Their votes are very public, and they are held accountable by CFB fans.
The coaches poll, however… yeah they don’t share the same values about transparency. That is, until, the final vote happens, and we get to see how each coach (or SID maybe/probably) voted. Notre Dame finished the season ranked #11 in the coaches poll, so let’s
talk about how that came about.
- UTEP head coach, Scotty Walden, did not rank Notre Dame AT ALL.
- Fellow Independent UConn and its coach, Jim Mora, ranked Notre Dame #25 jOiN A ConFErEncE.
- Vanderbilt’s Clark Lea ranked Notre Dame #15 with a heaping handful of salt.
- Navy’s Brian Newberry ranked ND #9 but maybe more importantly — Alabama at #21.
- Indiana’s Curt Cignetti, who “hates Notre Dame” ranked the Irish at #7 — the highest vote for ND.
- Dick Rod didn’t rank Michigan (high five).
- Delaware head coach Ryan Carty did not rank Ohio State or Oklahoma.
- Air Force head coach Troy Calhoun ranked Miami #5.
- Marcus Freeman was one of 16 coaches that did NOT rank USC and also one of 16 that had the Irish ranked ahead of Alabama.
And there are plenty of other tidbits in there if you take a look. So take a look and be confident in the knowledge that college football still remains AWESOMELY petty.
