Alabama looks shaky, Michigan State and Wake Forest can’t keep their perfect seasons, Nebraska loses close again, and Cincinnati survives by the skin of their teeth in a wild Week 10 for college football. Down the home stretch we come!
Let’s take a look at the latest Top 20 poll from 18 Stripes.
18 Stripes Top 20 Poll
| RANK | TEAM | RECORD | RESULT |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Georgia | 9-0 | 43-6 W vs. Missouri |
| 2 | Cincinnati | 9-0 | 28-20 W vs. Tulsa |
| 3 | Oklahoma | 9-0 | BYE |
| 4 | Alabama | 8-1 | 20-14 W vs. LSU |
| 5 | Oregon | 8-1 | 26-16 W at Washington |
| 6 | Ohio State | 8-1 | 26-17 W at Nebraska |
| 7 | Notre Dame (+2) | 8-1 | 34-6 W vs. Navy |
| 8 | Oklahoma State (+2) | 8-1 | 24-3 W at West Virginia |
| 9 | Michigan State (-1) | 8-1 | 40-29 L at Purdue |
| 10 | Michigan (+2) | 8-1 | 29-7 W vs. Indiana |
| 11 | Wake Forest (-4) | 8-1 | 58-55 L at North Carolina |
| 12 | Ole Miss (+4) | 7-2 | 27-14 W vs. Liberty |
| 13 | BYU (+1) | 8-2 | 59-14 W vs. Idaho St. |
| 14 | UTSA (+1) | 9-0 | 44-23 W at UTEP |
| 15 | Wisconsin (NR) | 6-3 | 52-3 W at Rutgers |
| 16 | Iowa (+2) | 7-2 | 17-12 W at Northwestern |
| 17 | SDSU (+2) | 8-1 | 17-10 W at Hawaii |
| 18 | Houston (+2) | 8-1 | 45-42 W at USF |
| 19 | Purdue (NR) | 6-3 | 40-29 W vs. Michigan St. |
| 20 | Auburn (-7) | 6-3 | 20-3 L at Texas A&M |
Georgia, Notre Dame, Oklahoma State, and Michigan all cruised from our Top 10 teams this past weekend. Oregon didn’t run away from Washington but largely controlled their visit to Husky Stadium.
Cincinnati survives a one-score game for the 2nd time in 3 weeks following a crazy forced fumble on the goal line. What’s your call was the ball out? I think it was out about half a yard short of the goal line, myself.
For the first time this season Alabama was held under 30 points and really needed to dig deep to hold off a pesky LSU team dying to upset the Tide.
Ohio State wasn’t able to pull away from Nebraska despite the latter only converting 2 third downs all game long.
Michigan State and Wake Forest both suffer their first losses of the season. I had the Spartans ranked pretty low last week so they don’t fall much at all in this week’s rankings. To a lesser extent, the same thing goes for Wake Forest.
Hello, Wisconsin! Following a rough start to the season the Badgers have reeled off 5 straight wins–and thanks to Minnesota vomiting all over themselves in a loss to Illinois–are now sitting atop the Big Ten West with a really good chance to make the league title game. Wisconsin visits Minnesota to finish the regular season, by the way.
OUT: Baylor, Kentucky
I guess TCU couldn’t wait to get rid of Gary Patterson as they immediately upset Baylor in their first game back in action without their long-time head coach.
Kentucky opened SEC play going 3-0 with those back-to-back wins over Florida and LSU. Since then, they’ve lost their last 3 games.
Week 11 Games to Watch
Last Week: 4-0
Overall: 38-29
North Carolina (+6.5) at Pitt
My last pick with Pitt called for an upset at the hands of Miami. This time, I think UNC is running awfully low on energy. Howell is banged up, Mack Brown looks ragged as hell on the sidelines, I’m not sure they can keep up this week. Panthers win 39-30.
Oklahoma (-5.5) at Baylor
This could’ve been a big game if not for Baylor’s slip up last week. That’s a decent team right now but out of the league of Oklahoma and their offense with Calen Williams. Sooners win 41-28.
Minnesota (+5.5) at Iowa
Minnesota’s offense has been dealing with injuries and been so up and down this year. As much as Iowa’s offense has looked like it abhorred getting a first down I cannot trust the Gophers to keep the chains moving in Iowa City. Hawkeyes win 24-20.
Michigan (PK) at Penn State
Another Big Ten defensive battle. Feel the excitement. Did you know, Penn State has only scored over 30 against 1 Power 5 opponent this year? That was last week against Maryland. Michigan’s defense is better than Penn State’s and their offense can at least run the ball effectively most of the time. Wolverines win 27-21.
Miss State (+5.5) at Auburn
These are the games Bo Nix turns up for, baby. Tigers win 32-24.
Purdue (+20) at Ohio State
Too many people are on to the scent of Purdue’s upset powers now. I do think it’s wise to put a good chunk of change on a Purdue cover because Ohio State’s defense has been quite leaky this year. This is an enormous spread for a game that is going to be fashionable to call for an outright Purdue upset. Buckeyes win 48-33.
Texas A&M (-2.5) at Ole Miss
My heart says Matt Corral makes a last ditch Heisman campaign effort this weekend. My brain says these are the times when things start to break in Alabama’s favor which means that loss to A&M gets better and better. Aggies win 34-30.
NC State (+2) at Wake Forest
Remember, Wake is still unbeaten in ACC play! It’s not a complete lock of course but in a way this might just decide who ultimately wins the ACC Atlantic division. I do like NC State’s balance on both sides of the ball and think they’ll pick up the road win. Wolfpack win 38-35.
No aTm in the rankings, at 7-2 with a win over Alabama, but yes to Auburn, at 6-3 with a loss to aTM?
I’d probably drop out Iowa, until they actually do something impressive. They’re currently going with their 2nd string QB (Padilla), which means he looked worse in practice than the guy (Petras) averaging 6.4 Y/A and a 9/6 TD/INT line.
Agree the lack of A&M is maybe an oversight? Probably belong somewhere in the mix but whatevs.
Big E heating up on the betting and I appreciate seeing 8 games predicted this week
Who you lose to still matters to my rankings.
A&M has 2 defeats that are tough to ignore. But, a win this weekend and I think that’s enough to get a sizable jump, especially with their QB play stabilizing.
Auburn’s losses are UGA, PSU and aTm
aTm’s losses are Arkansas and MissSt
Auburn’s “best” wins are Ole Miss and ??? Arkansas/LSU?
aTm’s “best” wins are Alabama and Auburn
Auburn lost to aTm who lost to Arkansas who lost to Auburn. Gets into a logic error quickly.
Feel like the recruiting rankings make more sense than a numerical poll (in alphabetical order):
Re: Tulsa-Cincy: I think the nose of the ball was across the plane, but it’s hard to say for sure. Somehow ESPN had no good camera angles, and it seemed like the refs wanted to skedaddle out of there as fast as possible.
Cincy’s time is coming, I think — they’re really struggling with some bad teams. And not just “bad because they’re G5” but “bad because they’ve only won 2 games.”
Cinci is the love child of the media, who are in full campaign mode to push Cinci into the playoff, where they’ll get crushed.
SMU has 2 losses already, they were the last hope for improvement in Cinci’s crap SOS, which last I looked was in the 90’s.
so for Eric, it not only matters who you lose to, but who you beat. Thus far Cinci’s one notable game, let alone win, was against a Norte Dame team that’s a mere shadow of our current team. The rest of their schedule is trash.
Yeah, no kidding. I’d say about 95% of playoff rankings talk is about best wins. At the expense of everything else it seems like it’s the only thing that matters these days.
When people start asking, “Well, what’s Georgia’s best win!?!??” I think we’ve kind of lost the plot.
“What’s Georgia’s best win?” is a totally fair question and the crux of the point. Everyone, including ND, needs to play much better OOC schedules. The rankings make no sense because we have no data. Bama is essentially playing a 9-game schedule entirely in the Confederacy like it’s 1963 or something. Are they good? Yeah, probably, but we have virtually no evidence to support that.
“Best Loss” or “Quality Loss” is nonsense. Particularly because it becomes ridiculous when you try to repeat it. You can’t have too many quality wins — the more good teams you beat, the more evidence there is that you’re really good. But when do you hit too many “Quality Losses?” Two, three, four? Nebraska is gonna finish like 3-9 with three or four “Quality Losses.” Do we think they’re actually a really good football team?
Frankly I’d be fine if they just drew bright lines. All undefeated teams go above one loss teams. One loss teams go above two loss teams. How to handle the G5? Treat them as +1 loss. Sucks but might be as fair or more fair than they already get treated. I really hate the way college football, and especially the playoff committee, basically acts like results don’t matter. “Oh sure you won but did you win in the way I like? No points for you. Oh Bama lost? Sure but it’s Bama let’s ignore that.” Is Bama actually the second best team in the country? Could totally be, maybe even number one, but maybe win all your games if you want that to be treated that way.
It’s absolutely nuts. Just total rejection of reality. 2011 melted this sport’s brain.
These people would make March Madness a double elimination tournament if they could.
I reranked the current playoff rankings following my idea of G5 gets +1 loss (maybe +.5 would be better/more accurate, I put them above the other 1 loss teams since they haven’t actually lost). I otherwise kept the committee’s rankings. We get:
I’m actually happy with this. Yeah UTSA gets killed if they win out but them’s the rewards for winning every game. Iowa over Purdue is an oddity but who really cares about #18 at this rate.
I’m sorry, but can someone elucidate the problem with the current playoff rankings to the point where ranking UTSA 4th in the country is the preferred solution?
The internet exists and everyone has an opinion. (Some better than others)
It’s very simple – this follows an actual rule or has some hard checks on where teams must be ranked. The current system isn’t a system at all, just a bunch of post hoc justifications. By no means do I think UTSA is actually the fourth best team in football, but the decision to rank things based on “well, if they played on a neutral field (or played again on a mythical neutral filed) then I think X would beat Y” is a permanent justification for the status quo of pre-ranked teams. Even if Georgia beats Bama the committee is entirely justified to say “yeah but Bama is still the 2nd/3rd/4th best team so they’re in.”
Besides, I’d rather see an undefeated if woefully overmatched G5 team get their shot at glory than the latest MSU/Iowa/or yes, Notre Dame who also isn’t on that level and is going to get smoked 31-7 or something like that.
Then that’s probably not a better system. Ranking teams by colors of the rainbow would be a system with more hard checks, too. Doesn’t mean it’s better.
I am partial to the G5 teams getting a shot, though.
Yes, I’ll still take it as a better system because frankly, no one cares who the fourth best team in football is. Just make it Bama/Georgia/Ohio State/Clemson (they’re super talented you can’t deny it, the results are flukes, etc. etc.) if we’re going to just go with “best teams”. Same crap with people trying to sneak Duke into the basketball tournament last season.
I think you and everyone really cares who the 4th best team will be!
This was the BCS system.
That was a better system.
The BCS was definitely better. This was not the BCS system since it was still based on various polls that didn’t rank this so simply. I’m not harping on this particular ranking as a magical cure all, it’s something that popped into my head and I took a couple minutes to see how it shakes out, but I prefer the simplicity of this or the BCS to “well okay but their loss was to the team we coincidentally ranked #18 and we think they really have another chance to shine in two weeks when they play the team we just so happened to have ranked #25 for no apparent reason, and with four ranked wins this year we have to let them in”
The system responsible for decreasing big OOC games, your pet-peeve, to historic all-time lows was better?
Yes. Despite its impact on OOC schedules, it generally accepted losses and wins as real, rather than insisting that they meant the opposite.
Until 2011.
If teams with no losses are always ranked above teams with a loss (or two), then there is no incentive to schedule quality opponents. ND (and others) would just want UTSA’s schedule each year
That’s not how the BCS worked.
It was definitely much more in that mold than today’s system.
Just pulled up week 8 of 2009 and you can see it pretty clearly:
Top 6 all undefeated (including 2 G5 teams), unbeaten TCU in 8th with 1-loss LSU’s only defeat by 10 points to No. 1 Florida putting them 9th.
Yep, that would seem to be a problem and would push teams to schedule cupcakes. Except the playoff has already made it clear they really don’t care if you schedule cupcakes and even if you schedule a bunch of them, they’ll let you in anyway if you trip at some other point.
What are the most egregious examples of teams who made the playoff while tripping up? Who would you replace them with?
They DID play Clemson – about as tough of an OOC game you could schedule x years in advance.
Bad news — Clemson is awful this year. That’s why you need to schedule more than one good OOC game.
P5 teams need to be playing 11 or 12 games against P5 opponents.
No, I get it. But when this game was announced in Feb of 2020, seemed like a lock that Clemson would still be Clemson. Additionally, having no other ranked teams in the SEC East isn’t the norm. Without the knowledge of what actually has occurred. looking at a potential of Clemson, Florida, Auburn, South Carolina, Tennessee and an SEC Championship game doesn’t seem like a cakewalk.
If every P5 team plays almost exclusively P5 teams, it doesn’t change a whole lot. Would replacing Charleston Southern and UAB with Cal and Kansas make UGA’s schedule any more/less impressive?
I think it would, yes. For two reasons.
1. FCS teams have 65 scholarship players as compared to 85 for FBS teams. Those games are inherently unfair and are essentially practices for teams like UGA. An FBS team that plays an FCS opponent did not play a full, 12-game FBS football schedule and should be ineligible for the postseason.
2. Kansas gave Oklahoma all they could handle. One game against a P5 team like that may not mean a lot, but when you start stacking them on top of each other, your odds of dropping a game increase. Playing Kansas and Cal — particularly on the road — gives you an increased likelihood of losing as compared to playing Charleston Southern and UAB at home.
Army took Oklahoma to OT a few years ago.
That game was on Oklahoma PPV and when people wanted to see the OT some dude streamed it to twitch from his tablet standing across the room from his TV. It was the second biggest stream on twitch within 10 minutes. https://twitter.com/JordanHeckFF/status/1043691687728619521?s=20
No. Everyone would just treat Cal and Kansas with even more contempt.
And G5 teams shouldn’t be able to get in by playing only 2 Power 5 teams.
We have no data and no evidence?
I feel like you live in this fairytale world where college teams are supposed to be playing ranked teams 75% of the time. The sport has never operated like that and it never will.
If you can’t concede Alabama or Georgia are good because their schedules aren’t strong enough or whatever than how do you even establish quality wins? That seems like the most impossible logic and system to follow.
I don’t think best loss or quality loss are used by people all that much, tbh. Can you point me to anyone saying Nebraska is good because they’ve lost a bunch of close games?
If anything, you should be more on the bandwagon of bad losses, IMO.
Remember you stumping for Oregon because of the Ohio State win? BUT WAIT, look at their schedules…it’s apparently not great for either team’s SOS. So, how do we know they’re good!???
Yet, Oregon lost to Stanford and I sure as hell know Stanford sucks. So, that loss matters and could very likely keep the Ducks out of the playoffs.
There’s a ton to unpack here and frankly I can’t even follow all of it, but I will say I do not live in a fantasy world where teams should be playing ranked opponents 75% of the time.
The world I live in is that Bama should play P5 home and homes outside the south. They literally never do that. FBS teams should not play FCS teams. They are in separate divisions for a reason. P5 schools should play more than 50% of their OOC games against P5 opponents. National title contenders need to affirmatively prove that they are that caliber of a team.
Teams like Bama — who is playing New Mexico State this weekend, by the way — should not have 25% to 33% of their schedule filled with noncompetitive scrimmages. It’s a complete waste of what is already the shortest season in sports.
2022 – @ Texas
2024 – @ Wisconsin
2025 – @ FSU
2026 – @ WVU
2027 – @ OSU
2028 – @ OkSt
2029 – @ ND
2032 – @ OU
EDIT: Just realized the 2032 @ OU game would now be an SEC game
I’ll count those games when they’re actually played. Bama has canceled P5 home and homes in the past, including Michigan State.
Okay, but we don’t NEED these things to determine whether Alabama is any good or not.
I agree, it would be great if Bama and the whole country played more daunting and daring OOC schedules.
But that just gets us to a 9-3 Alabama getting into the playoffs because Alabama is good and they only lost to good teams.
Not if you reject the concept of the “Quality Loss.”
That does point out that playing really crazy schedules wouldn’t really make it any easier to determine the best teams in a weekly poll.
It would directly do exactly that. Bama would be easier to evaluate if they had played Michigan head to head in September.
It would be 100% more entertaining.
But, you’re just evaluating teams with more losses at the end of the day and that is never easy.
Maybe for a generational elite power program like Alabama (are we allowed to admit this without more data points?) it would be seamless as they stay unbeaten or only suffer 1 loss with an occasional 2nd loss.
But, the Top 25 would be littered with 5 and 6-loss teams (not too different than the NFL) who are around .500 and trying to evaluate that during the regular season would be a hot mess.
Except that they beat ( almost) everybody that shows up against them, including in the championship games, notably including our own Irish (twice, crushingly), plus Clemson, OSU, MSU, Oklahoma, LSU, Georgia.
So I don’t think your argument reflects actual data, just Bama fatigue.
Very valid point, as Alabama still has all those players from years and years and years ago.
Let’s see, did I leave anyone out recently? ND and OSU were last year, GA was 2017, first ND blowout was beginning of 2013, I’m not gonna bother getting the dates for you of the rest, but an actual fact is that no Saban recruit at Bama who stayed the course at Bama failed to get at least one NC ring.
otherwise your comment is, respectfully, ignorant.
Past results are not indicative of future performance. C’mon man.
I do need them. I need evidence. I do not like to assume.
Prove you are good by beating good teams. The end.
No, you just want to ignore the evidence presented to you.
College football, in the end, usually turns out like a murder trial where there is overwhelming evidence for a jury to convict.
You’re the guy saying, “I need to see the murderer committing the act on video otherwise there is no evidence for me to consider.”
That’s not what I’m saying at all. I think I’m not making myself clear here so I’ll just stop.
I think ACS (and I guess myself – I’m not really sure what my point is or was anymore) is trying to push back against is the more Kiwi-like tactic of crowning this team good and that team overrated because of reasons like “I know team A would stomp team B”. It’s a hard needle to thread with limited head-to-head data points, constantly evolving team chemistry/performance/health and overall inherent bias cooked in to college football.
Totally agree there. I do have Cincy No. 2 remember, I think kiwi would have them 92nd or so.
But, when Georgia is undefeated, +3.11 in YPP, and have only allowed 59 points all season I think it’s insane to say there’s no data.
Never said I’d rank Cinci 92nd, I said their SOS is in the 90’s and they are no way the second best team in the country. Happy to put money on that with you should they somehow be gifted into the playoff. ND is the only good team they’ve played and that was when we had no oline and our QB situation was a mess.
For Drick, it’s really funny that you ignore the fact that power rankings and Vegas routinely do just what you suggest I do illogically. Yes, there are upsets and near misses, but in the normal flow of events, Bama would beat Cinci at least 90% of the time.
ND would beat them most years too.
But not this year – which is the one year that’s in question.
You keep harking back to, ultimately, what would team x do in comparison to Alabama. Which still suggests that a 7-5 Alabama would be considered a top 5 team because CAN YOU IMAGINE WHAT ANY OTHER TEAM’S RECORD WOULD BE WITH THE SAME SCHEDULE?!?!? Alabama just had to hang on against a coachless LSU team who had to cancel practice recently because of lack of healthy players.
You need to stop inventing straw men about what you want to think I’m saying and try being in touch with the real world.
As for Cinci beating us this year, yep, can’t take that away from them. But two thoughts. They beat us when we were basically a shambles—remember the calls for Drew Pyne to start, and our injury riddled and ineffective oline?
Secondly, we are not all that good this year.
Here’s one that will really enrage you: Suppose Bama loses to Auburn and A&M wins out and beats GA in the SECCG. OSU wins the BIG with one loss, OK wins out as undefeated Big 12 champ, Oregon wins Pac12 with one loss, and Cinci is undefeated.
Thats a possible scenario. My guess is both GA and A&M get in, despite the latter having two losses but having beaten Bama and GA. Okie would be in. I further guess Oregon or OSU fill out the other spot. I don’t believe an undefeated Cinci, whose SOS will by then be in 100’s, would get in over 1 loss P5 champs.
that scenario comes by way of Josh Pate, Late Kick episode 203, on Utube. Check it out. There’s even a scenario where the Irish get in.
interesting stuff.
My biggest takeaway from most of your comments is that you’re a terrible abbreviator
Yet Bama’s SOS this year is among the best in FBS, I’ve seen as low as 12th and high of 17. Their SOR if they win out will be 98 and if they finish 11-2 their SOR will be 94.
Cinci at 13-0 would be at SOR 54.
These are per ESPN.
Bama and GA play some cupcakes, but their SEC schedule would destroy most other teams most years.
And we play cupcakes too.
I’d love to see P5 play only P5, but I doubt it will ever happen.
And I’ll give you an example of the no evidence problem: The B1G East.
OSU, Michigan, and MSU each played one real OOC game. UM beat a terrible Washington team, MSU beat a mediocre Miami team, and OSU lost to Oregon (who of course lost to Stanford — not forgetting that, don’t worry).
So which of those teams is good? Hard to say. UM and MSU haven’t really beaten anyone, and OSU lost to the only good team it played. But that’s OK, conference play will sort it out.
Alas no. MSU beat UM, then lost to Purdue. All three teams are beating up on the same three soup cans of Indiana, Maryland, and Rutgers. We could easily have a scenario where MSU beats UM, UM beats OSU, and OSU beats MSU. Then we’ll have played 12 games and have no idea which of those three teams is the best, or even good, because the conference is a closed loop.
I’ll chime in here to say we’ll all know Michigan isn’t the best.
🙂
All 3 are all likely pretty good. I don’t think it’s hard at all to admit this.
We’re just chasing our tail if we think we need these teams to face super daunting schedules to slot them into a top 25 poll. College football has never been a sport where there are 15 really awesome teams each year.
I’ve always felt that way about the BIG. They usually have 1, maybe two nationally good teams, the rest are boring blahs.
Their schedule is garbage but if they want to lose to UGA in a semifinal to the tune of 38-3, have at it. I won’t watch and I don’t care.
Well of course they want to. I’ll watch it and savor it, if they get there.
To your point about camera angles, with all the cameras at every game and the technology to have ref cams, etc., don’t you think that every game should have to have a camera looking down the goal line in each direction?
At the ND game on Saturday, on the play where Williams fumbled into the end zone and recovered, they tried to see whether he broke the plane, but the camera angle was from within the end zone, not down the goal line, making it appear that he started to lose control of the ball before he actually did. The announcers never commented on it. That seems to happen a lot.
My buddy had mentioned this once: put chips in the ball and basically garage door sensors on the goal line markers and first down markers.
Does it feel archaic we still use “the chains” for first down measurements? Like surely in the 21st century there’s a way to digitize it.
And yes to your point, with the 8 billion angles we watch replays of a 20 year olds life changing brutalizing injury, to not have a camera to see definitively the ball crossing the goal line is wonky.
I’ve loved the chip idea for years. This analog stuff, even the cameras, are not good enough.
Cincy is really interesting to me. They’re not the only team in the top 10 that has struggled with bad teams (Oklahoma vs. Tulane/Nebraska/Kansas, Oregon L vs. Stanford, Ohio State getting bailed out by refs on Nebraska’s last drive, ND’s gross first 2 weeks of the season, Oklahoma St.’s gross first 3 weeks of the season, MSU vs. IU, Michigan vs. Rutgers/Nebraska).
But nearly all of those teams seem like they’re improving, while Cincy seems to be sliding backward. Additionally, all of those teams have at least one really dominating win against a mid-tier or better opponent, and Cincy doesn’t really have that. Their win over us has to mean something for their resume, but that can’t be the only thing on their resume if they want to make the playoff. And right now, it feels like the 2nd best point on their resume is “didn’t get blown out in last year’s bowl game vs. Georgia.” SMU losing last week was a killer for them; they really needed SMU to win out, other than their matchup in 2 weeks, to give them anything resembling a Good 2nd win.
The resume for Cincinnati will be lacking, no avoiding that.
They do have some positives, though. Their yards/play difference is 2.36, 3rd best among contenders in the country behind UGA and tOSU. Cincy’s points/drive diff is a respectable 6th. From what I see here, I’m surprised ND fans tend to be down on Cincy — they came into ND Stadium and deservedly won. They outcoached and outplayed ND and have a very good QB.
I get they haven’t had any style points lately on a weak schedule as it is, but I’m a little surprised the talk is focused around resume (unimpressive) more than actual results (very good)
Excluding Georgia and Alabama, I think Cincy would beat every other Top 10 team at least 25% of the time. I think the bottom half of the top 10, including ND, would be more of a 50/50 matchup. They beat us cleanly, without officiating help, in our house, so I definitely don’t see a world in which we deserve to be ranked ahead of them.
But at the same time, we were a completely different offense then. For resume purposes, I do NOT think that should matter; if you lose head to head to a team at any point in the season, that should still carry a ton of weight with the playoff rankings. But I do think we would be more likely to beat them than lose to them now. We have just grown a ton as a team this season, while they don’t seem to have grown much at all.
tl;dr I think Cincy definitely deserves to be ranked ahead of us, but I don’t think they would put up a better fight in the Playoff than us.
Fair enough. I just don’t agree- QB play and defensively Cincy is better than Notre Dame and would help them be a better playoff team. I don’t think either team is the caliber to actually win a playoff game, though, so it’s somewhat splitting hairs.
I agree with your penultimate paragraph.
If your estimate that they’d beat all but Bama and GA in the top 10 25% of the time, they’d be 2-6.
Not what I’d call the second best team in the country.
Apples to oranges data. Play a weak schedule like Cinci, you SHOULD have good ypp etc. Think they’d be 3rd best if they played in the SEC or even BIG? IMO, the answer is no.
I think the UCF game will mean something down the line. Maybe not a CFP Top 25 win, but 9-3 UCF is certainly on the table. They take on SMU this week and if they win, winning out looks good for them (UConn and USF). Is it on the level of some of these other teams results? No but in terms of “dominating win against a mid-tier or better opponent” that could easily slide into that spot when the season is all said and done.
Aamil Wagner!
that was pretty unexpected wasn’t it?
Most seemed to think ND was in second place behind Kentucky, where his brother played and is on the staff. So not a total shock, but certainly a welcomed surprise.
Sounds like it. The post on ISD said they expected him to go to Kentucky.
Edit: what hooks said.
I think we can put to bed the problems with Quinn so far, no?
Recruiting = fine
Coaching up young prospects to be playable = fine
Quinn has done pretty well, but these guys are mostly in the mid 100-200 range. Not bad, but not top 100 quality like Q, Kraemer, Watt, Eichenberg, Hainsey (but I will give Quinn credit by landing two top 100 guys last year with Fisher and Rocco though).
He’s not the horrible mess that people were claiming earlier in the season, but I still think he could be a little better
Right, that’s what I was going for – not the horrible mess that people were claiming earlier.
Often, things could be better with just about everything. And it’s not like the 5 studs you listed were all in the same class, so if Fisher and Rocco pan out that will certainly even out with some of those 5.
I was trying not to get hopes up, but I was really hoping he would come after Scott Raridon pulled him aside at the USC game and was like “dude, you’re the exact type of person that needs to come to Notre Dame and would thrive here in all aspects”. Sounds like a really great kid on top of being an elite player. Thrilled he will be in the fold, and suddenly OL for 2022 looks very stout.
100 scholarships now counting the eligible-to-return 19 grad students, and Schrauth and Nwankpa are still takes if we can get them. I know they can do it because they do it every year, but it seems like some significant gymnastics to get down to 85.
Hamilton, MTA, Jayson A, Foskey to the league.
Takacs, Flemister, Simon, Dirkson transfer candidates.
That gets you to 92, hopefully 94. Seems like a long way to go.
Would be interesting to see the latest once 2022 all gets booked. Always seems like at this time of year they’re running too heavy on numbers and then by June it’s like 83, 84 and they’re actually comfortably a little under.
Probably anticipating more churn with the portal. Maybe even someone like Baker if OT is blocked with younger guys (Fisher, Alt) who have passed him, guessing CB/S could be the same (Offord, Henderson, Riley, Wallace, etc not as all definite but possibly in the same boat). I think guys like Ajavon and Ekwonu may be able to graduate and aren’t really close to sniffing the two-deep, so they’re probably outtie too.
Then some more grads aren’t coming back for a 5th or 6th year (i.e. talk that Bauer is going to leave and try and be a special teams ace). So I would guess guys like that and Pryor that you might be counting in the 92 number are already known to be done after 2021.
We will probably get 1-2 medical retirees, especially with all the injuries this year. Wouldn’t surprise me if guys like Moala, Wilkins, Simon retire. Not anything specific with those three, just examples of guys without a clear starting role that had season ending injuries.