Notre Dame could’ve used a bit more chaos in week 9 of the college football calendar. While resting during the bye, a few opportunities for key upsets arose but many of them didn’t come through. Besides a shuffle at the top not a ton has changed in our rankings as the Irish prepare for their trip to Boston.
Here’s the latest poll from 18 Stripes:
18 Stripes Top 20 Poll
| RANK | TEAM | RECORD | NEXT |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Texas A&M (+2) | 8-0 | BYE |
| 2 | Indiana | 8-0 | at Maryland |
| 3 | Ohio State (-2) | 7-0 | vs. Penn State |
| 4 | Alabama | 7-1 | BYE |
| 5 | Georgia | 6-1 | vs. Florida |
| 6 | Oregon | 7-1 | BYE |
| 7 | Georgia Tech | 8-0 | at NC State |
| 8 | Miami | 6-1 | at SMU |
| 9 | Vanderbilt | 7-1 | at Texas |
| 10 | BYU | 8-0 | BYE |
| 11 | Ole Miss | 7-1 | vs. South Carolina |
| 12 | Notre Dame | 5-2 | at Boston College |
| 13 | Texas Tech (+1) | 7-1 | at Kansas State |
| 14 | Virginia (+2) | 7-1 | at California |
| 15 | Louisville (+2) | 7-1 | at Virginia Tech |
| 16 | Tennessee (+2) | 6-2 | vs. Oklahoma |
| 17 | Texas (+2) | 6-2 | vs. Vanderbilt |
| 18 | Cincinnati (NR) | 7-1 | at Utah |
| 19 | Houston (NR) | 7-1 | vs. West Virginia |
| 20 | Oklahoma (-7) | 6-2 | at Tennessee |
Dropped Out:
#15 Missouri
#20 LSU
We can probably put the tombstone on Missouri’s 2025 season as they suffered their second loss of the season 17-10 at Vanderbilt, haven’t beaten a ranked team yet, and starting quarterback Beau Pribula suffered a season-ending ankle injury. The Tigers next face our new no. 1 Texas A&M with both teams heading into a bye week.
By the way, Vanderbilt was outgained by more than 100 yards and Diego Pavia went 10 of 19 for 129 yards in the win. A knock to his Heisman chances? Not if the Commodores keep winning.
Dark times for Brian Kelly as he suffers an embarrassing home loss to A&M with Tiger Stadium chanting for his job before emptying out in the 49-25 loss. I still think he’ll end up keeping his job but who knows in these wild west days of college football.
Top Games Recap:
Indiana mauled visiting UCLA 56-6 in a game that got out of hand quickly.
Never let South Carolina hang around. Also, never bet on South Carolina to complete the upset. The Gamecocks came close but allowed 2 late touchdowns from Alabama as the Tide survive on the road 29-22.
A sleepy Oregon beat Wisconsin 21-7 in Eugene. At least Badgers didn’t get shutout again!
Haynes King in the Heisman discussion? The Yellow Jackets show no sign of slowing down following a 41-16 beatdown of Syracuse.
Ole Miss pitched a 4th quarter shutout and came away with a rainy win at Oklahoma 34-26 with rumors head coach Lane Kiffin is lining up the Florida job.
Iowa State gained nearly 500 yards and blew a 2 touchdown lead to lose 41-27 against still undefeated BYU.
North Carolina just missed a game-winning 2-point conversion and fell 17-16 to visiting Virginia. It feels wrong to move up the Hoos in our rankings after this performance.
OH MY OUCH!
South Florida’s strong season takes a hit as they lose 34-31 at Memphis. This should slide our familiar friends Navy into the top of the G5 playoff auto bid.
Interesting Games to Note:
Texas Tech 42-0 Oklahoma State: The Cowboys still seek their first Big 12 win since late November 2023.
Tennessee 56-34 Kentucky: The Vols are hanging around in the rankings.
Cincinnati 41-20 Baylor: The Bearcats are fully in the Big 12 picture.
Houston 24-16 Arizona State: The Cougars are also fully in the Big 12 picture as last year’s champion suffers their 2nd league loss.
Texas 45-38 Miss State: 24 points in the 4th quarter propelled the Horns to this overtime win.
Washington 42-25 Illinois: A ranked Illinois will cease to exist this year.
Michigan 31-20 Michigan State: The Wolverines have won 4 straight in this series. Spartans head coach Jonathan Smith is 3-11 in the Big Ten since taking this job.
Opponent Recap:
Miami (6-1): A slow start and 7-0 deficit to Stanford looked tricky until the Canes reeled off 42 unanswered.
Texas A&M (8-0): I think A&M should be no. 1 in the country right now. Although, while they lead the SEC standings it’s wild they don’t play the next 4 best teams in the conference at the moment.
Purdue (2-6): Tied with 1:06 remaining, Purdue had a pass batted at the line, ricochet back to quarterback Ryan Browne, who fumbled the ball as he was being tackled. Rutgers kicked a chip shot field goal to win 27-24.
This ended up being a lost fumble on the play.
Arkansas (2-6): After squandering a 21-10 halftime lead, the Hogs remain winless in the SEC following a 33-24 loss to Auburn.
Boise State (6-2): The run to the Mountain West title is on track–the Broncos beat lowly Nevada easily 24-3.
NC State (4-4): This was a fun game for a while, but Pittsburgh dominated the 2nd half to beat the Wolfpack 53-34.
USC (5-2): A road trip to Nebraska awaits following a bye week.
Boston College (1-7): They actually showed some life for a while but the Eagles lost 38-24 at Louisville.
Navy (7-0): Lots of points on hand as the Middies beat FAU 42-32.
Pittsburgh (6-2): The Panthers are 8th nationally averaging 40.2 points per game in 2025.
Syracuse (3-5): Only UNC, FSU, and BC (all winless) sit below Syracuse in the ACC standings.
Stanford (3-5): The Cardinal had us fooled for the 1st quarter in Miami before a blowout loss.
Out of morbid curiousity, I checked Texas’ roster, and they have six QBs*! What are the odds they don’t have at least one guy better than Arch Manning? Is his injury a backdoor way for Sark to pull the plug on him?
*yeah, we have 5, but one is the Buchner who is a special case.
Would be fun to see BK fired then a re-invigorated LSU wreak some havoc in the SEC the rest of the season.
LSU is firing BK
Will 18 Stripes be running a contest on which coach gets fired week to week ? How does Gundy still have a job ?
Gundy was fired a month ago 🙂
ooops, missed that one…. I’d probably have little chance in the contest.
Glad I got the article out before this, at least.
Murtaugh of Doom. Let’s not have any articles about HCMF’s candidancy for other vacancies, mkay?
I saw espn listed Freeman as a top 5 match for LSU. I hope they’re just trolling us.
I imagine he’s a top 5 match for any program. There aren’t too many coaches out there more attractive than him. Well 0 more attractive, but not many more appealing to run your football program either.
HCMF name will come up with every Power program that spends more or is perceived to spend more money on football than ND does. I’ve often heard it said that the only program he would leave for is the Buckeyes. Day doesn’t appear to be in danger of losing his job this year, however we still have 1/3rd + of the season left to go.
If I were a power program I’d be looking at Cignetti, Lea, Brohm, Sumrall, Dillingham and maybe a few more that have done more with less.
I wonder if Lea would leave. It’s his alma mater, he’s probably going to get a pretty nice contract extension, and the expectations are so much more reasonable than say LSU or Florida. Or do you take more money and the better resources and give yourself a real chance to win a championship?
I just learned that Cignetti is a few months older than BK. He should be a just for men spokesman.
This is the question for any coach that considers moving to a Florida, Penn st, LSU type program. If it isn’t enough to be competitive in your conference, if the expectation is double digit win seasons every year, an appearance in the playoffs every other year, making it to the NC game every 3-4 years vs a program where they would like to see more wins than losses and allow you the grace to have a losing season every now and then, and they are still paying you millions of dollars, what do you do? Do you have to move to a heavy hitting program to have a shot at the Natty? Do you want to take that pressure on?
I feel like ND is a balance between the two, high expectations, allow the grace to miss them, however, ND wants to see improvement year over year when the bottom does occasionally fall out. I think Davies through Weiss, they administration never felt that improvement was happening. Part of me also wonders if at some point Kelly would have been canned, good coordinators move on to bigger and better things. If Kelly missed on the OC and DC at the same time and the program nose dived, I could see it happening. LSU had less tolerance for Kelly trying to politic his way out of a mess.