Notre Dame is chasing the rankings after week eleven

Taking a dip

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish did everything they were supposed to do last week — which is to say that they beat the crap out of the Florida State Seminoles in a performance that almost saw them win by doubling the 24.5 point spread. Some will say winning against a terrible Florida State football team doesn’t mean much — and they’re probably right, but blowouts are the best possible outcome.

So that was good.

So how did the Irish opponents do this week?

#15 Texas A&M Aggies — BYE (7-2) —
Northern Illinois — WON vs Western Michigan Broncos (5-4) —
Purdue Boilermakers — LOST vs Ohio State Buckeyes (1-8) —
Miami Redhawks — WON vs Ball State Cardinals (5-4) —
#22 Louisville Cardinals — BYE (6-3) —
Stanford Cardinal — BYE (2-7) —
Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets — WON vs Miami Hurricanes (6-4) —
Navy Midshipmen — WON vs South Florida Bulls (7-2) —
Florida State Seminoles — LOST vs Notre Dame (1-9) —
Virginia Cavaliers — WON vs Pitt Panthers (5-4) —
#16 Army Black Knights — WON vs North Texas (9-0) —
USC Trojans — BYE (4-5) —

Notre Dame rose two spots in the AP Top 25 this week as we saw a a couple of upsets in Miami losing and Georgia losing to Ole Miss. The Penn State Nittany Lions remain one of the most overrated teams in human history, and the BYU Cougars continue to win in the most trashy of ways.

Obviously the playoff rankings are what’s important here — but I will always remind people that committee doesn’t give post playoff rankings. Those bulletpoints of “top 5” or “top 10” finishes comes from the AP.