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Charlie Weis seems to think his Irish are getting a raw deal by not being ranked at 4-1. He thinks they've accomplished as much as many of the other ranked teams. The voters disagree, and so do I.
While the Irish may be good enough to be a top 25 team and will probably end up there this season—they're a decent team and their schedule is easy—they don't belong there right now.
Their current résumé isn't bad: 4-1, with three wins over BCS conference teams and only a loss to Michigan. This puts them at #12 in the SportsRatings Success rankings, which don't take margin of victory into account. Even in the Strength ratings, which do, they're #23, and in the Overall power rating (which combines the two) they're #24. So from these objective measures they're worthy.
But there's one problem: they could so easily be 1-4 right now that what they've accomplished means little. In fact they probably should be 2-3; we'll give them the Purdue comeback win. You can argue they should have won the Michigan game, but nothing unusual happened there, just Weis throwing the ball instead of draining the clock at the end.
Michigan State should have beaten the Irish; Kirk Cousins overthrew a wide open receiver in the end zone for a gimme touchdown. Washington should have beaten the Irish: a score that would have been a touchdown at any time before instant replay, and was called a touchdown on the field, was reversed even though the ball appeared to be so close to the line that "incontrovertable evidence" was not present.
Notre Dame gets the "W" in both those games and therefore is 4-1. That's the reality. But it's a joke to say that these could-have-been losses shouldn't affect where they stand—or don't—in the polls. They're a borderline top 25 team without the close calls; with them, they're just outside, looking in. It didn't help that Michigan lost on Saturday. With the Wolverines out of the poll, Notre Dame shouldn't get back in ahead of them.
So the question is, why is Weis complaining about the polls? It's not like his team is undefeated and getting the shaft. Isn't complaining about being ranked too low considered assinine? Coaches are supposed to complain that their team is ranked too high. When coaches complain about their low ranking, it usually means they're going to lose within a few weeks and prove the pollsters correct.
But Weis is campaigning for poll position to set up run at a BCS bowl. With only one loss—and one more expected against USC—the Irish could go 10-2 and be in the BCS bowl mix. Some have said it's a requirement in order for Weis to keep his job. I don't think it is but it sure would help.
Facing an off week before USC, Notre Dame needed to be ranked this week. That way they move up on their bye week without doing a thing. That didn't happen though. So the next best thing would be to sneak into the polls on their off week, hope they have a good showing against USC even if they lose, and stay in the polls, ready to march up as the (hopefully) sweep the rest of their schedule.
Weis is looking at the schedule and he knows there are no impressive wins on it, past or future, unless they beat USC which he isn't counting on. So the only way to get to the BCS is to be overranked, essentially, and count on Fighting Irish favoritism to get him to one of the primo bowl games.
Let's face it, a 10-2 Irish don't deserve a BCS bowl with the schedule they play this year. Depending on what other teams do, it's a possibility though. It's up to the pollsters to not overrank the Irish and make them do one of two things: beat USC, or beat the rest of their opponents in an impressive manner.
That's what Weis should be focusing on, not whining about the polls.
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