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2000 Notre Dame & 2005 Notre Dame

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OSU_Buckguy

OSU_Buckguy

Head Coach
aren't the similarities between this year's notre dame and 2000's notre dame eerily similar? consider:

notre dame started the season unranked and beat texas a&m, which was ranked 25th and ended the season with a lackluster five losses. naturally, notre dame then becomes ranked.

ranked 24th, notre dame faces number 1 nebraska and loses in overtime by a score of 27-24. naturally, notre dame moves up in the polls to 21st.

notre dame squeaks by purdue, which ends up doing what purdon't normally does in sacking 3 more losses for a lackluster season. naturally, notre dame rockets to 16th.

the next game, notre dame proceeds to lose to a greatly overrated michigan state team, ranked 23rd, by a score of 27-21. michigan state finishes the season with 6 losses. naturally, notre dame drops to a ranking still in the top 25 at 25th. of course, down the road the pollsters never account for the irish's loss to a greatly overrated team.

notre dame then beats...

a poor, unranked stanford team, which ends with 6 losses;
a hideous, unranked navy team, which ends the season with only 1 win;
an unranked west virginia team which ends the season with 5 losses;
and an unranked air force team in overtime.

for those great victories over college football powerhouses, notre dame is thrusted to number 11. notre dame then beats...

an unranked boston college, which ends the season with 5 losses;
an unranked rutgers, which ends the season with 8 losses;
and an unranked southern california, which ends the season with 7 losses.

notre dame, riding high from all of those fantastic victories over mediocre-to-poor teams, jumps all the way to 11th in the final, pre-bowl bcs poll. the computer polls average out notre dame to a 15th ranking, but the humans disagree and find the irish as football behemoths.

ahead of more deserving teams, notre dame meets oregon state in the fiesta bowl and is pummeled 41-9, notre dame's worst bowl defeat since 1973.

thanks, human pollsters, for giving us that barnburner of a game and keeping a more deserving team from competing in a prized bowl game. kudos! we would be so pleased to have you do that again this year.
 
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I think this is the reason why so many of us have been complaining that we should be ranked ahead of them in the polls.

I am not saying they arent improved from last year, but I think that some of the pollsters need to take a step back and look at their schedule b4 ranking them so high.
 
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what's ironic is that the dreaded SOS factor is what makes the computer votes so much better. Had USC not been screwed, and then coddled, we may still have that useful aspect of the BCS.
 
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jwinslow said:
what's ironic is that the dreaded SOS factor is what makes the computer votes so much better. Had USC not been screwed, and then coddled, we may still have that useful aspect of the BCS.
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Yeah, but it is also ironic that last year when AU gets left out of the championship game they do nothing.

The BCS has had a success rate of less than 50% since it has been around.

I think that someone needs to tell the pollsters that you need to revaluate a team after each week and look over the rest of their games.

For example, lets take NotreLame vs. tOSU this year.

While at the beginning of the season it looked like both teams would play a helluva a schedule, neither panned out like we all thought.

But lets look at Notre Lame. They beat scUM, Pitt, Tenn all whom were vastly overrated at the beginning of the season, and they lost to MSU, while the lose didnt look all that bad at the time they still lost to a team that probably won't even make a bowl game. It was at home too.
They played a good game against the number one team in the nation I will give them that, but nothing else.

While we have had a very respectable schedule, we had a game pulled right out from underneath our noses when we were searching for a QB. Then we lost by a td and played a very tight football team to I think the number 3 team in the country. Their only loss was at scUM in a 60min. and 2 sec. game. We have beaten some decent teams on top of those two games. We beat Minny at Minny, we beat Iowa, NW, and we beat MSU who beat notre Lame. We also play a tough game week in and week out, b/c we are playing in a conference and Notre Dame is not.

I think that the pollsters do a bad job of revaluating week to week, they just keep teams where they were the week b4 and if someone in front of them loses they will move up.

There are a couple other things they need to take into consideration, like when UGA played UF they didnt have their QB, should that really hurt them as much as it did. I dunno, but I think they should be ahead of some of the one loss teams they are behind and they sure as hell shouldnt be behind Notre lame.

Notre Lame is the biggest Poll darling and I don't get it. If they are not going to vote fair then why do we let them vote.

I will get off my soapbox now.
 
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I agree completely with the overall point of this post, but I have one quibble with a minor detail.

OSU_Buckguy said:
notre dame squeaks by purdue, which ends up doing what purdon't normally does in sacking 3 more losses for a lackluster season. naturally, notre dame rockets to 16th.
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Wasn't that Purdue's Rose Bowl year? I could be wrong; I try not to remember too much about the end of the Cooper era.
 
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jwinslow said:
what's ironic is that the dreaded SOS factor is what makes the computer votes so much better. Had USC not been screwed, and then coddled, we may still have that useful aspect of the BCS.
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the computer polls are only correct when they say what the human voters want them to say. that's the fundamental flaw in the system. they continually alter the system to ensure it gives them the results they desire, versus what may be more accurate.

i would love nothing more than to see ND get it handed to them by osu, psu, or miami. ttun making a late season surge has been the only thing that has given any respectability to ND's schedule. before anyone mentions a narrow loss to usc, nd played purdont, then had a bye week, while usc played four of five on the road to start the year, having similar performances against asu and oregon. nd just hung in a bit longer.

what i find convenient is the fact that nd had 2 bye weeks this year, both coming before their 2 hardest games, based on preseason rankings.
 
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oubobcats said:
Wasn't that Purdue's Rose Bowl year? I could be wrong; I try not to remember too much about the end of the Cooper era.
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after having posted the message, i rechecked purdue and noticed that they played in a key bowl and finished the season at 14th. however, i didn't feel like altering the post. finishing 8-4 is still, by definition, lackluster. i know it's purdon't, though.
 
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Dryden said:
ND didn't just lose to an OSU in 2000, they got absolutely smoked by an OSU in the Fiesta Bowl. :biggrin:

Nothing would make me happier than to see that exact same scenario again.
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From SI, who was quoting a Chicago newspaper:

"The Fiesta Bowl is considered a lock to exercise its option on revived Notre Dame, which would play in a BCS game for the first time since the 2000 season, when it got clobbered by Oregon State 41-9. This time, the Irish figure to be more competitive. Their likely opponent is Ohio State. Virginia Tech and Oregon also are candidates, but the muscular wallets of traveling Buckeyes fans should be the trump card."

Can I get a "hells yea!" from the congregation? :biggrin:
 
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