the combined W/L record of the teams that Notre Dame has beaten this year. the one team that ND played w/ a winning record has beaten Notre Dame, yet the AP writers found sufficient reason to jump Notre Dame over LSU after ND beat Open Date.
It may not be right, but look at it this way. This weekend either Notre Dame will lose, and then they won't catch us again without a loss by us, or they will have beaten USC, and I could care less where Notre Dame is ranked.
The funny thing will be if Notre dame beats USC it will completely mess up the minds of the voters who love both of them so much. My guess is USC would fall to like 5 and Notre Dame would jump up to either 4 or 6. Who knows. There might be some late submitted ballots if this happens, these guys are going to be extremely confused.
I won't say ND has zero chance of winning, but it's damn near zero! Their pass defense is giving up over 300 yards per game ... ranked 114 out of 117 teams. If Leinart has a pulse on Saturday, he'll destroy this ND defense. USC wins by at least 3 TDs.
9-16.... the combined record of the teams Texas has played... so, using your logic, the 'Horns should be ranked, what, 9th...12th? However, I don't think ND will fare well against USC... but per other logic.
First off, I don't know if anyone here has heralded Texas as an almighty, definite No. 2. But on top of that, like SabanFan said, Texas hasn't lost, so they are where you would expect them to be. Notre Dame has already has had a chance to prove they could beat a winning team, and they didn't get it done. If they beat USC this weekend, then my opinion will change and they will deserve to be where they are at, or maybe even the highest ranked 1 loss team in the country. But that's a huge IF.
