Just a reality check for a lot of folks out there regarding the ND schedule.
To date, ND's schedule is ranked as the 36th most difficult in the nation.
That's much higher than AP #1 Florida (SOS ranked 107!!!), #2 Texas (90), #3 Alabama (54), #6 Boise State (73), #8 Cincy (109!!!), #10 TCU (97!), #14 Penn State (72), #23South Florida (141!), and #24 Mizzou (111!!!).
We haven't faced a ton of top teams, but we haven't faced a ton of patsies (ahemEveryoneinthelistaboveahemcoughcough) either.
ND hasn't been pretty. Our D is extremely suspect, which has kept us out of the Top 25. And I am not even sure if this is a Top 25 squad at this point. But we're 4-1 against the 36th most difficult Sked in the country. PSU is a consensus Top 25 team at 4-1 against the 72nd most difficult Sked. So if ND isn't Top 25, then PSU most certainly isn't.
Pre-season polling is a joke.
The solution?
Beat USC (lost to non-Top 25 UW, ranked AP #7. Go Figure.)
By Jack October 6, 2009 - 9:12 am
The teams we played to-date rank 96th most difficult schedule. We are 36 because the teams we have yet to play.
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By san diego irish October 6, 2009 - 9:56 am
Biscuit–your prediction about the strength of schedule looking different after the season than before, has been proven correct (so far). With the exception of Michigan St. almost every team on ND’s schedule has met or exceeded expecations so far–most notably MI, BC, Pitt, Stanford, and Washington.
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By The Biscuit October 6, 2009 - 10:08 am
Jack, in Sagarin’s methodology outline: “The SCHEDULE ratings represent the average schedule difficulty faced by each team in the games that it’s played so far.” That’s to date, not for the season.
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By Mark October 6, 2009 - 2:05 pm
Sagarin takes a very quantitative analytical approach to figuring out the strength of each teams schedule.
Compare this to the Mark May methodology which is: “I hate Notre Dame and I’m a jackass.”
Unfortunately most college football fans follow this same logic.
To truly understand how this works we would need a double blind study of college football poling. Get two groups of college football AP voters in a room. Each group looks at a team playing one schedule with the exact same results. Group A shows that team as Notre Dame while Group B shows that team as Ole Miss/South Carolina. Ask both groups to rank that team.
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By trey October 6, 2009 - 6:29 pm
We’re never going to win any SOS arguments because too many idiots think we just schedule service academies, Syracuse, and USC every year.
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