I don’t know that it’s possible to over-hype how important the win over Oklahoma was on Saturday. As a 1994 (and 1995) graduate, I remember so vividly the loss to Boston College and how we felt “robbed” or “upset.” Had the Irish defeated the Sooners on a 49 yard fieldgoal with no time left, I imagine the sentiment in Norman would be the same. Instead, the Irish dominated and played rather well on both sides of the ball. But I think there’s more to the story, and more to this remarkable season. There’s more in the numbers.
It’s no small feat for Notre Dame to rank third in the most recent BCS poll. It’s even more incredible that they’ve accomplished without compromie in the classroom. In case you missed it, this happened. The NCAA released its most recent Graduation Success Rate (GSR) tables. I explained what GSR is and how it’s calculated in a previous post, and you can check it here.
What I wanted to do today is give you an idea of just how far above the competition this year’s Fighting Irish really are. To do so, I compared our BCS, AP, Coaches and GSR ranking (by percentage) against our schedule. Straight up. No surprise who came it first, kiddos.
[table “” not found /]I don’t know if you can say it any better with words, but here goes: we’re doing it better than anyone else. The top two BCS teams, Alabama and Kansas State, respectively, have GSR’s of 75 and 58. Academically, the Big 12 is a dumpster fire that makes the SEC look like the Algonquin Round Table.
The Big Tweleven is so bad that “tweleven” may be an accepted answer in one of Purdue’s vaunted engineering classes. Fifty-nine, Purdue? Obviously, students who fall asleep cannot study. But Michigan State and Michigan aren’t much better.
U$C at 57 is just laughable.
So that’s where we stand, folks. After eight games, Notre Dame is ranked third in the BCS, VERRRRRY much in the National Championship discussion, and ranked first in GSR among FBS schools and eighth overall. That’s right, out of 236 football programs, Notre Dame is ranked eighth. And we beat Davidson College, too.
And our overnight television rankings were slightly higher in the 18-49 adult demographic than the baseball game on Fox. The World Series? Yeah, we’re bigger than that.
Hating Hurricanes Since 1990.
Bayou Irish is a Jersey boy and Double Domer who fell under New Orleans' spell in 1995. He's been through Katrina and fourteen years in the Coast Guard, so we cut him some slack, mostly in the form of HLS-subsidized sazeracs. But, when he's not face down on the bar and communing with the ghosts of Faulkner and Capote at the Carousel Bar in the Hotel Monteleone, he's our man in SEC-land, doing his best to convince everyone around him that Graduation Success Rate is a better indicator of success than the number of MNC's won in the last five years.
- Finding Flaws in a Diamond: Clemson’s Rushing Offense - December 17, 2018
- Why Nobody Will Cotton to Notre Dame - December 3, 2018
- Irish Finish Regular Season Perfect 12-0 - November 26, 2018
