CollegeFootballPoll.com Message Board

According to this collegefootballpoll website, Notre Dame's strength of Schedule was ranked 7. How can this be? Only 4 of the 8 teams they played had a winning record. The average RPI of their opponents was 56.6 with a 72-67 win/loss. Not that hard. How does that translate into a 7?

I meant to 4 teams had a winning record, 8 did not.

Notre Dame always plays the toughest schedule in CFB, didn't you know that?

notre dame is our hero

And they didn't schedule Ohio State.

Guys .... lets be fair. I think being an independent gives Notre Dame somewhat of an advantage too, but 2 Big East, 3 Big Ten, 1 Mountain West, 1 SEC, 1 Independent, and 3 Pac-10 schools just turned out to be an easy schedule.

Big East Pitt and Syracuse were not very good, coaching changes and all, they are usually good.

Big Ten Michigan, Michigan State and Purdue were not very good this year, but that is an exception.

Mountain West BYU usually has a good team.

SEC Tennessee was no where near as good this year as they usually are.

Independent Navy, well Notre Dame should beat Navy, but Navy was not all that bad this year.

Pac-10 Southern Cal, Washington and Stanford as a group were not as good as they usually are except for USC.

Notre Dame's schedule should have been very tough this year, but it wasn't. The polls sure treated Notre Dame like it was though.

Thanks to Ohio State for clearing this up for the pollsters, not to mention Coach Weiss.

By the way, did anyone else hear Brent Musserburger getting on and questioning the perspective on college football of Charlie Weiss during the Fiesta Bowl while telling about an interview he and Gary Danielson had with Coach Weiss?

He started out praising Weis and ended up criticizing him. He also said that he got the feeling from coach Tressel, in an interview before the game, that Tressel was very confident that Ohio State would beat ND. News flash Brent: Tressel is one of the modt confident coaches I have ever seen. He never gets rattled. He is confident sometimes when he shouldn't be.

I will give you that ND's schedule should have been tougher then it ended up being.

See, I told all ya'll Spence was a fair guy and would not kick your donkey unless your donkey needed kicking.

He's probably biting on a leather strap or a stick or something right now and thinking,

"What's wrong with me ?????? I just said something good about Notre Dame !!!! ...... Where's the soap ???? I've got to wash my mouth out and go stand in the corner"

Chuckle ... chuckle ... chuckle

Xavier, a won-loss record is not THE measuring stick of your opposition. As an independent team, Notre Dame could schedule Western Michigan, Louisiana-Lafayette, UAB, UTEP, Central Michigan, Vanderbilt, Louisiana-Monroe, Indiana, Hawaii, Northwestern and Mississippi in the regular season, then played Boise State in a bowl game and their opponents combined record would have been 72-67. And FIVE of them had winning records. But had that been their actual schedule, their "schedule strength" would have been much lower. To effectively guage schedule srength, you have to look at that computer's "Power Ranking" of each team.

What they wound up with this year were mid-level performers in BYU, Stanford and the like. But those mid-level performers are better than UAB, UL-L, UL-M, etc. which also finished around the .500 mark.

What they didn't have, which a lot of teams do, are 1-AA schools or bottom-feeders in their conference. Like a Duke or Temple or Rice or Buffalo or Idaho or Arizona or FIU.

Crap, Texas Tech played TWO 1-AA schools and FIU. So their SOS is ranked 79 even though they played Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and Kansas which all won bowl games.

at the beginning of the year it might have been up that high.but as the season progressed it dropped to around 63

Not a Notre Dame fan, but you can't be serious that their schedule strength would be in the 60's. They played USC and Ohio State which finished ranked 2nd and 4th. Those games alone would drive their schedule strength way above anything you are suggesting.

Texas played the same teams and their SOS is 11 on the same site. Sounds equitable to me.

I still say That every team should be in a conference.
Notre Dame has an unfair advantage when it comes to S O S.
They say they do not use it,but I be willing to bet they all do when they make there choices.
When your in a conference you play some teams with a poor won -loss record.

Howdy and Lubbock...

Totally agree on that point. Notre Dame is, in essence, a monopoly.

They have an unfair advantage by not being forced to play under the same rules when it comes to scheduling, revenue sharing, BCS inclusion, TV contracts, etc.

notre dame a monopoly ?????? ... why ???? couldn't any D-1 program become an independent ??? i think they could if they wanted to .

notre dame is great for college football. whether you like us or you don't.

think back to the pre-season. do you think notre dame had a weak schedule then ?? . . tennessee and usc were 1 and 1A in most polls. the fact that notre dame schedules strong programs says a lot. they could load up on powder puffs but they don't. (see texas vs rice and la-lafayette, see virgina tech vs ohio and marshall, see alabama vs middle tenn, utah state, see penn state vs cent mich, see miami vs temple) yes notre dame plays navy. that's a tradition thing that goes back to WWII.

i don't recall anyone ever questioning notre dame's strength of schedule through the 80's and 90's before strength of schedule meant anything. anyone want to argue a program that had a stronger schedule throughout those decades ? oh by the way, we were also quiet successful during those times. who do you think florida state was playing back then ?

like i said - whether you like notre dame or you don't. they're great for college football.

Notre Dame isn't any better or worse for college football then any other team. That is a silly comment.