The final ballots for the coaches poll are made public and according to today’s South Bend Tribune, guess who has Notre Dame ranked lower than any other coach? Steve Spurrier. You know, you would think Steve would have gotten over the thrashing Holtz and the Irish gave him in the Sugar Bowl after the 1991 season.
South Carolina coach Steve Spurrier had the Irish rated lowest at No. 16. Fired Miami coach Larry Coker had the Irish at No. 15. (LINK)
Other coaches of note – Ty Willingham ranked the Irish 13th and George O’Leary had the Irish 11th along with LSU coach Les Miles.
Charlie Weis voted his team 8th, but was not the coach who ranked Notre Dame the highest. That distinction belongs to Phil Fulmer of Tennessee who had Notre Dame 7th.
To recap 2007:
ND lost to 3 of the Top 10 teams in the Nation.
ND beat 10 of the bottom 70 teams in the nation.
So what do we know about ND in 2007?
Not a whole lot, really. They never really played anyone at or near their level, so all we can tell is they were definitely between #10 and #40.
What do we think about Spurrier’s ranking of ND in 2007?
Doesn’t look too bad now.
Frankly, it’s very unlikely he has any issues with the 1991 loss anyway, my goodness, that was 16 years and 2 teams ago! If there was a loss in 1991 that should still irk him, it would be the Syracuse loss, because a win there and UF might have played for the national title. The ND loss really meant very little in the grand scheme of things.
ND fans who think Spurrier cares in any way about Notre Dame other than as “just another college football team that South Carolina doesn’t play” are kidding themselves.
What no follow up from this discussion thread after the bowl games? Gosh I don’t understand it. Just to clarify some facts, here they are…
1. ND, Ohio St and Michigan all had schedules that ended up being softer then everyone thought.
2. Charlie Weis still has not won a game against a big time program. His record is just as bad as Ty’s was against big time programs, yet there have been no rumblings from the Notre Dame alumni or boosters to fire him like Ty, any “colorful” reasons?
3. ND’s streak of bowl losses continues to mount. Will the Irish need to go to the Motor City bowl to ensure a bowl victory?!?
As for your recruiting comments about Charlie, we have no idea what he as recruited since he was playing with Ty’s players. No question Charlie is a great coach, but he can’t get all the credit as at least Ty did a good job recruiting or basically running ND Sun-Fri. Well here is to next year and hopefully scheduling more “Div I-AA” schools. As for my BC Love, well I didn’t attend BC but I am catholic so I had to root for a catholic team and I could not bring myself to root for ND.
Oh yeah… ND has a easy schedule… yeah right… the B12 was probably the weakest conference in college football. I think the MAC provides better competition.
Actually, Spurrier is guilty of only one sin: filling out the most accurate ballot of any coach. He has Oklahoma where they should be at #4 and Notre Dame with its powder puff schedule at #16. If Notre Dame wants to be taken seriously, it should create a defense, beat some high-ranked teams, and stop crying when the person who understands football best in the world ranks them where they should be.
Take the criticism, move on.
Hey FishFan, enjoy the beating in the title game. Michigan would have at least given Ohio State a good game. Florida meanwhile, well, at least it will be fun to watch Tebow try to run into the OSU line and do that little jump pass thing, that should be a treat.
The only one really living in the past seems to be ND fans. What’s Notre Dame’s signature win this year? Cheer up though, you DID win the commander in chief’s trophy.
Yeah, Weis is overrated. You know, people were predicting us to lose our first 4 to 6 games in 2005. We ended up 9-3. That’s a pretty crappy coaching job. We finished 5-7 the year before.
Yes… Charlie Weis is sooo over-rated that the New York media is all saying the New York Giants should hire him as their head coach. Not Urban Meyer. Not Jim Tressel. Not any other college coach. But yeah, I guess Weis is over-rated.
All he did was take over a program that went 11-12 the two years before he got there and went 19-5 the two years after he joined. A four wins a season improvement is definitely over-rated.
Oh yeah, Weis managed to make this improvement while still graduating his players too.
ND fans should be happy that steve spurrier even voted ND 16th in the rankings. Well who has ND beaten this year to warrant any loving from coach spurrier. They played 2 good teams and got their behinds kicked. They will be playing another good team in LSU and I dont think the result is gonna be any different. If I were Brady Quinn I would cut a deal with an NFL team before I play that game cos LSU is going to make me look real bad. NOt to mention, charlie weis is the most overrated coach in college foootball. He has lost to every good team ND has played in the last 2 years. NOn ND fans should thank GOD for weis and not ND fans…
Mark that’s just the way it is. Steve Spurrier is still angry about the thrashing he took at the hands of the Irish. Yes I’m still trying to figure out the rankings and why after USC lost to 2 unranked teams that they are still in the top ten? Also I would like to point out that OSU didn’t have much of schedule to speak of and neither did Michigan. The big ten is an average conference this year. Also take a look at the none conference games in the big ten. Ball state, Bolwing Green,Cinciati,Northern Illinois,Central Michigan. Oh and lets not forget the big ten Indiana,North western,Minesota,Michigan State,Illinois. I could go on but why waist my time and your time. The bottom line the BCS is nothing more tha a bunch of BS.
Everyone who wants to find something wrong with ND will go out their way. Take for example Mark May on ESPN. He’s had nothing good to say about ND since ND let Willingham go. Who by the way isn’t a good coach. He’s proving that at Washington. Everyone seems to forget that Willinghame put in the contract with ND a performance claus that with in 3 years if the situation hasn’t improved they (ND) can let him go. Well they let him go. It use to be you had five years to rebuild but into todays world you don’t. If you can’t show any iimprvement in 3 your gone. His recruiting was the worst except for Quinn and a few but over all it was the worst that ND has seen. Thank God for Weis!!!!!!
i think that not to many people like notre dame because look at it this way notre dame lost two games one to Michigan and one to usc Michigan became #2 and i think they still should be then they lost to #3 usc when they were #6 but usc lost to two unranked teams and they have only dropped down 4 places but when notre dame lost to a #3 team they went down 6 places and in some 5 places