While many Notre Dame fans weren’t too impressed with the Irish’s four point road victory over then #22 ranked Temple, the AP voters apparently were – or at least more impressed than Notre Dame fans. Following the narrow victory, the Irish moved up one spot, leap frogging equally unimpressive Stanford to improve to 8th.
Notre Dame entered the weekend ranked 9th with the Cardinal coming in at #8 but neither team was overly impressive in their road contests this weekend. The Irish needed another fourth quarter comeback from Deshone Kizer to take down previously undefeated Temple while Stanford was the fortunate recipient of a missed Washington State field goal as time expired to escape Pullman with a W over a 5-2 Cougars squad.
To the AP voters, Notre Dame’s performance was more impressive with the Irish jumping the Cardinal. In the Coaches Poll, however, Notre Dame remained 9th while Stanford remained 8th.
Of course, all of this is relatively unimportant anyway with the poll that really matters coming out on Tuesday. The first College Football Playoff rankings of the 2015 season will be released then.
Temple meanwhile, remained ranked in both polls with the AP and Coaches Polls both ranking the Owls 23rd following their near upset of the Irish making them the only ranked opponent the Irish have defeated this season. Temple has a couple of winnable games coming up before taking on #15 ranked Memphis in three weeks in a game that could indirectly improve Notre Dame’s resume.
Other than Temple, Navy and USC are previous Notre Dame opponents who appear in the “Other Receiving Votes” category and could give Notre Dame resume building wins if both continue to win. Navy stands at 6-1 and has only really been challenged by Notre Dame. They will have their chance to impress voters and move into the top 25 with their showdown with Memphis this coming weekend.
USC meanwhile won their second in a row since falling to Notre Dame this weekend with a 27-21 victory over Cal. The Trojans will face three straight unranked opponents before finishing their regular season by hosting #22 UCLA.. The Trojans winning out would certainly help Notre Dame’s resume given their 10 point victory in South Bend over USC two weeks ago.
This weekend’s opponent, Pitt, fell out of the top 25 after getting upset by North Carolina last Thursday night. The Panthers still received some votes in both polls, but at this point have little chance to help Notre Dame’s resume since an Irish win next weekend would give the Panthers their third loss of the season.
In reality, Pitt doesn’t really have anything on North Carolina. North Carolina is 6-1. In fact, I would rather face Pitt than North Carolina and a dual-threat QB.
Pitt probably got upset by North Carolina because they were looking too much ahead to the game with Notre Dame. I expect another nail biter.