I Like Them Too, But This Takes It Too Far...

Notre Dame is having a great year, even though everyone knocks the combined record of the teams that they actually beat. The Irish offense has not looked this good in quite some time. Taking USC down to the wire was what everyone in America wanted to see. We want USC to lose and Notre Dame to win. That would make everything right again.

Unfortunately, Notre Dame lost to USC and to Michigan State. It's true that its opponents have not faired well this year, despite the seemingly hard schedule. That's why many have knocked Notre Dame's national ranking. They are currently ranked 7th in the two polls that people actually care about or have any faith in. They are ahead of five 1-loss teams from legitimate conferences, most of whom lost to teams ranked ahead of Notre Dame. There is clearly media bias in that. Oh well. It happens. It's just an opinion poll. I'm certainly not thrilled about it, but that's the way it is with Notre Dame, Alabama, and Penn State. People want to believe they are better than they are.

I have accepted this because it is reality. However, I had to take a step back the other day when I was reading the previews for this week's games. On Collegefootballnews.com, the writers typically list the teams' predicted scores and then the line. The media went too far this week. After describing in great detail the match-up between LSU and Alabama, the prediction read: LSU 13 - Alabama 10 (Line: ND -8). Is someone trying to prove a point? My theory is that the writers figured if Notre Dame was favored by 8 in this game it would help their strength of schedule. I'm not going to worry about it, though, unless Notre Dame beats Navy and gets credit for two wins.