I know I'll get grief from this, but I'm not 100% sure Notre Dame shouldn't be as high as number two in the AP poll. It's academic, I know, but:
1) you can justify ND ahead of Ohio St because they also beat Clemson (once) and lost to UA by fewer AND the whole "fewer games/more games" argument.
2) you can justify them ahead of Clemson by virtue of not getting blown out by Ohio St in a game in which they were favored
The Texas A/M one is a little harder, I'll admit. But they were flat out lucky to beat Florida and struggled to win against LSU (I'll grant the artificial nature of the final scores with Arky and MSU). Without a complete collapse by Florida in the final 5 minutes, the Aggies aren't even in this discussion.
This is where I think it all depends on WHAT YOUR CRITERIA ARE for ranking.
I'm not 100% sure ATM would beat Notre Dame. I'm 95% sure they'd lose a rematch to Florida.
I doubt ATM could beat a healthy Ohio St.
It seems some of this comes down to the balance between "what a team actually did" versus "what we think would most likely happen if they met on the field."
It's easy to justify Ohio State over Clemson (who should be no higher than 12th btw).
I "get" the justification of Clemson over N Dame, although going with the Colt McCoy argument is incredibly selective if you ask me (the same people saying "But Clemson was missing players" are the same people not taking into account the missing players for UNC by ranking ATM fourth).
Again - it's fun to talk about and it's not a hill I'm willing to die on.
To be fair - this is one of the most responsible polls I've ever read.
www.espn.com
