November 23rd, 2021 at 7:20 PM ^
Win the “Game”
Fuck Ohio!
November 23rd, 2021 at 8:22 PM ^
Gonna take cuts here.
Those assholes hardly discussed the OSU/Michigan game except to promote their game day show and talked about ND for practically half the fucking time.
What a bunch of BS, ND and their 10-1 record against that schedule is a joke.
November 24th, 2021 at 12:02 AM ^
Galloway called them on the ND circle jerk. It was pretty timely - nicely done. And WTF is ESpiN carrying NBC’s water for the Flailing Eyewash?
November 23rd, 2021 at 7:21 PM ^
Seems right. I think UM would beat Cincy straight up, but I don't have a problem with this ranking. Best Ohio and then it'll take care of itself.
November 23rd, 2021 at 7:24 PM ^
You might Beat, damn autocorrect.
November 23rd, 2021 at 8:07 PM ^
'Best' actually works fine as the verb here.
November 23rd, 2021 at 8:23 PM ^
Nah, I was going for best there. But yeah, they are close.
November 23rd, 2021 at 8:58 PM ^
UM would best Cincy by 2 scores at Cincy. If they make the playoffs, it’s a first round bye for whomever they play. They are a glorified MAC school. They were ranked in 2019 and lost to OSU 42-0. They can beat subpar P5 schools, but they shouldn’t be sitting at the big kids table.
November 23rd, 2021 at 9:47 PM ^
I think M is better and more deserving than them, but Cincinnati is still a Top 10 team. The are #7 in SP+, #10 in PiRatings, #9 in FPI. No MAC team is coming close to leading Georgia by double digits in the 4th quarter of a bowl game, nor winning by double digits at Notre Dame. They were indeed ranked at the end of 2019 but very few teams (i.e., fewer than 25) wouldn't have been badly blown out by OSU that year.
If they played in the SEC West or Big 10 East they'd probably have at least 2 losses, but if we run out of <2-loss P5 teams I don't mind giving an undefeated Cincinnati a shot.
November 23rd, 2021 at 9:59 PM ^
They were ranked in 2019 and lost to OSU 42-0.
#9 Cincinnati did take #8 UGA down to the wire in the 2021 Peach Bowl last season with a final score of 24-21.
Luke Fickell has steadily improved that team year-to-year, and they've been the best recruiting G5 program during tenure. It is hard to confidently say they wouldn't be able to show up again like they did against UGA and Notre Dame.
November 24th, 2021 at 1:18 AM ^
All true, but look at what happened the year they let ND into the playoffs. They have exited in the first round by 3 scores or more. Granted, my anti-Cincy bias surely effects my opinion. I hope they do make it and get pasted as they almost surely will so we can put the non- power 5 talks to rest. How healthy would beat up P5 teams be at the end of the year if they played a non-P5 schedule like Cincy does? ND isn’t much better, playing 1 ranked team this year (Cincy). Compare that to the B1G schedule of OSU or Michigan. I’ll take anyone on their schedule over playing PSU, UM (OSU for this board) and the B1G West champion.
November 24th, 2021 at 12:10 PM ^
I'm usually the last person to defend Notre Dame, but they faced 2018 Clemson and 2020 Alabama -- good luck finding another team that wouldn't have lost by three scores to those two. Four team playoffs require a fourth team, even that team will almost assuredly get destroyed. (It especially makes no sense to complain about the latter while clamoring for playoffs to expand further)
November 23rd, 2021 at 11:09 PM ^
Michigan State - the team that beat us - was also ranked last week and got stomped by about a billion points to Ohio State.
There’s a big gap between the top 3 teams and #4 regardless of who is #4 until someone proves otherwise.
November 24th, 2021 at 8:09 AM ^
Can we please get the volume turned up on this post, so the people in the back can hear it? “They can beat subpar P5 schools, but they shouldn’t be sitting at the big kids table”
November 23rd, 2021 at 7:21 PM ^
I know many on here focus on whether or not Cincinnati "deserves" to be in the top 4, but we all should at least be grateful for them preventing Notre Dame from being undefeated and in the top 4 right now.
November 23rd, 2021 at 7:31 PM ^
Notre Dame's two best wins are against Wisconsin.. and Purdue. Everyone else, average or horrible. And yet, here we are again.
November 23rd, 2021 at 8:09 PM ^
Our two best wins are Wisconsin and a 3 loss penn state. They have more wins against power 5 teams with a winning record than we do
November 23rd, 2021 at 8:32 PM ^
It's 3 to 2 so point taken but Maryland or Rutgers is going to end up with 6 wins and nobody else (AFAIK) on ND's schedule could pull that off except USC so .500+ is going to be even.
Neither team has played a particularly daunting schedule but I'd argue UM winning at Wisconsin and at PSU is better than anything ND has accomplished given the fact their UW game was in Chicago and their road win was against 6-5 UVa down their starting QB.
November 23rd, 2021 at 10:05 PM ^
Thank you for pointing this out. Virginia has a winning record solely due to Brennan Armstrong, and he did not play against Notre Dame. Mostly ND has beaten a bunch of assorted ACC junk, just like Wake Forest has.
November 23rd, 2021 at 10:06 PM ^
Don't minimize the win at Nebraska - they had been pointing at that game as a signature win for an entire year. The team was ready and the fans were ready for that game - way more than I thnk Michigan was prepared for. Talk about a team's super bowl? You what we're getting at MSU. But the team handled it so well. That was one of the big wins on the season, despite UN being 'just' a 3-win team.
November 23rd, 2021 at 9:06 PM ^
ND didn't beat Wisconsin. Wisconsin lost the game by imploding with errors.
November 23rd, 2021 at 11:31 PM ^
Bucky was ahead in the 4th Q v ND and out gained them 320-240 at a neutral site.
Bucky was never ahead in the game v UM and was out gained 365-210 at home.
Those games were one week apart.
November 23rd, 2021 at 9:15 PM ^
So, I am guessing ND is playing OSU next week or Alabama or Georgia. Right? Stop with shitting on Michigan. Their schedule is crap and you know it. Penn State is a much better team than Purdue regardless of their losses. There are way too many people on this site who hate Michigan.
November 23rd, 2021 at 8:10 PM ^
Wouldn’t those also be our best wins?
November 23rd, 2021 at 8:48 PM ^
I’ll say about ND what I say every year when they’re in this discussion.
The only difference between ND’s success in making the playoff and Michigan’s lack thereof boils down to one thing and one thing only. OSU.
ND does not have to play a JV NFL team every single season, much less share a division with one. The one time in the last twenty years that they had to (with Carroll’s USC teams) they got beat every single year. In a lot of cases they got whipped like an unwanted stepchild. They’ve been the fortunate benefactor of USC falling flat on its face since Carroll left.
Even when they do make the CFP, they show very quickly how far behind they are from the actual contenders. So I put no stock in ND supposedly being a better program than Michigan because it’s made the CFP.
If these programs traded places, then ND would not have sniffed the playoffs with having to share a division with OSU, and Michigan would’ve made the playoffs at least once, if not twice under Harbaugh with ND’s easier schedule.
November 23rd, 2021 at 10:18 PM ^
Yeah, ND under Kelly and Michigan under Harbaugh are pretty comparable. The hot-take retort is always that Kelly has been to a BCS CG and two playoffs.
2012 ND was a "horseshoe up the ass" season to end all such seasons. They were pretty good but eked out several close games against a schedule that turned out to be easier than expected, benefitted from a terrible call vs Stanford (for one) and an easy missed field goal by Pitt, then was appropriately run off the field once they played a great team. Nothing about that ND team, even the dead girlfriend, was real. And it was all vacated anyway.
As for the big difference in the past five years, you said it. Harbaugh faces peak OSU while USC trips over its underpants like George Costanza, running to the phone to find the next hot coach that will eventually get bought out
November 24th, 2021 at 12:25 AM ^
They also get to skip any kind of conference championship game
November 24th, 2021 at 12:58 AM ^
You didn't play Ohio State last year and you were 2-4
ND is winning like 11 games a year for last 5 years vs Michigan's 8 games a year
November 24th, 2021 at 8:31 AM ^
And ND went 4-8 in 2016. They didn't have to play OSU, either. What's your point besides coming to troll?
November 25th, 2021 at 1:25 AM ^
Notre Dame won 11+ in 2018 and 2019. The last time before that? 1993. So get your facts straight before talking shit.
November 23rd, 2021 at 10:10 PM ^
TIL Notre Dame was outgained by Florida State, Purdue, Wisconsin, Cincinnati, USC, and UNC this year. My God. Fraud much?
November 24th, 2021 at 12:47 AM ^
And they all but lost to Toledo. At home. Miracle comeback preserved the win. I can't believe they are in the discussion but here we are.
November 24th, 2021 at 12:53 AM ^
and what are Michigans two best wins? Wisconsin and 7-4 penn state? I doubt they are any better than ND's
November 23rd, 2021 at 8:13 PM ^
Very true Ham. Win The Game.
November 23rd, 2021 at 8:42 PM ^
Win the game!
Also, Fuck Ohio.
November 23rd, 2021 at 7:22 PM ^
For a few more days. Then we jump Cincinnati again.
Wait.....MSU fans think they should still be ranked over us because of head to head. lol
November 23rd, 2021 at 7:37 PM ^
No David Pollack OUTRAGE this week.
Toaster head couldn't understand assessing the entirety of a team vs. 1 close game with random and flukish events.
November 23rd, 2021 at 7:41 PM ^
Pollack is a tool. He lives and breathes SEC and osu
November 23rd, 2021 at 7:23 PM ^
I’m actually concerned Msu only dropped to 12. Assuming we lose to osu, could we drop below Msu and lose out on the rose bowl? God I hope not
November 23rd, 2021 at 7:25 PM ^
Reasons why not:
1) We will probably not be quite as embarrassed
2) Committee had us ahead of them within 9 days of the loss to start with, this won't change much.
3) They're going to lose to PSU anyway.
4) M is a WAY better ratings draw than MSU and that's what the people who run things actually care about.
November 23rd, 2021 at 7:45 PM ^
Also, kinda adding to your fourth point, rankings don’t/have never determined who goes to the Rose Bowl. As long as the potential teams are close in rankings, they reserve the right to select whoever they want. The CFP Committee chooses NY6 games now anyway, and they consider M better than MSU.
Not much can happen this week to change that opinion
November 23rd, 2021 at 8:52 PM ^
The Sugar Bowl sure was sweet, especially watching Sparty pout
November 23rd, 2021 at 9:36 PM ^
Who would M play in a hypothetical Rose Bowl? I believe that game is typically between the Big Ten and the Pac 12 so... Oregon? Oregon seems right.
November 23rd, 2021 at 10:33 PM ^
I'd assume the other team would be the Pac-12 champ assuming it's either Utah or Oregon. Utah has a clinched a spot in the title game. Without looking at tiebreakers, it appears Oregon, Oregon St and Washington St all have a chance to win the other division. If OSU or WSU somehow win the Pac-12 not sure if they would make the Rose Bowl.
November 24th, 2021 at 5:08 AM ^
The winner of the PAC-12 automatically goes to the Rose Bowl still (B1G also). The only way it’s anyone else is if the conference champ is in the playoff, or the Rose Bowl is hosting a playoff. So Michigan would replace OSU in this scenario with OSU in the CFP, and we’d play the winner of the PAC12, likely Utah or Oregon.
November 23rd, 2021 at 10:35 PM ^
We'd play the winner of Utah vs. Oregon/Oregon State/Washington State.
Oregon advances for a second shot at Utah if they beat the Beavers Saturday.
Wazzou is in if they beat Washington on Friday and Oregon State beats Oregon.
Oregon State is in if the beat Oregon and Washington wins the Apple Cup.
Utah just crushed the best of those three teams, so probably Utah. But hopefully it doesn't matter, and Ohio State gets Utah.
November 23rd, 2021 at 7:25 PM ^
If we lose 56-7, yeah, that could happen. But let’s just win instead.
November 23rd, 2021 at 8:29 PM ^
Only Sparty could find a way to beat us and have the same (or nearly the same) number wins, but make themselves so unappealing that the Rose Bowl committee picks us anyways
Classic Sparty
November 23rd, 2021 at 10:25 PM ^
Unless Franklin wins the Jimmy Sexton Bowl for Exorbitantly Overpaid Coaches this weekend
November 23rd, 2021 at 8:44 PM ^
PSU now has a healthy Clifford, so I have a strong feeling msu is going to get lit up