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Irish slip to fourth in BCS

The polls reached a consensus on Notre Dame on Sunday.
Ranked No. 4 in the Coaches Poll, Harris Poll and A.P. Poll, the Irish slipped to fourth in the BCS poll following their 29-26 triple-overtime victory against Pittsburgh. Notre Dame held a slight lead over Oregon entering the weekend, but the Ducks slipped by the Irish in this week's BCS standings.
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Notre Dame ranks fourth with a .905 rating. Oregon slots third at .917.
Alabama continues its hold on first at .996 with Kansas State second at .932.
Unlike earlier BCS rankings, Notre Dame is now closer to No. 5 Georgia (.817) than the top spot.
Notre Dame was in a tie with Kansas State atop the computer rankings before Saturday. Alabama now leads in the computers with Notre Dame second and Kansas State third.
Three Notre Dame opponents cracked the top 20 in No. 12 Oklahoma, No. 14 Stanford and No. 19 USC. The Irish are 2-0 against ranked opponents, the same mark as Kansas State. Oregon has played just one ranked opponent, beating USC last weekend.
While Brian Kelly has avoided talk of style points and politicking for votes, the look test for Notre Dame shows them having won their nine games by an average of 15 points. Kansas State has started perfect by beating opponents by an average of 25.8 points with Oregon knocking off opponents by an average of 31.4 points.
While making the national championship game figures to require help from Alabama, Kansas State and/or Oregon, simply qualifying for a BCS bowl will not. No two-loss team from a major conference has failed to finish in the top 14 of the BCS  in the last five years. Notre Dame qualifies for at-large selection by finishing in the top 14.


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