Notre Dame Outside The AP Top 25: A Good Omen?
To no one’s surprise, Notre Dame was not ranked in the Associated Press’ preseason Top 25 poll that was released Monday. That’s what happens when you produce a 4-8 record the year prior.
Nevertheless, the Fighting Irish did garner enough respect to receive 65 points, good enough for No. 28 in the “also receiving votes” category. The only two teams to rank high than Notre Dame despite posting a losing campaign in 2016 were No. 23 Texas (5-7) under new head coach Tom Herman, and No. 26 TCU (6-7).
However, consider the Irish not appearing in the preseason AP Top 25 poll as a potential harbinger of a positive outcome. Since 1994, Notre Dame football has not been quite the same, and it can be partly reflected through the AP preseason poll
In the 23 football seasons from 1994-2016, Notre Dame was ranked 15 times in the AP preseason Top 25 — and never once finished higher than where it started.
Conversely, in the eight other seasons the Fighting Irish were not ranked in the AP preseason Top 25 from 1994-2016, they finished in the final rankings four times — most recently in the Top 10 in both 2012 (No. 4) and 2005 (No. 9). Notre Dame is not in the AP top 25 this year for the first time since 2012.
Here were the preseason AP rankings in head coach Brian Kelly’s previous seven seasons:
2010: Not ranked — Finished 8-5 and unranked.
2011: No. 16 — Finished 8-5 and unranked.
2012: Unranked — Finished 12-1 and No. 4 (the highest since No. 2 in 1993)
2013: No. 14 — Finished 9-4 and No. 20.
2014: No. 17 — Finished 8-5 and unranked.
2015: No. 11 — Finished 10-3 and No. 11.
2016: No. 10 — Finished 4-8 and unranked.
This year four of Notre Dame’s 2017 opponents are ahead of them in the initial poll: No. 4 USC (Oct. 21, at Notre Dame), No. 14 Stanford (Nov. 25, on the road), No. 15 Georgia (Sept. 9, at Notre Dame) and No. 18 Miami (Nov. 11, on the road).
Other foes on the slate include No. 30 North Carolina State (home on Oct. 28), and Michigan State (Sept. 23 at East Lansing) garnered one point to come in at No. 44.
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