Rockne's Roundtable

The Lou Holtz Translation of Pre-Season Rankings For Notre Dame, issued in 1988:

"If they think we're going to be good, they'll put us in the top 3.
"If they think we're going to be decent, they'll put us in the top 6.
"If they think we've got a chance to be good, we'll be in the top 10.
"If they think we're not going to be that good, they'll put us in the top 15.
"And if they think we're going to be horrendous, they'll put us somewhere between 15 and 20."

So what does No. 24 qualify as?

does ESPN consider anything when doing these rankings???

Wisconsin returns 6 on D, Half the O-line and 6 position coaches

Boise returns 5 on offense/4 on Defense + no Kellen Moore

Stanford loses basically the Entire Offense with 4 O-lineman, Andrew Luck, their top 3 WR's

Alabama loss 8 players in the draft and couple to free agency pick up

I am sure there are more - but this again proves that preseason polls are for BS magazine sales and ESPN driving the cost for commercial dollars for having ranked teams on before the BCS release in week 6

If they go to a playoff beyond 4 teams where the higher ranked team will host the game - ESPN will have it's contracted conferences ranked really high to get the games on their network.......

It's not where you start, it's where you finish.

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We should not be ranked at all. This is just another crappy trick by ESPN so they can berate us when we fail to meet their BS expectations.

IrishWon

Couldn't have said it better myself. I don't think I've ever been so disappointed to see ND ranked.