How do the Irish rank against the all-time great programs in college football history? The AP attempts to answer, but are they right?
We are in a new era. This is the new age, an age in which the relevance of the AP Poll is based almost solely on what it has to say in the preseason, as opposed to any ranking it might produce after the season has ended.
This wasn’t always the case, of course. The AP has been producing top 25 college football polls since 1936, and has crowned a champion each year (or co-champions). Being crowned the “AP National Champion” was the absolute best result for any college program with such aspirations.
A lot of this changed, however, during the BCS era. The AP became disenfranchised by the BCS polls and the formula that it was using to help determine the best two teams in college football, and decided to not allow the BCS to use its rankings in their formula. Instead of helping college football, the AP put greater power into the hands of coaches, sports information directors, and computers.
Now, to help boost their egos a bit, the AP released its Top 25 of All-Time based upon its own rankings over the past 80 years. The Notre Dame Fighting Irish came in at #3.
Whoever was oicking the pictures out for the Notre Dame tweet- OBVIOUSLY has some hatred in their shriveled, and irrelevant heart.
Did the Irish deserve to be higher? At first thought, maybe the answer is “OF COURSE!” But given the criteria and the years used, it isn’t a bad indicator- and #3 is nothing to sneeze at.
Those 5 teams listed ARE college football, and represent (unintentionally) a wide variety of the country (sorry Northwest and Northeast USA). Perhaps most importantly though, is that in the top 5 team of all-time… there is no Michigan- which means that there is a god and that god is just.