Despite big win at Purdue, Notre Dame doesn’t move much in AP Top 25 poll

Notre Dame’s big win doesn’t do much for the AP voters.

Notre Dame gained just one spot, moving from No. 18 to No. 17, in the Associated Press Top 25 poll, despite blowing out the Purdue Boilermakers 66-7 on the road.

There appear to be a few reasons for this. There is the ongoing fallout from the Week 2 loss to Northern Illinois — despite being idle Saturday, the Huskies gained two spots to No. 23 — as well as the perception that the Fighting Irish were supposed to take care of business against a down-and-out Purdue squad that isn’t expected to contend for much.

It’s also a week in which there just wasn’t much movement in general. There weren’t really any upsets involving Top 25 teams, though there were scares. LSU stays one spot ahead of the Irish at No. 16 after nearly losing to South Carolina, and Georgia drops out of the top spot and falls to No. 2 after hanging on against Kentucky in a low-scoring nail-biter.

Missouri dropped a spot to No. 7 with a one-score win over Boston College. We should note that the Irish did pass Michigan, which is now No. 18.

Back to the Irish — the poll continues to reflect that Notre Dame shouldn’t have lost to Northern Illinois, although the longer NIU stays ranked the less bad that loss looks. Voters are likely expecting the Irish to take care of business right now. Things will get a bit more interesting two weeks from now when Notre Dame hosts No. 19 Louisville in South Bend — a bad loss to the Cardinals last season derailed the Irish’s playoff bid.

Should Notre Dame win that game, the polls will get quite interesting. Until then, it appears the voters aren’t going to reward Notre Dame for doing what was expected against Purdue, and that will probably hold true next week against Miami of Ohio, too.

 

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