Notre Dame football fans have been a bit frustrated and upset that despite going 5-0 in the month of November, their Fighting Irish squad only moved up to the fifteenth spot in this week’s College Football Playoff rankings, two whole spots higher than they were rated five games ago at the start of November.
It won’t get them out of the Camping World Bowl and into the Cotton or Orange Bowls, but there was one place that does see them as a top-ten team in the nation.
Pro Football Focus released their latest PFFELO rankings following Week 14 of the college season and threw some significant praise Notre Dame’s way, ranking them seventh.
In their summary of the 10-2 Fighting Irish, Pro Football Focus offered the following:
It was back to a below-average passing grade for Ian Book, who had previously strung together three quality performances in an otherwise up-and-down 2019 campaign. The Fighting Irish still covered on Saturday thanks to a defensive touchdown with under a minute to go. The Fighting Irish defense didn’t quite live up to lofty preseason expectations, though, as we had them ranked as the top overall defensive unit in the country in the preseason. They have dropped to third in our opponent-adjusted unit ranking and are only represented by one honorable mention on the PFF All-American team. – Pro Football Focus on Notre Dame
I hadn’t previously seen that PFF had Notre Dame ranked as the best defensive unit in the country before the season started but that’s a bit surprising. Not that the unit wasn’t still very good outside of one awful night, but as we saw replacing the likes of Jerry Tillery, Drue Tranquill and Julian Love was a lot to ask, especially early on.
Notre Dame checks in just ahead of Wisconsin and Penn State who come in at nine and ten respectively while the same Michigan team who beat Notre Dame 45-14 in late October checks in at 11.
I won’t spoil the whole poll, you should check out their site for the full rankings but I will share that their lack of Baylor support at 17 is more than a bit surprising.