Inside the AP Poll: Why Notre Dame remains ranked despite 0-2 start

As you peruse this week’s AP college football poll, you might be stunned to see a winless team sitting at No. 24.

It genuinely is a bit jarring to see 0-2 Notre Dame ranked, because, well, typically the teams listed in this poll are the ones that win a lot of football games. Notre Dame just became the first team to start a season 0-2 and remain ranked in the AP poll in 37 years!

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I’m only a month into my tenure as an AP voter, and I’m still learning as I go. But deciding where to put Notre Dame was by far the most difficult decision of the week. The Irish have two losses to teams I consider the No. 2 and No. 10 teams in the country — and those two losses are by a combined four points. They were right there with two teams I think highly of (at this point), and though there are glaring issues on the defensive side of the ball that will persist, I still feel like I know a lot more about the strengths of this team and its new quarterback than I do about a lot of teams I’ve been ranking, teams that haven’t played anyone with a pulse.

It is certainly possible that I’m giving Notre Dame too much credit for two “good” losses. But I also feel like the Irish’s scenario is not quite as cut and dry as other teams I took off my ballot entirely. Florida was obvious. USF was a tougher call, but ultimately the win over Florida was devalued by the Gators’ horrendous performance vs. LSU. Clemson has two sort-of comparable losses to Notre Dame (though LSU should have beaten them Tigers by multiple scores) and also a shaky win over Troy; all three performances show an inept rushing attack and a defense that is nowhere near elite. That third data point, against a Group of 6 opponent, helps confirm concerns I have when I see the Tigers play quality opponents. For a full quarter of the season, at least, this is who Clemson is. I’ll give Irish another chance, against a non-top 10 team, to show me who they are.

That might not be the right decision to make as a voter. This is why I’m glad there are lots of other voters with different takes on the situation, because the collective decision to keep Notre Dame ranked — but just barely — feels right to me. Ultimately, we are not overly punishing a team for voluntarily choosing to schedule difficult opponents (and losing those games).

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And, again, this is a poll that changes week to week. I’ll be happy to evaluate Notre Dame differently than I do right now once I have more information.

A couple of stray notes/observations:

• Tulane should be ranked! The Green Wave have two wins — one very lopsided — over Power 4 opponents. Are my fellow voters just not watching Tulane??

• I shuffled some of the top 10 teams in my ballot this week. Miami’s dominant win over USF, coupled with a good win over Notre Dame in the opener, is a strong resume! Better than what we’ve got from Penn State, for example. And by the way, the Nittany Lions’ sluggish starts have concerned me, which is why they dropped a few spots. Georgia moved up after that wild come-from-behind win over Tennessee. Texas fell after another uninspiring performance by Arch Manning — who was booed (!) at home.

• A lot of this will work itself out in the coming weeks. Penn State will play Oregon in two weeks. Miami and Florida State meet in three. All the SEC teams are finally into conference play so we’ll get a pecking order shortly, too.