Notre Dame is six wins away from BCS

Don’t laugh. Yes, I know the Irish are unranked — or more precisely, if one looks at their “others receiving votes” placement, they’re effectively ranked #26 in the AP poll, #28 in the Harris poll, and #30 in the coaches’ poll. Yes, I know the remainder of their schedule is against largely unheralded teams. Yes, I know ND is #34 in Jerry Palm’s unofficial BCS standings, or #32 if you do the math a little differently. Admittedly, that’s a long way from #14.

But mark my words: if Notre Dame wins six straight games, the Irish will rise, albeit largely by attrition, into the Top 14, thus making them eligible for — and, because this is Notre Dame we’re talking about, virtually guaranteed of — an invitation to a BCS bowl.

Don’t believe me? Believe Jerry Palm. Or better yet, take a look at history.

Going back over the last seven seasons, from 2002 through 2008, the only two-loss teams that have finished outside of the Top 14 in the final BCS standings have been either: (1) mid-majors like BYU and Boise State or (2) teams that suffered a November or December loss. Nationally prominent two-loss teams on multi-game winning streaks are not ranked below #14 at season’s end. It just doesn’t happen.

There’s one exception, sorta kinda, which I’ll discuss after the jump. But, suffice it to say, it would be totally unprecedented for a team as high-profile as Notre Dame to finish its season on a six-game winning streak, end up with a 10-2 record, yet be ranked so low that they’re ineligible for BCS consideration. It’s never happened before, at least as far back as 2002, and I see no reason to believe it will happen this year.

Why “no reason”? Well, for one thing, Notre Dame’s schedule isn’t nearly as bad as people seem to think. Their twelve opponents have a combined 40-29 record right now, and the Irish’s full schedule ranks as the 16th strongest in the country, just one spot behind Alabama (#15) and well ahead of Texas (#29) and Florida (#49).

That may shock you, but it shouldn’t. Humans are easily distracted by shiny things — like one-off “marquee games” against big-name teams — and tend not to notice the huge difference between playing a bunch of teams in the 30-50 range of the rankings (teams like Michigan, Michigan State, Washington, Boston College, UConn, Stanford, etc.) and playing a bunch of teams ranked much lower (like #63 Mississippi State, #77 Troy, #123 Florida International, #133 Vanderbilt and #215 Charleston Southern, for instance). Computers are not so easily fooled. They realize it’s much easier to win “week in, week out” against a cupcake-littered schedule with a handful of “big games” than against a schedule chock full of mid-range teams that you should beat, but aren’t virtually guaranteed a victory against.

The Irish don’t play a ton of huge-name teams, but almost all of their opponents are respectable. #118 Wazzu is the only obvious cupcake, with #87 Nevada debatable. (Navy is better than you think. They’re #50 in the country, per Sagarin.) Notre Dame’s worst opponent, Wazzu, is better than three of Florida’s opponents. ND’s second- and third-worst opponents, Nevada and #76 Purdue, would be Florida’s fourth- and sixth-worst. And Purdue just beat Ohio State.

Granted, ND isn’t registering with the computers yet, but that’s simply because there are too many teams right now with better win-loss records, as Jerry Palm explained. If the Irish keep winning, they’ll rise in the computers’ estimation, as most of the teams currently above them lose. Count on it. Attrition is a beautiful thing. Same goes for the polls. The Irish are #26/28/30 today, but I almost guarantee you they’ll be ranked in the Top 25 of all three polls by the end of October, if they beat BC and Wazzu. And they’ll keep rising from there, if they just keep winning.

As for those “marquee games” that are needed to really impress the pollsters, Pittsburgh, currently 6-1 and ranked #20, will very likely be ranked when the Irish come to town on November 14 — probably Top 15 if they beat South Florida and Syracuse in the interim, I’d guess around #25 if they lose to USF but beat the Orange. (There would be two intervening weeks of poll attrition after a loss to USF, giving Pitt ample time to rise back into the Top 25. Still, that USF-Pitt game is very big for Irish fans. Root hard for the Panthers.)

Notre Dame will also, as mentioned above, certainly be ranked by then, if they take care of business against Boston College, Washington State and Navy. 7-2 Notre Dame at 8-1 Pitt would be a very big game between two ranked teams harboring serious BCS ambitions. It might even attract ESPN GameDay, though probably not if Iowa is still undefeated, since the Hawkeyes are at Ohio State that day. (Go Michigan State/Indiana/Northwestern! Beat Iowa!)

It’s also conceivable UConn and/or Stanford will be ranked by the time they play the Irish, but both would probably have to win out against very tough schedules in the interim — @WVU, vs. Rutgers, @Cincinnati, in UConn’s case (a tough task made even tougher by horrific grief); vs. ASU, vs. Oregon, @USC, vs. Cal in Stanford’s case — so I’m not counting on it. Pittsburgh is by far Notre Dame’s best chance at a “signature win” the rest of this season.

Anyway, getting back to the historical analysis of where 10-2 teams (or 9-2 teams, before the 12-game schedule became standard) have finished in the BCS…

In 2008, the only teams with two or fewer losses that finished outside the Top 14 were BYU and Ball State. As it happened, both had also suffered late losses (though this is not always the case with non-AQ teams).

In 2007, only BYU and Boise State were 10-2 yet outside of the Top 14. All other teams with one or two losses were BCS-eligible.

In 2006, a glut of two-loss teams allowed #15 Wake Forest and #16 Rutgers, along with #19 BYU and #25 TCU, to slip through the Top 14 cracks. But both the Deacons and the Knights lost in November: Wake on November 18, Rutgers on December 2.

In 2005, back when teams typically played 11 games per year instead of 12, there were three 9-2 teams — #15 Louisville, #17 UCLA and #18 Texas Tech — outside of the Top 14. But again, UCLA and Texas Tech had both suffered late losses (on December 3 and November 12, respectively). As for Louisville… they’re the exception I mentioned earlier. I’ll come back to them in a moment.

In 2004, the only two-loss team outside of the Top 14 was #16 Wisconsin (9-2), which lost two consecutive games to end the season (on November 13 and 20).

In 2003, only Boise State, TCU and Bowling Green were unable to muster enough respect to get into the Top 14 despite one- or two-loss seasons.

Finally, in 2002, Boise State was again the only one left out, ranked #19 despite finishing 11-1. (I’m not going further back than ’02, because that’s as far as ESPN’s website goes.)

The only exception, as I said, was Louisville in 2005. The Cardinals rattled off five straight wins after their October 15 quadruple-overtime loss to West Virginia (hmm, October 15, 2005… why does that date ring a bell?), yet finished #15 in the BCS. But Louisville was in its very first year as a member of the BCS’s least-respected conference, the Big East. Prior to 2005, they’d been in Conference USA. In terms of its national profile at that time, Louisville was closer to a Boise State than to a Notre Dame. And yet, even so, the Cardinals almost cracked the Top 14 with a 9-2 record, finishing #15.

It’s almost inconceivable to me that Notre Dame would suffer the same fate. It would take a huge glut of two-loss teams to keep Notre Dame out of the Top 14 at 10-2, and I just don’t see it happening. I’d say the odds of a 10-2 Irish team getting into the BCS Top 14 are somewhere north of 90%.

The Irish simply need to win their next six games — I say “simply,” but it’s no easy task, obviously, and I stand by my preseason prediction that they’ll finish 9-3 — and they’ll be BCS-bound. Win and you’re in, boys.