The request was for end-of-year rankings and you provided

game day rankings. Thinking people do not cite rankings mid-way through the season to evaluate how good a team was. The only rational exception would be possibly if later major injuries made a team worse and enough games had been played earlier in the year to fairly evaluate them. But the difference in a 5 game sample size and 12 game sample size is tremendous. That Oklahoma team was good but not great. Certainly not elite.

That Stanford team, however, was quite good. Although they were also a very lucky team that scratched out a lot of close ones against okay teams. And ND beat them with what would become their backup QB. I have doubts the result would’ve been the same with Hogan at QB.

That win and the MSU win the following year are the only top possible contenders for elite wins. And the MSU game was gifted to us by the refs.