Savvy already pissed away any leverage ND had WRT others playing FCS opponents when he rolled over on ND having the opportunity to ever land a first-round bye. Doesn't matter what Kelly says, that ship has sailed.
Besides, Kelly's opinion might carry more weight in the college football world had he actually done something other than shit the bed in playoff and major bowl games.
Which will bring them to 12 FBS opponents.
Would be a bit premature for Brian Kelly to crow about that.
Stopping the "13th data point" argument.
Not 13 "data points"
It was simply about one-loss conference champions from that list that would have the same number of FBS wins as Notre Dame. A two-loss Alabama team would also have fewer FBS wins than an 11-1 Notre Dame team. That still leaves SOS analysis.
Obviously, we have many victories over mediocre teams and very few over top 25 teams, so I think our SOS will still sink us when people do comparisons, but I do wonder (honestly) if the Big 12 is overrated. The committee seems to have pre-ordained that a one-loss Big 12 champion automatically gets in.
though they are only 6-5 and two of their wins were against UMass and Norfolk St.
By nearly a combined 100 points.
It's not the same. FCS teams are glorified scrimmages.
72: Texas Tech
73: Missouri
74: Virginia Tech
It’s another example of stupid scheduling by ND. We don’t even know how to schedule a body bag team. I’ll repeat that I think we should only schedule marquee teams - every game should be the matchup of the week. Going 9-3 against the top 25 would be a great season. And more interesting than playing Tulsa and Toledo.
Playing top-25 teams every week sounds like fun from a fan's perspective, but throws away the possibility of a national title forever. The players would get the crap beaten out of them. What would be the point of that?
The talent and resource gap between the top 25 or top 40 teams and the rest of college football is real. And I think a 9-3 team would get in the playoff.