Fans drag Notre Dame, say Irish get "special treatment" from rankings

After spending weeks working their way back up the rankings, Notre Dame is now back inside the Top-10 of the AP Rankings.

The Fighting Irish embarrassed Navy on Saturday, beating the Midshipmen 51-10, and that was enough reason for the AP voters to propel them four spots into the Top-10, now situating them at No. 8 overall with a 7-1 record.

It's fine to point out Notre Dame's resume and what the Irish have done thus far. They possess a season-opening win over Texas A&M, which is now ranked No. 10 in the nation, and they now have a win over Navy, who was ranked inside the Top-25. Of course, there were plenty of reasons to doubt that ranking as legitimate, which we pointed out prior to the Irish's game with Navy this past weekend.

However, the media members who vote in the polls must believe that win was more impressive than Texas A&M's over LSU, since the two teams moved the same amount of spots ahead. The only difference? Notre Dame lost to Northern Illinois.

Many fans were quick to point out that while Notre Dame has improved, the Fighting Irish seem to have their loss — the worst loss of any team inside the Top-15 — forgiven, while the media conveniently hangs that over the heads of other teams.

As the fans pointed out, there are four undefeated Power-4 teams that are all ranked behind Notre Dame. Statistically, Notre Dame's strength of record is good enough for No. 15 in the country, which would be behind BYU, Pittsburgh, Kansas State, and Indiana, while only slightly ahead of Clemson (20th), which also faces the 28th toughest remaining strength of schedule.

Will the Tigers get that same benefit of the doubt if they reel off wins against Louisville, Virginia Tech, and Pittsburgh? Likely not, and their loss (a season-opener to No. 2 Georgia) is not near as bad as losing to Northern Illinois.

Again, if you have Notre Dame ranked ahead of Clemson, that's fine and totally understandable, but that should've already been how you had the teams ranked. Beating Navy shouldn't have suddenly moved the goal posts that drastically.

It will be interesting to see where the College Football Playoff committee has Notre Dame slotted when its initial rankings are revealed. Something tells us it will be more similar to what the AP Poll has now than what it did a week ago before the Navy matchup happened.

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