Comments on: JMU Football Is Rated Above Notre Dame

By: Chris Mottram

Chris Mottram — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 21:02:44 +0000

So, at what point does beating a ranked team mean something? Or does it ever, outside of a bowl game?

I'm just saying, that while rankings may prove to be off, at the time it's the best gauge of how good a team is. Between then and now other factors can make a team better or worse, but they were at one point ranked for a reason and I think it's more than just "oh, they must've just been overrated."

It some cases, that's true. Clemson, for example, is not so good as it turns out. Cal, however, is pretty damn good. Same for Wake.

By: smurphette

smurphette — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 20:21:58 +0000

I understood your point, Chris, I just disagree with it. If UNC loses to MD, they obviously are not the 16th best team in the country. If they were, they would win the game.

By: Chris Mottram

Chris Mottram — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 20:08:15 +0000

Example: MD is playing #16 UNC tomorrow. If MD wins, UNC will no doubt drop in the rankings, but that doesn't mean UNC wasn't the 16th best team in the country at the time MD played them.

Either way, point is that MD's wins are head and shoulders above Notre Dame's.

By: smurphette

smurphette — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 20:00:47 +0000

I completely disagree about the rankings thing – early in the season, rankings aren’t an accurate reflection of anything (which is why the BCS standings don’t come out until October). ND has been overrated in this way numerous times – and bashed incessantly for it – so you’ll forgive me if I can’t help seeing a “ranked-at-the-time” measurement as a complete double standard.

By: Chris Mottram

Chris Mottram — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 17:37:18 +0000

PS. Having said all that, I’ll concede that on a neutral site, MD and ND would probably be a very competitive game.

By: Chris Mottram

Chris Mottram — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 17:33:26 +0000

Smurph: It doesn’t matter if the teams are currently ranked, it matters where they were ranked at the time they played MD. That’s an accurate reflection of how good the opposition was at the time, not to mention the fact that if a team lost to MD while it was ranked, that would attribute to said team being un-ranked currently.

By: smurphette

smurphette — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 17:30:49 +0000

As I mentioned in my first comment, Notre Dame and MD have two common opponents, so we can just wait until MD plays UNC and BC. I’ll happily cede the vaunted #53 ranking if they beat either of those teams.

By: roba

roba — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 17:21:36 +0000

First of all Go Dukes! Second of all, ND has beaten a bunch of schools with big names, that actually aren’t very good (Stanford, Michigan, etc). Maryland might have lost some games it should have won this year, but you can always count on Terps football teams (and hoops teams for that matter) to take down a couple big guns each year. Maryland is heads and shoulders above ND at this point.

By: Jamie Mottram

Jamie Mottram — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 17:17:15 +0000

Well, sure, but Sagarin shows that JMU would beat them both.

By: smurphette

smurphette — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 17:10:35 +0000

If you look, Chris, I didn’t say that Notre Dame is necessarily better than MD, just that it’s not clear-cut and could go either way. Only one of the teams Maryland beat is currently ranked in the BCS poll (Wake Forest, #24), and none are ranked in any of the other polls. Notre Dame took Pitt to triple OT (BCS #21) and the game against UNC (BCS #16) was decided in the final seconds of regulation. I think that shows a ND-MD match-up would be pretty competitive.