Notre Dame--the most overrated team in history

College football's Bowl Championship Series rankings may be ok most of the time in deciding what 2 teams should be in the "national championship" game (although Auburn in 2004, USC in 2003, and more egregiously imho, Oregon in 2001 might have good cause to argue even with that!), but its formula in deciding who's 3rd through whatever has got some real problems. The BCS people know this, of course, because every single year it has been around, they have changed the formula they use in their determinations. Human polls have decreased and increased in value, judging strength of schedule has undergone some transformations, and which polls and computer programs the BCS uses have changed from year to year as well. This year, an over-reliance on polls has led the BCS to outrageously overvalue Notre Dame, allowing them to steal a very large paycheck from another deserving school--most likely Oregon again. I don't know why Notre Dame is given such acclaim for its wins and such a dismissal of its losses, but it is obvious this year that the coaches and writers who are polled are insanely pro-ND.
Let's take a look at what ND has done. Yes, they played a heck of a game against USC. But let's face it, they had an extra week to prepare for SC, and SC was playing its 3rd road game in a row, and ND still lost! Gee, when Fresno State played just as well against a rested SC at USC, their poll position didn't budge. ND, on the other hand, moved up in one poll--into the top 10--by losing at home to SC !
Their other loss is, or would be for any other program, embarrassing. Michigan State is the very definition of mediocre this year. In a conference that only has one standout team this year, MSU went 2-6, and was 4-6 overall against teams other than ND. Gosh, when UCLA lost its only game to a similarly bad opponent, they dropped 7 spots in both major polls, and out of the top 10 completely!
Well, maybe ND should be forgiven for its losses; it has usually made up for those by wins against the nation's elite. Oops, not this year: ND's wins have come at the expense of teams that went a combined 42-47 in games otherwise; only 3 of them had winning records, and one of those was Navy, which doesn't ordinarily play too rough a schedule itself. ND's most impressive win--by far--was against a less-than-stellar 7-3 Michigan, who padded their own schedule this year with juggernauts like Northern Illinois and Eastern Michigan.
It is clear that the people who are voting in these polls have an incredible blind spot when it comes to certain teams, and Notre Dame is always at the top of that list. It's virtually criminal that their ineptitude is going to result in ND getting double digit millions more dollars than it earned this year, while a school that actually proved its mettle on the field loses out on that payday. The BCS numbers were supposed to cure these ills by including more objective data in its calculations--after all, how can a coach be expected to watch any games that don't involve his own each week, or a writer see all of the games necessary to make intelligent comparisons every week? That point of view, however, has shown to be unpopular with those same brilliant voters, and the spineless BCS committee caved. Nice system, eh?