Where Notre Dame football moved to in AP Poll after beating USC
A loss to USC on Saturday in South Bend would have knocked Notre Dame out of the polls. The Fighting Irish took matters into their own hands and made sure they wouldn’t have to worry about that.
Notre Dame trounced the Trojans, 48-20, and moved from No. 21 to No. 15 in the Week 8 Associated Press Poll as a result. The Irish moved up three spots to No. 18 in the Coaches Poll as well. With its first loss of the season, USC dropped from No. 10 to No. 18 in the AP Poll and from No. 9 to No. 16 in the Coaches Poll.
Notre Dame began the season at No. 13 in the AP Top 25. The Irish moved as high as No. 9 with an impressive 4-0 start before suffering their first loss of the season to Ohio State on Sept. 23. The loss at Louisville on Oct. 7 dropped them out of the top 20.
Notre Dame is in a good spot to finish with a better postseason ranking than No. 18, which is where the program landed last year at the end of head coach Marcus Freeman‘s first season. The Irish went 9-4. Notre Dame is currently 6-2 with regular season games against Pitt (2-4), Clemson (4-2), Wake Forest (3-3) and Stanford (2-4) left on the schedule. Those are four very winnable games for a team that just took down a top-10 opponent by four touchdowns.
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Freeman willed his team to a victory over a ranked, undefeated opponent for the third time in his tenure and second time this season with the win over Lincoln Riley‘s Trojans. It was also only Riley’s 14th loss as a head coach in seven seasons at Oklahoma and USC. Freeman improved his overall mark to 15-7 and 15-6 in the last two seasons. Riley is 17-4 in the same span.
Notre Dame finally has a bye week after playing on eight consecutive Saturdays from Week 0 in Ireland on Aug. 26 to last night in South Bend. The Irish are at home against Pitt on Oct. 28 and on the road at Clemson on Nov. 4 before getting another bye week before the final two games of the regular season. They’ll host Wake Forest, quarterback Sam Hartman‘s former team of five years, for senior day on Nov. 18. Then it’s a trip to Stanford for the regular season finale on Nov. 25.
Week 8 AP Top 25
- Georgia (7-0)
- Michigan (7-0)
- Ohio State (6-0)
- Florida State (6-0)
- Washington (6-0)
- Oklahoma (6-0)
- Penn State (6-0)
- Texas (5-1)
- Oregon (5-1)
- North Carolina (6-0)
- Alabama (6-1)
- Oregon State (6-1)
- Ole Miss (5-1)
- Utah (5-1)
- Notre Dame (6-2)
- Duke (5-1)
- Tennessee (5-1)
- USC (6-1)
- LSU (5-2)
- Missouri (6-1)
- Louisville (6-1)
- Air Force (6-0)
- Tulane (5-1)
- Iowa (6-1)
- UCLA (4-2)
