Ok Gipper once again I'm going to answer your questions. After that will you answer mine and Terry's? Yes, a team that does not win its conference championship may be eligible to play for the National Championship. (Ask Don, he should agree with me) I would not put money on UCF in a a one game play-off with Alabama. Your turn!
Even up, when the bookies were giving the Jets what 16 points. :roll: Good thing you didn't pursue a career as a professional gambler!
I see that the Irish have an unusual grad transfer coming this fall. Keenan Sweeney who will graduate from Auburn and then come to ND to do a 1 year Masters program in Global Health before going to Medical School. So since he's here anyway he's going to walk on the football program. So why not a scholarship? Well he's a FB, not exactly a position that's in the playbook very much in the Kelly offense. His Dad is a ND grad and so is is Mom, Dad played for Dan Devine. Sound like this kid just wants that ND degree on his resume' and suit up for the Blue and Gold to boot. Hope he gets to play some at least.
a by God H Back who can block and seal the perimeter. Thank you baby Jesus. I wish the kid well and hope he has a great year.
I hope he has a good year as well, doubtful though that we'll see him a lot as an H back in this offense. I could be wrong of course, but it's been rare that we've even used a TE as a Hback. Just the fact that he's a walkon with a family history (both parents) being ND grads that he just wanted to come to ND and once he was accepted to the Grad program called the football office about walking on. If he was really going to be counted on to provide a lot of playing time like most Grad transfers he'd be on scholarship.
The top 25 players of the Weis Era continue to be released over on ISD. Today was #10 through #6, which included Tommy Z and Darius Walker. The top 5 have to of course include Brady Quinn, Jeff Samardzija, Golden Tate, Jimmy Clausen, and Kyle Rudolph ...at least those are the guys who are left that had great careers under Chollie. We'll See. Kind of fun to review those guys, some of whom I'd totally forgotten about. https://irishsportsdaily.com/s/6340/isd-top-25-charlie-weis-era-10-6
Well summer is barely started and there is another key ND football player in the news. Te'von Coney who is poised to have a great Sr. year, possibly even an AA senior year on the ND defense, is going to trial on that marijuana possession charge from back in 2016 when Max Redfield took some youngsters on an ill fated trip to find some party somewhere and of course weed was in the car. Redfield of course was booted, but the others Dexter Williams, Kevin Stepherson and Te'von Coney all got some type of deal, don't know what it was but they all played. Now Coney is going to face a trial and reading the article I'm not really clear on whether he's trying to get his record expunged, or something. He's taken some drug test recently but nobody is saying whether or not he passed or failed. I wonder if this is related to Dexters problems which have been rumored but not detailed. Loss of Coney for 2018, or even if he'd suspended for the 1st four games or something like that will be a huge hit for the Irish defense. https://www.onefootdown.com/2018/5/17/17364800/notre-dame-football-tevon-coney-faces-trial-marijuana-fulton-county-indiana-linebacker-irish
That article was not very clear as to what is going on. The most likely scenario is that there was an original agreement that if Coney kept his nose clean and passed future drug tests that the original charges would be dropped. He couldn't pass his last test, the agreement was withdrawn and he withdrew his original guilty plea and is forcing a trial. I hope that there's no fallout with Kelly and the failed test, if that's what happened.
So I see I didn't answer KP's question. The teams that should have been invited t play for the NC were Clemson OK Ga. UCF All ended the season strong. I wouldn't have taken a team that in it's second to last game took the week off and played Mercer. They then took the week off getting beaten by Auburn by 18 and while the other teams were playing for conference championships they, yep, took the week off. I don't think a team that didn't win it's conference, division, and wasn't even the best team in its own state should be in the mix. Unlike Alabama, UCF showed up, played hard and won EVERY WEEK.
How hard did you have to play against that schedule of theirs. Irish would have been undefeated against that schedule.
Terry, there would have been a lot of undefeated teams with that schedule. You know Alabama lost to #6, then beat #1, then beat #1. Did CFU even play a top #6 school? Hey look if you think CFU got cheated and is the real National Champion then have at it. Ohio State got into the playoffs without winning their conference. Don't remember you getting upset about it so it must be something about Alabama. That's okay celebrate with all of the other folks down there. I'm sure it will be one for the history books :lol:
The 4 teams chosen were in the top seven in the NCAA SOS rankings. UCF was ranked 54th. End of discussion. Any effort to suggest that UCF should have been chosen is misguided. Actually, I like UCF’s NC campaign. I think it’s an ingenious way to raise the school’s profile and attract applicants for admission. Plus, they aren’t the first - and won’t be the last - program to claim they wuz robbed. However, to claim they were one of the top 4 teams in the country is downright laughable. I think Terry suggested that they could have been included in an 8 team playoff. I would agree but believe that they would have been the #8 seed.