I would like to personally thank the South Carolina Gamecocks and the West Virginia Mountaineers, along with the referees in South Bend and the media for allowing Notre Dame fans to think that they are relevant again, and for having the results allow them to be ranked disgustingly high.

For the last time, I will not consider Notre Dame relevant again, until they make it to a BCS game OR if they win a bowl game against a RANKED opponent.  And this is at the very LEAST.  Going around and beating bad teams does not make you relevant.  Think about this for a second, Michigan turned the ball over 6 times, three times in the red zone, and they only won by a touchdown, at home.  Notre Dame went to overtime, and beat a terribly overrated Stanford team without Andrew Luck on a controversial call, also at home.  Beat Oklahoma or USC on the road, or do what I said above, and we’ll talk.

This is Notre Dame’s bowl game history since 1995.

Pathetic.

Onto the AP poll voters.

Bronze Medal: Harold Gutmann, Herald-Sun of Durham NC.

Congrats to Harold on his first Bronze Medal.  To be honest, he’s here for only a few reasons.  One, Notre Dame #3? Good joke.  Florida behind Kansas State? Great joke. Louisville #11?  An even better one.  And finally, how is Texas still ranked?  They got destroyed by Oklahoma, and have no business being in the top 25 after that embarrassment.  The rest of this guys poll is decent, but his top five is a joke, along with Louisville.  Louisville hasn’t even played a ranked team yet, let alone beaten one.

Silver Medal: Jeremy Sampson, Lansing, MI, WLIX-TV

This was really close, Jeremy burst onto the scene to capture this week’s Silver Medal and was the first person that I almost considered giving the Gold to over the reigning champ.  His rankings of #3-#5 are just as bad as Harold’s, but his rankings of #11-#17 are what had me dumbfounded.

South Carolina lost to a top 10 team and would destroy Louisville and Oregon State, but because both of those teams are undefeated they get ranked higher?  Their strength of schedule is a complete and utter embarrassment, why does no one take this into consideration?  Then Jeremy puts Cincinnati at #16 and Florida State at #17, which is just flat out shameful.  The only noteworthy team Cincy has beaten is Virginia Tech, and they proved to be very fraudulent early.  Florida State meanwhile, has a last-second loss on the road, but voters fail to realize that they are still at top 15 team.

Gold Medal: Jon Wilner, San Jose Mercury News

This week was the closest he has ever been to being upset, because I really like where he has Cincinnati, Rutgers and Notre Dame.  The Big East is fraudulent and my thoughts on Notre Dame are at the start of the post.  What clinched his most-recent Gold Medal though was his top 15.  Kansas State #2, Oregon #4, Oregon State #7, Louisville #13 and Michigan #15?  These are all very questionable rankings at best.

How Kansas State is #2 and Oregon State is #7 is just beyond me.  It’s some of the worst crap I’ve ever seen.  Oregon State has beaten an EXTREMELY overrated Wisconsin team, and a like-wise overrated UCLA team.  I mean, sure Wisconsin was #13 when Oregon State beat them at home, but seriously?  If you’ve watched Wisconsin since then, you would know that this is one of the worst Wisconsin teams in 20 years, and Oregon State only beat them by a field goal at home.

I would say I’m thankful that none of these polls end up being a part of the BCS rankings, but it doesn’t matter.  The computer polls that I looked through have utterly shameful rankings and the formulas either don’t make sense or are made up.  But that rant is for another post, and will be coming soon.