Notre Dame and the BCS

The Fighting Irish aren't getting any love in the BCS polls and I think I know why.

Have you ever heard the old computer term "garbage in - garbage out"? Well one of the things the BCS uses is the computer rankings which use strength of schedule as one of the determining factors. As of October 15th the NCAA has Notre Dame's schedule ranked as just the 63rd toughest in the country (I'd link to it but it is in PDF format).

The NCAA uses winning percentage both of past opponents and of future opponents to rank the schedules. Therefore teams like Army and Cincinnati are ranked above the Irish in terms of strength of schedule. What is strange is the fact that of the top 3 teams (1. Oklahoma, 2. Michigan, 3. Stanford) - the Irish have played Michigan and will play Stanford on the final game. Other top ranked schedules include Tennessee (16th), USC (33rd) and Michigan State (45th). Obviously beating a team hurts you in strength of schedule because it decreases their winning percentage. This flaw is the same for everyone but it is a flaw. You would never be able to convince me that ND has the 63rd toughest schedule in 1-A football.

This is clearly a case of garbage in getting garbage out. I'm not sure how many of the 6 BCS computer rankings use this info but I'm sure this "official" ranking from the NCAA factors in more than a few of them.