“...why did the AP sportswriters and FBS coaches place Notre Dame above Miami and Alabama?”
And I’ll answer it the same way. The people who made the selections looked at it in the ESPN poll and not through the AP or coaches poll. I wasn’t in the room when they made the discussion or the determination so I can’t tell you their reasoning. But these selections, like all post season selections are always a mystery so you and I can conjecture till the cows come home. Mine is that they didn’t have as strong a schedule and so they were not and getting hammered by Michigan in October didn’t help. Add that to being beat by Miami early in the year, and that leaves questions.
As for polls, and they are what we are stuck with, they in reality don’t mean much.
During my college career I was attached to the College of Sequoias football team, Junior College, and at the end of the year, we were rated number 2 in the nation and state behind Fullerton JC by the AP. We played them and just beat the hell out of them in Bakersfield. And when the polls came out on Monday, they were still #1 and #1. So much for polls.
wy69