I normally agree with what you say, but come on. ND is not a top 5 team. IMO VT, Texas, USC (obviously), Georgia, Bama, LSU, Auburn, PSU, UCLA could all give ND a run for their money. Also FSU or Miami could very well beat them. They are 100% better than last year, but they are not there yet. I try not to look ahead till next year either. They will be great, but ND (much like the Cubs. Bears) always find a way to let me down. Tennessee will be tough this year, and I actually feel BYU will be a tough game. ND played their butts of on Saturday, but they can't play to that caliber week in and week out. If they could MSU would have never beat them, and they would have killed UM. They are a great team, with a lot of talent that Ty didn't know what to do with. However they are not top 5. Top 10, thats another story. I don't direct this at you, but I really wish some ND fans would come back to earth. It is real easy to get excited, and I am guilty of that as well. However we are just setting ourselves up for failure. Perhaps I have become a cynical due to how my teams have treated me in the past. However we must remember that this is a rebuilding year. I said Charlie will get his first NC in 2008. I still stand by this. I may get excited and say next year, and I have even mentioned it this year, but realistically they will need at least three years. I think expectations have gotten too high. When the season started I said they would win 7. If they still wind up only winning 7, I will not be disappointed. While this team can win out, I do not assume they will. Tennessee will be a tough game. BYU can be a tough game, depending which BYU shows up. The rest ND should win, but these two games worry me. With that being said ND will play in the Orange Bowl this year :D Also it is good to see all the ND-haters come out of the woodwork to complain about an "irrelevant" team. I really enjoy defending them, especially against scUM fans. :wink: It's true, when I get carried away I tend to say hyperbolic stuff like 'top-5 team'. Maybe not yet. I don't feel abashed at all though in thinking the Irish could win it all in 2006. If Weis can pile up this amount of improvement in one year, what happens next year when just about every player comes back except for Hoyte and four offensive linemen? (I don't count Dropsy Stovall.) And who's to say that Charlie's O-line recruits plus the backups won't be able to adequately pick up the slack? Maybe I haven't caught enough crap from my teams (the only truly painful moments of my life in sports so far are ND-BC 02 and the Cubs collapse in 03), but I really believe in this team and more importantly in Charlie Weis. And I agree...I love defending ND against scUM fans! And I also agree that ND will play in the Orange, against either Va Tech, Texas or perhaps even Alabama, any of which would be fantastic games.