Notre Dame football sees no poll benefit from Georgia Tech dominance

The Notre Dame football team might have thought that with a big win over a 5-2 Georgia Tech team, they'd finally convince pollsters they deserved to be back in the Top 10. Instead, it looks like they're going to have to rack up several more wins to really be on safe footing for the playoffs.

The Fighting Irish stepped on the field on Saturday knowing they have a very small margin for error, thanks to their loss earlier in the year to Northern Illinois. Still, it appears that teams like Clemson are getting more excuses made for them by the pollsters.

The Notre Dame football team entered Saturday at No. 12 in the country. They'll enter next Saturday's game against Navy with the same rank. Both the coaches poll and the AP poll have the Irish not moving at all, despite a blowout win over a decent team, on neutral ground.

Notre Dame football gets hosed by polls

The bright side of continuing to be No. 12 is that the Irish are indeed set to at least make the playoffs. The bad news is that the very small margin of error actually seems to be no margin at all. One more loss anywhere to anyone and it's clear the pollsters will drop them too far to still make the Final 12.

Notre Dame football is right behind No. 11 BYU in the latest poll, with Iowa State jumping over both despite barely beating an unranked UCF. Meanwhile, 7-0 Indiana is ranked right behind the Fighting Irish at No. 13, just waiting for Marcus Freeman and company to falter.