Southern gentleman shares inaccurate Notre Dame thought

Whoever originally coined the phrase “don’t let facts get in the way of a good story” must have been a regular listener to the Paul Finebaum radio show.  Finebaum, the college football wizard of the south, has made a living of talking ball in the southeast and been one of ESPN’s biggest voices on the sport in recent years.

That’s all great for his resume and like I’ve stated before on here, each dealing I’ve ever had with the man has been nothing short of great.

All that said, that doesn’t mean what he says adds up.

In the wake of the Associated Press top 25 poll being released this week, Finebaum brought up Notre Dame on his show Tuesday.  The Irish, fresh off an 11-2 mark, ranked fifth in the preseason rankings, just like they did in the Coaches Poll last week.

Finebaum was none too pleased about that and chose to simply disregard recent history while sharing his thoughts.

“They should not even be in the top 10, Greeny,” Finebaum said. “This is an absolute joke, and it happens every year with the AP poll, which is just as worthless as preseason NFL football. It’s ridiculous.

Now let’s take a. quick look back at the last few years:

Notre Dame preseason AP rank and final rank:
2021: 9th/8th
2020: 10th/5th
2019: 9th/12th
2018: 12th/5th
2017: Unranked/11th

So four of the last five years Notre Dame has finished higher than they started the year in the AP poll.  But because Gerry Faust was nothing but a disappointment in the early-80’s, folks like Finebaum still preach their inaccuracies for all to hear.

And the base of his audience just eats them up.

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Story originally appeared on Fighting Irish Wire