Idle time leads to endless arguments. Sports typically makes for a harmless venue to have them, even as they pertain to college football and Notre Dame. Thus, a deluge of “way-too-early” top-25 rankings for next season are published only hours after this season ended.
For once, those rankings support a stance held in these parts.
Take four national websites’ listings from Tuesday — Sports Illustrated, ESPN, Yahoo and The Athletic. They put the Irish at Nos. 5, 5, 6 and 11, respectively.
Now, none of those will directly mirror August’s preseason top 25 from the Associated Press or Phil Steele’s power listing in July.