re: Josh Pate “ND would win the SEC this year.”

Which schools like LSU and Bama have plenty of

Bama and LSU do have rich alumni. But if schools like Stanford, Vandy, and others decided to they would run circles around Bama and LSU. But, the reality is those schools got that way not by buying things that don’t really matter which football doesn’t. Stanford and Vandy know where the real money is and that is what they pursue. But, if they ever decided to they could buy whoever they want for football.

We’ll all see how it shakes out over the next decade. No one predicted Indiana would go from a bottom feeder team to an undefeated Natty team with a former no name Cal QB no one in the SEC recruited even though he’s from Florida.

The SEC has been recruiting off stars and now with the portal they have a lot more work to do. Gonna be a fun season seeing who it pays off for.

What big schools don't have big money donors? There are some sleeping giants out there like Michigan State. I don't know why Gilbert and Ishbia don't pump in tens of millions, maybe they want to focus on their pro teams. But, the Acrisure guy put like $400 million into the university and I'm sure Magic is doing his part, too.

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I’ve given several reasons for why

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I re-read each of your posts since we started the debate to see if I missed anything, and all you've said is:

1) "You're a tard for citing Vegas" (you didn't say what Vegas has incorrect about ND. You implied you think Vegas is wrong, but you didn't say why [other than #4/#5 below, which we'll get to in a sec]).

2) ND's SOS sucks. (That's not an argument for whether ND is good or bad. The opponents have nothing to do with the quality of the team. If the Seahawks played ND's SOS, they're still the Seahawks. If UMass played ND's SOS, they're still UMass.)

3) Attacking my choice of using power ratings / advanced metrics (by the way, since you seem to be a cfb novice, these are opponent-adjusted. That's why they're "advanced" and not just "simple" like yards per game, which doesn't factor in opponent strength...), attacking my "timeframe" of utilizing the most recent ND vs SEC direct head-to-head games / most recent ND and SEC playoff results, etc., without saying what data/timeframe you think should be used (except for, I'm guessing, #4 / #5 below).

So here's essentially the only "meat" you've had in this whole thread:

4) ND is 4-4 in their last 8 against the SEC. (Again, not even accurate, it's 5-3.)

You then later said "Modern history" has "proven" ND isn't "good enough."(What is "modern history"? And "good enough" to do what? I'm presuming you mean "to win a national championship", which: a) is not the premise of the thread; and b) doesn't "prove" anything about the ability of the 2026 ND football team to compete for the title or (hypothetically) the SEC. Texas hasn't won since 2005 [when half of their players weren't even born] and Bama hasn't since 2020 [when none of their current players were in college and their current HC was at Fresno State]; that means nothing about whether or not those 2026 teams can compete for the SEC or national title. And in August 2025, ALL of history had "proven" Indiana wasn't good enough...).

5) The SEC has won 4 of the last 7 national championships and both participants in 2021 were from the SEC.

^Those were the only points you made in this thread related to why you think ND can't compete in the SEC in 2026. The majority of your posts are just musings about my "sample size" or "time constraints" or "double standards" without you explicitly saying what you think the sample size / time constraints / relevant data is/should be. That's why I'm considering #4 and #5 your only actual arguments, until you correct me or add on. And both of your #4 and #5 arguments are driven by data from 4-7 seasons ago (or beyond), which (to piggyback off you...) is an absolutely stupid timeframe to use when evaluating current programs.

I'll give Sun God credit for being like, "yeah, ND is good now, and up there with the other SEC favorites like Texas and Georgia... but I really don't give a shite until you win a national championship." That's funny and fair. Gentle Jack Jones made a very good / fair argument about the 2024 run and how it's presented (I'll address some of his points in my next post). But you've provided nothing of "substance" in this thread other than #4 and #5, both of which are extremely weak points for 2026 given they contain inaccurate and/or (more importantly) irrelevant data for 2026 assessment.

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GentleJackJones

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Nice post. I can't speak for Abu and what he said, but I'll try addressing some of your points.

First, about the 2025 CFP decision (which is less relevant to the context of this thread about ND's capability in 2026): it's in the past. Bama and OU were both "more deserving" because they finished with the same record as ND and had a tougher overall SOS. Each of them had a win better than ND's best win (I'd say each had only one win definitively better than ND's best win, but no need to get into the weeds there). The most annoying part is the CFP's official criteria is "best" not "most deserving". "Best" was essentially the basis for Bama jumping FSU in 2023, particularly after the Travis injury, even though FSU was more deserving. Somehow, the criteria flipped last season, and Bama was the beneficiary yet again.

I originally had more specifically written out about it but deleted it, because it's over and done with, the topic isn't really relevant to this thread, and this post will already be extremely long.

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As far as your point about the 2024 run (which is more related to ND's current capabilities under Freeman / in comparison to the SEC, so more apt to this thread): The point about bringing up the 2024 run isn't to act like 2024 ND was some all-time juggernaut. We clearly were not.

Yes, Indiana 2024 was not Indiana 2025. Yes, PSU/Franklin were big-game chokers. Yes, UGA would've been better with Beck (I don't think he would've been 13 points better than Stockton: Beck wouldn't have prevented Monroe Freeling from being a turnstile that day, or helped UGA's kickoff coverage, or prevented ND from converting 3 3rd/4th downs in the 4th quarter to run more than 7 mins off the clock, but I digress...). And yes, OSU was clearly better / more talented.

Regardless of all of those issues/flaws of IU/UGA/PSU, all three of them were legitimate top-10 teams (by both metrics [that fancy word again...] and AP final ranking). That was still an "actual" grind. And that leads into the following two points:

1) This whole "SEC grind" is dumb. Is it the deepest conference in the country? Of course. But if you're a legitimate top-5 team, going into Columbia [pick either Missouri or South Carolina, same difference] is not that hard. Hosting Florida or Mississippi State or Auburn if you're a legitimate top-5 team is not that hard. Just because Kentucky is better than Rutgers doesn't make it an actual challenge if you're an elite team.

That leads into my frustration with the hypocrisy of this next example: Ole Miss had to hold on to beat Arkansas at home by 6. Texas at home at halftime was only up by 4 against Arkansas. Tennessee had to hold on in Knoxville to beat them by one score. LSU won by 1 in Baton Rouge. If I were to say, "that's embarrassing", the response is, "no, you don't get it, every week in the SEC is tough, it's a grind." No, Arkansas just sucks. ND walked into Fayetteville and made them look like an FCS team, because they suck. If you're elite, you'd embarrass them, because they suck.

2) I made this point earlier, but the SEC has yet to be able to make a deep run in the 12-team CFP era. They've had similar opportunities to ND's in 2024. They're 3-6 in non-SEC games (obviously when it's SEC vs SEC, someone has to win) in the 12-team CFP, and the 3 wins are against 3 of the worst teams of the 24 that have qualified (Tulane, Arizona State, Clemson). So say what you want about IU, UGA and PSU, but all three of them were better than each of Tulane, ASU and Clemson. The SEC has had 8 qualifiers, and ND literally has THREE wins better than any single one of the SEC's CFP wins against a non-conference opponent, despite having 8 qualifiers in total.

I think some people think I'm arguing 2026 ND would compete with 2019 LSU or 2020 Bama or 2022 UGA... I do not think that. But there's no indication that type of dominance exists in the SEC anymore. The reason ND would be up there this year with UGA and Texas as conference favorites is not just that ND is better now than under BK (we are), it's also because the top SEC teams are worse than they used to be. Peak Meyer UF, peak Saban Bama and even peak Smart UGA no longer exists.

Also, I know you know that, based on your posts in this thread, I just wanted to clarify my thoughts. Happy to further continue the discussion if you have any disagreements with what I said.

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Straw man.

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Another phrase you don't know the definition of.

Bring up a point beside #4 and #5 about why ND can't compete. Come on. Should be easy for you.

I'm willing to have a discussion with you.

What's "modern history"? What is ND "not good enough" to do? Tell me, let's talk...

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You’re not capable, can you not read either?

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Capable of what? The national title? The (hypothetical) SEC?

One final olive branch for discussion:

Here's what I have from you on why ND wouldn't be able to compete in the SEC in 2026. If there's anything else you've argued that I've missed, if I'm incorrect on my assessment of your argument, or if there's something you'd like to add, please let me know. Likewise if you'd like to discuss these (since you chose not to address them in my earlier post) please let me know.

a) ND is 5-3 in its past 8 games against the SEC;

b) ND's strength of schedule sucks;

c) Modern history has proven ND isn't consistently "good enough" (this is extremely vague and I don't know what specifically you're referring to, but as I've said multiple times now, I'm willing to listen/discuss if you can expound / be more specific);

d) The SEC has won 4 of the past 7 national championships and had both participants in 2021.

I've addressed these points in the much longer post of mine earlier, so if you want to address that post of mine with a substantive response and/or address this one, please do.

Fine, updated:

"The SEC has won 4 of the past 7 national championships" (which is what I said in my original point #5 above).