SOUTH BEND – Joe Schmidt didn’t go searching for the nearest television or computer to find the College Football Playoff rankings on Tuesday.
In fact, the Notre Dame linebacker didn’t know where the Irish stood until someone told him.
Schmidt didn’t have much of a reaction when he found out the playoff committee slotted Notre Dame at No. 5 in the poll.
“I mean, it’s cool that we’re ranked where we are,” Schmidt said on Wednesday. “… We could be ranked 5 or 55. It doesn’t really matter until the last week of the year.
“We have a game this week. It’s cool we’re ranked where we are. But at the same time, we have a lot of work to do.”
The Irish (7-1) didn’t put a whole lot of stock into the first playoff rankings of the season. The team is focused on this week’s game at Pittsburgh (6-2).
“We completely understand as a team it means absolutely nothing at this point in time of the year,” quarterback DeShone Kizer said. “The national champion last year (Ohio State) at this time was 16th. It doesn’t necessarily bring us to any sort of confidence level.
“It makes us put in our mind that we’re right there in the top. But we just understand there’s only one way we’re going to end up accomplishing that goal, and that’s to win out and take care of business on our end of the things. That’s the mindset we’ve had all season, it’s going to continue going forward. As long as we go 1-0 each week, we’ll see where we end up at the end.”
The top four teams qualify for the playoff. Clemson, LSU, Ohio State and Alabama currently hold those spots. The final ranking is released on Dec. 6.
“You got to play all the games before the rankings really matter,” Schmidt said. “We’re happy about where we are right now, but we’re still hungry, need to continue to get better. That’s the message that’s being passed along by everybody. ‘All right, we’re ignoring that in a ways and we’re going to continue to work hard.'”
Notre Dame will try to carry over the momentum it built with October victories against Navy, USC and Temple.
“Our last four games have been as good as anybody that’s played in the country,” Notre Dame coach Brian Kelly said. “I don’t know where it stands up exactly. I just know we played a very good schedule in the month of October. We have to win more games, but I’ll stand up our schedule to anybody else right now.
“… Our goal is to be in this conversation into December. The only way we can do that is if we clean up some of the things from the Temple game.”
Note: Former Notre Dame running back Greg Bryant orally committed to play football at UAB. He made the announcement on Instagram. Bryant enrolled at ASA College of Miami after Notre Dame announced he was ineligible for the 2015 season in August.
Twitter: @lamondpope
