One vote for the Irish | by Pat

The pre-season AP poll came out and Notre Dame is starting the 2005 season the exact same way it started the 2004 season, with one lone AP vote. The difference being that this year the AP vote has pulled out of the BCS process and will not be used to place teams into the various BCS bowl games. It's replacement, the Harris Interactive College Football Poll, will include 114 voters -- consisting of former coaches, players, administrators, and a handful of various media members -- who will have their names released tomorrow. Here is this year's pre-season AP Top 25. Notre Dame opponents in bold.

Rank 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25	Team (first-place votes) Southern California (60) Texas (4) Tennessee (13) Michigan LSU Ohio State Oklahoma Virginia Tech Miami Florida Iowa Louisville (1) Georgia Florida State Purdue Auburn Texas A&M Boise State California Arizona State Texas Tech Boston College Pittsburgh Fresno State Virginia	Record 13-0 11-1 10-3 9-3 9-3 8-4 12-1 10-3 9-3 9-3 10-2 11-1 10-2 9-3 7-5 13-0 7-5 11-1 10-2 9-3 8-4 9-3 8-4 9-3 8-4	Points 1619 1500 1376 1329 1291 1205 1204 1184 1142 1080 1011 892 869 764 711 650 576 375 358 313 256 232 211 196 153	Final '04 rank 1 5 13 14 16 20 3 10 11 NR 8 6 7 15 NR 2 NR 12 9 19 18 21 25 22 23

Others receiving votes: Alabama (6-6) 121, Oregon (5-6) 97, Utah (12-0) 77, Georgia Tech (7-5) 62, Bowling Green (9-3) 57, North Carolina State (5-6) 57, Colorado (8-5) 38, UCLA (6-6) 19, Minnesota (7-5) 18, Iowa State (7-5) 18, Miami (Ohio) (8-5) 15, Penn State (4-7) 11, Texas El-Paso (8-4) 10, Oregon State (7-5) 8, Wisconsin (9-3) 5, Nebraska (5-6) 3, Memphis (8-4) 3, Clemson (6-5) 3, Colorado State (4-7) 1, Notre Dame (6-6) 1, Southern Mississippi (7-5) 1, Toledo (9-3) 1, Wyoming (7-5) 1, West Virginia (8-3) 1.

As mentioned previously, this will be the first time since 1963-64 that Notre Dame starts off consecutive seasons unranked. For all the recent rash of pro-Charlie Weis articles it seems that when push comes to shove, most media members don't have much faith in him to get the 2005 version of the Fighting Irish back into the Top 25.

Update:
I was trying to figure out which lone wolf cast his lot with the Irish and luckily the excellent fanblogs.com was nice enough to list out all the AP voters. Check it out.