After beating Alabama for the first time in Tuscaloosa since 2007 Georgia football climbed to No. 1 in the updated AP Poll rankings. Not everyone agreed with this ranking though as four AP Poll voters didn't vote Georgia No. 1 in their rankings.
ESPN also doesn't have Georgia at No. 1 in their Football Power Index rankings either as Notre Dame somehow jumped UGA even though the Bulldogs had the best win of the week in college football.
NEW: Updated ESPN FPI after week 6 of the College Football season📈📉https://t.co/sgusgkdX3i pic.twitter.com/kLHwAC0hyV
— On3 (@On3) October 11, 2026
Notre Dame has no business being ranked above Georgia
Notre Dame doesn't deserve to be ranked above Georgia. So far this season the Irish haven't played anyone noteworthy. They haven't played one ranked team yet this season and the teams they have played are some of the worst teams in their respective conferences.
Notre Dame does deserve credit for beating these teams by a wide margin, but that's what Georgia did to their first five opponents who weren't that great either. Georgia however has their win at Alabama now, and nothing Notre Dame has done even compares to that.
Notre Dame also doesn't even have as good of a win as Georgia's victory over Oklahoma which looks like a much better win after the Sooners just beat Texas this week.
The good news for Georgia is that the AP Poll is the ranking used, so they will have a No. 1 by their name when they play Auburn this week. Rankings at the end of the day don't mean that much in the middle of the season, but ESPN is implying that Notre Dame would be favored over Georgia on a neutral field if they played right now even though the Irish haven't done anything on the field to prove they are that good yet.
Georgia already proved ESPN wrong once
This isn't the first time that ESPN has doubted Georgia this season. They also were one of the first organizations to pick Alabama to beat UGA this past weekend, and that ultimately did not come true.
It truly doesn't matter what ESPN says though. In fact Georgia might be better off with them picking teams to beat them or ranking other teams above them because that is a source of motivation they can use to push forward for the rest of the season.
The only way Georgia will get to play Notre Dame and attempt to prove ESPN wrong is if they meet in the College Football Playoff. These two teams collided in the playoff two years ago which Notre Dame won, but that Georgia team featured an inexperienced Gunner Stockton making his first college start after Carson Beck got hurt.
Georgia is a much different team now and Stockton is way better than he was back then, so facing Notre Dame this season with revenge on their minds from two years ago would be a fun matchup.
ESPN thinks Notre Dame would win that game, but based on this season so far it would be hard to pick against Georgia in that matchup.
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