Yes, rankings, not ratings. That must mean that it's time for...you guessed it: another season of Notre Dame football! What better way is there to "come to the end of another busy broadcast day"* than with a post about the greatest football** team in the history of the universe***?
Anyway, the point we're circuitously approaching is that Notre Dame is ranked #12 in the Associated Press's preseason college football poll. Obviously the voters are suffering from delusions about at least 11 teams, and it's up to Notre Dame to prove it this fall. Their first game will take place on September 1 in a home game against #14 Michigan, the first of five games against teams already ranked in the AP's top 25. Go Irish!****
* For you youngsters out there, that was the sort of phrase commonly used in the United States around 1 or 2 in the morning when, believe it or not, television stations would stop broadcasting for a few hours. This really did happen, starting I not-know-when and continuing until at least some point in the '80s, if memory serves.
** Not to be confused with soccer.
*** Yes, I'm being tongue in cheek here. (90+%.) But this disclaimer will disappear for the duration of the college football season.
**** Also for your newcomers, fear not: with very, very rare exceptions you'll only have to suffer/ignore (or enjoy, if you're a ND fan) a pair of posts on game days; otherwise, it will be business as usual.