Notre Dame vs. Boston College 2012: Irish win, but Alabama's loss the more important development

The Notre Dame Fighting Irish beat Boston College on Saturday, 21-6, to improve to 10-0, but the far more important development was the No. 1 Alabama Crimson Tide losing to Texas A&M.

Notre Dame moved up to No. 3 from last week's No. 4 in the AP Top 25 poll released Sunday. The Irish are ranked behind new No. 1 Oregon and No. 2 Kansas State.

Notre Dame blog One Foot Down writes about the pleasant and unexpected way this season has unfolded for ND fans.

First thing's first. GOD. BLESS. JOHNNY FOOTBALL. And God Bless A&M Now the Irish face their toughest adversary yet: perception. Everyone says Kansas State is number two, so they must be number two, right? Well, after getting in by the skin of our teeth versus Pitt and muddling through a very bad BC team, we haven't done ourselves any favors. If we had destroyed Pitt and BC, as I believe we were capable of doing, we could go to sleep at night saying we'd done all we could. What am I yammering on about, though? It wouldn't have mattered how we beat Pitt or BC. I'm just happy to be sitting here in November complaining that we're not going to be ranked number two despite being undefeated after 10 games. What more could I realistically ask for from these Fighting Irish? Ball security, you say?