Notre Dame returned to The Associated Press and USA Today Top 25 polls on Sunday, with the Irish coming in at No. 25. Notre Dame also broke into the BCS standings at 23 on Sunday.
Coach Charlie Weis is surely happy about being ranked again, but he knows that getting into the polls is just the first step in a process for the Irish to reach a big-time bowl game.
The Irish need to finish in the top eight of the BCS standings for a guaranteed berth, and Notre Dame has to be in the top 14 with nine wins to be eligible to play in a BCS bowl.
"If we want put to ourselves in the picture to play in a top-flight bowl game at the end of the year we have to slowly but surely, week by week take care of business," Weis said. "In the loss to USC, you know, a loss never helps you, but fortunately for us because of how the game played out, it didn't really hurt us drastically by vanishing from the picture. So then last week we beat Boston College to sneak back in there and now we got Washington State. We're not going to jump ahead of 10 teams in a week. You want to get ahead of a couple of teams. Each week you want to get ahead of a couple more."
