When the first College Football Playoff rankings were released on Tuesday night, it wasn’t surprising to see Georgia, Alabama, Notre Dame and Clemson make up the top four, in that order.

All four squads have had outstanding seasons, though they’ll have to keep playing well in order to maintain their top-four ranking.

However, ESPN analyst David Pollack said on Wednesday that he doesn’t think the Fighting Irish are on the same level as the other three teams.

As you can see in the clip below, he thinks Notre Dame is a great team, just not as great as the other three on the defensive side of the ball:

“Clemson can absolutely suffocate you defensively,” he said. “Georgia can suffocate you defensively. Alabama can suffocate you defensively. All three of those teams that we talked about can do that, and I will say that there are question marks about their offense.

“Kelly Bryant — can he beat you consistently? Jalen Hurts — can he beat you consistently? Jake Fromm — can he beat you consistently? Notre Dame still has that — they can run the ball, but can the quarterback beat you? But they’re not as suffocating defensively. That’s why… they’re not even close personnel-wise, size-wise, athleticism-wise as those other teams.”

Notre Dame has a tough schedule remaining, much like the other three teams, so we’ll learn a lot over the coming weeks.

However things play out over the next month, we should be in for a great Playoff this January.