Notre Dame will be the No. 3 team in the country when the Fighting Irish visit Heinz Field on Saturday, as they moved up one spot in the AP Top 25 released on Sunday.
The Irish survived a scare at home on Saturday, beating unranked Louisville by a narrow 12-7 margin, but were still able to move up in the rankings after Georgia lost to Alabama.
Pitt is 1-1 against ranked teams this season and was 1-1 in 2019. The last time Pitt played a team ranked in the top three was the 2018 ACC Championship Game, when the Panthers lost to Clemson, 42-10. The last time a top-three team came to Heinz Field, Pitt upset Miami at the end of the 2017 season.
Clemson remains the No. 1 team in the country after a rout of Georgia Tech. Alabama stayed at No. 2, while Georgia fell only to No. 4.
The big mover in the polls this week was North Carolina, which fell from No. 5 all the way to No. 14 after losing to unrated Florida State.
Miami moved up two spots from No. 13 to No. 11 after taking care of Pitt, 31-19, at Hard Rock Stadium.
Two other ACC schools are ranked. Virginia Tech rose to No. 23 after beating Boston College and NC State entered the poll at No. 23 with a comeback win over Duke.
Regionally, Penn State is ranked No. 8 in advance of the Lions’ first game at Indiana this week. West Virginia is fourth amongst others receiving votes and Marshall is ranked No. 22.
How do you move up in the poll when you narrowly beat an average team at home and can only score 12 points. If that was pitt, they would drop 5 spots.