On rivals you tend to get higher rankings just by the number of commits you get. Thats why I don't follow rivals team rankings to much. Lemming and phil steele do the team rankings the right way, position by position, and the quality of guys coming in.
The way rivals sets it up ND would rarely be in the top ten. Because its rare you see ND bring in 25 or more kids each year like some schools do. When looking at the Rivals team rankings I like to look at the teams average star rating.
For instance last years class on rivals had on average of 2.90 stars and 18 commits. And ranked 32nd. But when I went by the star average ND ranked about 24.
Washingto State for example ranked 25th last year on rivals. They had 28 commits 10 more then us, but had an overall lower star rating 2.61.
Rivals needs to learn its more about quality, not quantity.