Coaching Changes and SEC Wednesday #5

This is going to be a little bit different from the other entries in this series of blogs. I really didn’t have enough time to reflect and gather information on Monday. I had work until fairly late that day and had not had much sleep over the weekend. I also don’t like to feature anything lengthy when I post my rankings.

I thought about maybe posting something on its own yesterday, but having posted blogs three days in a row, I didn’t want to do that either. I still have to write something tomorrow for my ratings site, so I needed the break. I won’t go into much detail, but the basic picks and recap for SEC Wednesday is at the bottom if you just want to get straight down to business.

With the housekeeping out of the way, I want to start by acknowledging all the well-wishes etc. that Les Miles and his family have received from fans and coaches throughout the SEC and college football as a whole.

I’m starting to get annoyed with Nick Saban trying to make me like him. A couple of weeks ago he tried to get in my good graces by yelling at Lane Kiffin. Then he had what seemed to be heartfelt remarks remembering his time at Kent St. and the shooting that took place there. Now he goes on for about a minute about Les Miles during his weekly press conference when they’re not playing LSU for over two months. He’s not normally someone who likes to go on about extrinsic information like that.

I know Saban is going to miss beating Les, but I also think Les is one of those guys that even Saban couldn’t help but like.

As an aside, apart from single comment in a forum, I haven’t heard anyone who met Miles say anything negative about the experience of meeting him or talking to him. Even if one assumes the story were true, I guess once in 12 years it’s allowable to momentarily not be in the mood to talk to a stranger.

I would disagree with Saban’s characterization of the decision that was made, but what he had to say about Les as a man and as a coach was fitting. There is some commonality with Georgia’s decision to fire Mark Richt at the end of last season, as Saban pointed out, but I think both Georgia then and LSU now were entering a kind of managed decline. I’ll get into that below.

I also wanted to share a fan tribute to Miles that was posted. I don’t know if I’m getting sentimental in my old age, so maybe it’s just me, but I dare LSU fans to watch these two videos without some kind of emotional reaction. The first link shows the Saban piece I mentioned, but several other coaches make contributions including Kirby Smart, Butch Jones (who never got to face Les), Mark Stoops, and Jim McElwain. These were coaches who happened to have been asked about it in their Monday press briefings. I particularly liked McElwain’s mention of the players and families.

http://www.espn.com/video/clip?id=17645961

Gus Malzahn’s press conference wasn’t until yesterday, but he had good words to say as well. He said Les is a legend and one of the reasons the SEC is what it is today, and I agree. SEC defenses were getting spotty, traditional offenses had been eroded by those chasing Spurrier a few years before and were just about to be threatened by the emergence of the spread that Gus himself helped to pioneer. Of course the best offenses have elements of all of the above. I’m going to give the timestamp, so it won’t load the same way: https://youtu.be/QdqNqGKgKkk?t=15m28s

In the last year, the SEC lost all three coaches with longer tenures at their respective schools than Nick Saban has at Alabama. It was fitting that Spurrier coached his last game against Miles last season.

Anyway, to get back to the decision, I first want to acknowledge again that Les Miles in my opinion is the best head coach of LSU in history.

There have been positive and negative trends at times. The first three years Les won 85% of his games. The Tigers went only 17-9 over the following two years, but then it was like nothing had ever happened. They went 44-9 (over 83% wins) over the following four years, improving Miles’ overall winning percentage to almost 80%. Had he stopped there, his tenure at LSU would have ended with a better winning percentage than his mentor Bo Schembechler had at Michigan.

Here is a list of the only notable major-college coaching tenures I can think of who did better with a comparable or greater number of games: Saban (Alabama), Carroll (USC), Switzer (Oklahoma), Parseghian (Notre Dame), Osborne (Nebraska), Devaney (Nebraska), Neyland (Tennessee), Wilkinson (Oklahoma), Bryant (Alabama), Spurrier (Florida), Tressel (Ohio St.). Urban Meyer hasn’t had a comparable tenure at one school, but of course combining Florida and Ohio St. puts him pretty high on that list. Pretty good company there.

There were a few other notable tenures who passed him up as his winning percentage decreased since then: Lou Holtz (Arkansas), Darrell Royal (Texas), and Mack Brown (Texas). Active head coach Bob Stoops (Oklahoma) is nearly 2 percentage points ahead of Miles, but it’s going in the wrong direction for him as well.

So despite a lot of young talent and despite an upset over Ole Miss and despite giving Alabama all they could handle, LSU went 8-5 the next year (2014). Combined with the 11-5 total between September 1, 2015, and now, that dropped Les to almost exactly 77%.

I’ve been thinking this was the year this group of LSU players would peak since two years ago, so I wasn’t that discouraged by the losses in 2014 and 2015 because we recovered when the same thing happened in 2008 and 2009.

I thought this year might have been like 2010 or even 2011. We would have recovered from the mediocre play of the previous two seasons and everything would have come together. I think those four games were enough to see that a similar resurgence just was not in the cards.

LSU had a spark around the second quarter of both the Jacksonville St. and Mississippi St. games, but with an experienced team like this, we would have run away with both of those games from beginning to end in past seasons. Either Wisconsin or Auburn might have been close, but I don’t think both games would have had to come down to the last minute, nor do I think we would have lost both.

I’ve defended Miles from people who wanted him gone for the last few years, but it just became clear that we were just going to get farther and farther away from that 80% mark I mentioned and the level of play (accounting for the normal ebbs and flows of experience that take place in college) was going to keep slipping.

That winning percentage was just going to keep going down. The same thing was happening to Georgia. I think Richt’s winning percentage would have continued to decline as well. He lost his job with just under a 74% total winning percentage, but that number was going down over the previous three seasons. In a couple more years without a change, I think Miles’ percentage probably would have fallen below Saban’s LSU winning percentage of exactly 75%.

Les Miles with TE Foster Moreau, who scored the only official touchdown of the game on Saturday. (Moreau said he was not actually assigned a route on the play.)

SEC Wednesday #5

Back to your regularly-scheduled programming…

Last Week

Alabama just had to get that extra touchdown. I could swear Lane Kiffin Is placing bets on the side. This has happened with Alabama a lot the past couple of years.

I was surprised by the Ole Miss margin of victory. I guess Saban was the driving force behind Kirby Smart.

I was also surprised how A&M pulled away.

Florida was way out ahead against the spread, but of course Tennessee had to score one too many times. It just turned out to be a big win weekend and I was expecting a series of close games. Why couldn’t this have happened with Auburn?

Well I thought South Carolina-Kentucky might be the magical bookie game, but I just couldn’t make a pick that didn’t make any sense to me.

I was right about Mississippi St. – UMass at least. The Minutemen are a little too good to lose by three touchdowns at home.

I saw final scores on the television or computer showing me that I picked the right team to win and the game was over! But they were both wrong somehow. At least I got the spread right in the Vandy game, but it’s another bad week in that category.

Missouri beat their FCS opponent as expected.

So given that I picked the wrong team to get credit for the last-second touchdown, I ended up with three losses straight-up, although the only genuine surprise for me was Kentucky.

Overall I fall to 36-8; against the spread I’m now 16-21.

 

Next Week

I’ll start with the easy one. If Arkansas can’t beat Alcorn St., they should just disband the football program.

Florida goes back to the state of Tennessee. I screwed up by taking the Gators with the points last time (but right winner), and I screwed up by not picking Vandy to win (but right on the point spread). On the other hand, neither team can be trusted week-to-week. Vandy can be mediocre at home after a win, and Florida has done really well with the lesser teams this year. Florida minus 10.

I don’t think ULM is a whole lot different from Arkansas St., so the Auburn offense should come back with a vengeance. I’ll take the War Eagle Plains Tigers -32.5.

I got burned by both Tennessee and Georgia against the spread last week. I don’t think Tennessee wins by 10 again, but 3.5 is too small to pick a team I don’t think will win, so the Vols -3.5.

I’m going to pick South Carolina and the points against A&M. I still think the Aggies will drop a couple, but they’ll be against the West. I just think South Carolina will keep it within 18.

If Lane Kiffin has Alabama throwing from the shotgun up 30, I’m not going to be happy; but I don’t think Alabama goes to Lexington and wins by 35 especially now that Kentucky has finally shown some fight.

Memphis made Ole Miss and people who pick the SEC look silly last year, but I don’t think the Rebels are resting easy this time, and they’ll be at home. The blue Tigers probably faced a tougher opponent in the spring game than they have since. I just think they’ll be out of their element. Ole Miss -14.5. 17 to 21 points seems about right.

My logic is similar with LSU-Missouri, but there is the added benefit that two touchdowns and two extra points would beat the spread. Missouri played Georgia to about the same level at home that Nicholls St. had between the hedges. SEC Network tried to sell me on the Mizzou offense based on the Tecmo Bowl performances against Eastern Michigan and Delaware St., but they only managed 11 points in Morgantown (3 points in the first 57:59 of the game). I think that’s the closest thing to a trip to Baton Rouge Mizzou has experienced this season.

If LSU is to be beaten it’s probably like they have been, one score in the teens against a slightly lower score in the teens. I haven’t seen any indication the black and gold Tigers can win a game like that.

If the most successful coach in program history getting canned isn’t a wake-up call, I don’t know what is. Also, I’d bet Ed Orgeron is a hell of an alarm clock. I expect LSU to get a lead like they did in their last home game against Mississippi St., and then it will just be a question of keeping it.

Speaking of which, I had to post one more Les picture. This is him singing the Alma Mater for the last time in Tiger Stadium after Mississippi St.

Week 5 Top 25 and Comments

This is later than I like to post, but I thought maybe with the combination of Monday Night Football and the debate people might be up late. I don’t have much to add about the LSU coaching change right now, but since Les was the longest continuous SEC coach, I will include just a little bit more along with the “SEC Wednesday” feature.

I did want to mention briefly that I understand Les Miles spoke with the team, expressed support for them going forward, and told them to “run the table” this season. Miles, AD Alleva, and Interim Head Coach Ed Orgeron met with the players yesterday evening. Orgeron had a press conference today, but I did not watch it yet. Former Offensive Coordinator Cam Cameron apparently left without speaking to anyone (unless he informally talked to a few players) before leaving campus.

I’ve done the first full round of my computer ratings, although I opted not to publish them since I’m not using them exclusively yet. I also need to write a blog on that site to explain the changes.

This is very results-based though. So although I think LSU and Ole Miss, for instance, are very good teams despite two losses apiece, they’re not ranked here. Two teams that probably aren’t very good, Western Michigan and Wake Forest, beat undefeated teams over the weekend and are themselves undefeated. Right now, that counts for something.

It might not have been the game of the century, but undefeated Wake Forest is still undefeated after traveling to play formerly undefeated Indiana.

Except for just a couple of changes, all I did was rank the following teams 1-25, and then I averaged my rating with the computer rating. I determined the 25 teams on a subjective basis; but like I said, I still focused on results rather than which teams I think are actually the 25 best.

Tennessee actually came out first, but I thought it was not appropriate to make a change at #1. Absent an Alabama loss or really poor performance, I don’t anticipate making a change to #1 on here for a while even if the formula ranks someone else #1. The only other deviation from what the average of the two ratings gave me was that I broke ties by keeping whatever team was higher last week ahead.

Next week, apart from #1, I plan on simply transcribing the rankings from my ratings site.

If you’re wondering what happened to Ohio St., other teams can pass you up when they score points and you don’t. If they keep winning, they’ll pass other teams back up as they have more bye weeks. Also, that Bowling Green win looks less impressive every week. I still ranked the Buckeyes #3 subjectively; but except for the Alabama/Tennessee thing I mentioned, they went through the same process as everyone else.

rank/team/previous
1 Alabama 1
2 Tennessee 4
3 Louisville 8
4 Clemson 10
5 Wisconsin 2
6 Texas A&M 7
7 Houston 5
8 Michigan 12
9 Ohio St. 3
10 Stanford 9
11 Arkansas 6
12 Wake Forest —
13 Boise St. 21
14 Ga. Tech —
15 Florida 15
16 Nebraska 18
17 Utah 13
18 San Diego St. 17
19 Washington 22
20 Florida St. 14
21 W. Virginia —
22 Va. Tech —
23 Arizona St. —
24 W. Michigan —
25 N. Carolina —

Out of rankings: (11)LSU, (16) Iowa, (19) Georgia, (20) Michigan St., (23) Oklahoma St., (24) Central Michigan, (25) Cal (Berkeley)

The King is Dead; Long Live Coach O

This is the thought I left off with last night: “Anyway, the off-season decisions are water under the bridge. All you can do in this situation (assuming a decision isn’t made immediately) is win the rest of your games.”

It’s still true even though, as you probably know by now, a decision was made immediately.

Les Miles (with Larry Coker) before his first bowl game at LSU. So many great (and not-so-great) moments since, but yet it doesn’t seem that long ago.

Before I get into it, I want to say that I’m grateful for Les Miles coming to LSU all those years ago. He’s done more than anyone in their right mind could have anticipated. As Joe Alleva said, he’s been a great ambassador for LSU, and as far as I can tell, he’s an all-around good person. I think he still has the best winning percentage of any head coach of a substantial number of games in LSU history. If you win 80 games more than you lose, you’ve done something at a program. I’ll research the specifics at another time.

He also seems to be going gracefully as he took part in the meeting with the players held with AD Joe Alleva and interim head coach Ed Orgeron. According to at least one of the players, Miles said he supports the decision. Some cynics say Les has been laughing all the way to the bank since the contract extension after the 2012 season; but I think he really cares about the players and the program going forward, so hopefully his reassurances will help to smooth the transition.

I’ve been calling for Cam Cameron to be fired for a while, but I also have nothing against him as a person. I just didn’t think he was suited to developing teenagers into good quarterbacks. He did a good job with Mettenberger, but Mettenberger was already a mostly-finished product.

I wish them and their families the best with whatever they do going forward.

As I said multiple times, if it were up to me, getting rid of Cam Cameron would have been an absolute requirement after last season, but given that Alleva’s attitude was essentially “as long as we keep calling you head coach, you have control over your staff”, I don’t blame him for pulling the plug the way he did.

This team is too good to have lost the game last night. Maybe that’s why I believed we had won it for so long. Assuming the clocks were run correctly and the replay booth did its job properly, all it needed was one guy getting out of bounds on one of the final plays.
I thought they would have waited until at least after the Florida game to make this move since the next week after Florida is a non-conference game against USM, but I guess the risk of losing another game they shouldn’t have lost due to Miles and/or Cameron was too high.

If the win against Missouri is jeopardized by this, I guess trying to save the season was a meaningless exercise anyway.

People have said LSU is out in the West, but last I checked Wisconsin isn’t an SEC team. Provided Auburn loses again (which I frankly can’t imagine not happening), LSU still controls its own destiny right now.

Ed Orgeron during his time as interim head coach at USC

Any USC fan will probably tell you that in hindsight it was a great idea to make Ed Orgeron the interim coach, and it was a mistake to let him go. So I have no problem with making hm the interim coach. I don’t know if he’s the best option for permanent head coach (Ole Miss fans probably don’t remember him so fondly), but if he goes 11-0 or even 8-1, it would be hard to argue against him. I have my ideas about other potential candidates, but there are about two months for interested candidates to make themselves available if Orgeron’s position turns out not to be permanent.

So I think the timing is really good. As well as giving candidates time to prepare and allowing for communications behind the scenes (as opposed to the desperate scramble that firing Les after last year would have been), there is what in the old days would have constituted a whole season left to play to give Orgeron a trial run. (For instance, when LSU won the national title in 1958, the bowl game was only the 11th game of the season.)

My fear has been that we could descend into mediocrity with a coaching change like so many other programs have. I mentioned USC; another example is Oregon. Notre Dame and Oklahoma aren’t looking too hot this season either. This was the team where Les could prove he still has it. Maybe if he’d given someone else the reins of the offense, he could have, but he didn’t.

Oregon and Pete Jenkins after a USC win in the L.A. Coliseum in 2013.

Speaking of which, the staff isn’t official until tomorrow (although the players seem to have already confirmed the below with the media), but I’ve also read that long-time LSU defensive coach Pete Jenkins, who also helped out Saban in his first year, will help with defensive line duties since Orgeron will have other matters to attend to. Jenkins had also joined Orgeron at USC when Orgeron became the interim head coach there.

The offensive coordinator will apparently be current tight ends coach and former LSU quarterback Steve Ensminger. I thought it might have been the running backs and OL coach, but I’m relaxed about it either way since I don’t think anyone will call plays worse than Cameron. Etling does seem to like throwing to tight ends anyway. I guess it’s Etling’s Big Ten background. Ensminger was most recently a quarterbacks coach at Auburn under Tommy Tuberville in 2003 before moving to tight ends but has extensive experience as a quarterbacks coach and offensive coordinator at multiple schools.

New offensive coordinator Steve Ensminger

To be fair, I felt that the series of plays LSU called last night was not bad, but I don’t think the players were ready to execute the plays as well as they should have been. There was too much uncertainty and confusion in the final plays. We don’t have to call fancy plays; we have to have a team ready to execute what is called, and we should be fine.

Missouri isn’t a bad team. They nearly beat Georgia last week, and they had a good non-conference win over BYU late last season. But this is the kind of team, particularly at home, that LSU should be able to dispense with without too much trouble.

I think it’s important that we not only win but have the luxury of giving Fournette some rest. We’ve been putting too much on his plate, and he wasn’t at full strength at the end of the game last night. That led to one of the sacks, and obviously sacks cause you to lose time.

The real test will be at Florida in two weeks; but regardless of the outcome, I doubt that we’ll feel that after that game we should have kept Les and Cam and it would have been better.

Instant Reaction: LSU vs. Auburn 2016

First of all, given the limited information for the television viewer, the replay decision seemed to have been wrong. There has to be indisputable evidence to overturn the call on the field, which was that the snap was made on time, and the touchdown pass to give LSU a 19-18 win was completed. There is no doubt about the touchdown pass being completed if the first call were correct. If such evidence exists to overturn the call on the field, it was not shown.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I understand that the play is not to be ruled dead if the snap is already in progress unless there is a dead-ball foul or something of that nature. This seems to be the rule every time there is a borderline delay-of-game situation, I just can’t find clear textual confirmation. Even if the quarterback has to be in the process of receiving the ball, there still wasn’t enough to overturn the call on the field based on what was shown.

DJ Chark’s winning touchdown that wasn’t.

There is a picture that I’ll post below where it appears that the clock is at all zeros and there is no snap being made (although hard to tell from a still picture); but once the play clock starts, you can’t tell. My next question is whether they started at the same time or different times. If they started at different times, maybe the play clock started at the correct time. (No whistle could be heard in the replay.)

There are two additional things I need to see established before I will believe the call was correct: (1) another still after this with no movement OR for someone to point out in the rules that the quarterback has to be touching the ball when time runs out for it to count as a timely snap; and (2) the two clocks started at the correct time, but the game clock went to 0:00 because it was less than 0:01.0 when the play was whistled ready, OR the game clock started when the play was whistled ready but the play clock did not.

It also seemed like there was unnecessary time taken off the clock after the previous completion (which was called back).

This is the third time in seven trips to Auburn that there has been some kind of referee foolishness that decided the game (see rivalry series blog). The first time was in 2004 when Auburn’s winning extra point was blocked, but there was a questionable penalty called regarding the LSU player who blocked the ball using another player for support (Auburn was successful in the re-kick and won 10-9). In 2006, there were multiple questionable calls, including pass interference when LSU was on offense, in a 7-3 loss. So this is the third time LSU has “lost” to Auburn in such a way at Auburn, but LSU won in 2008 and 2012. So in seven games, 2 LSU wins, 2 clear Auburn wins, and 3 disputed Auburn wins.

The good news is I had already started writing about the loss, so at least those few paragraphs below are not wasted. Also, I didn’t have enough time to delete them since I was too busy celebrating the win that was eventually taken away.  I guess now I know how Tennessee fans felt in 2010.  See video below if you don’t know what I’m talking about.

All right, well, I never expected the Auburn or Wisconsin games to be easy this year. All we needed was a fourth-quarter score, and I think we win both games. Against Wisconsin, we were in field-goal position and turned the ball over in the last minute of the game.

It’s not like we haven’t been able to do this in the past. I know the offense hasn’t been good the past couple of seasons, but we still got what should have been game-winning scores against Alabama and Ole Miss two years ago when many of the current juniors were freshmen who were getting significant playing time. That was an 8-5 team, and Alabama (who would go on to get a last-second field goal and win in overtime) and Ole Miss were top-5 teams when LSU played them. How was I to know that two years later, as one of the most-experienced teams in the country, we wouldn’t be able to figure out how to beat or tie the other team in fourth-quarter points?

Had we gotten the field goal against Auburn, then we would have only needed a field goal at the end instead of a touchdown. I know it’s easier to get into field goal position when you need a touchdown, but again, I think based on what we were doing at the end of the game on offense, I think we could do that. Not to mention that all Etling had to do was look toward the middle of the field on 2nd and 1 and it would have been an easy pitch-and-catch for the probable win (although Auburn might have had a chance to hit a winning field goal).

One of the reasons I like college football is it’s not particularly predictable. Of course people will call me a homer because I expected LSU to do a lot better than it looks like they’ll do this season. LSU could easily be in better position nationally right now than Alabama is, but once again it seems that Alabama is just that little bit better when it counts the most. At least I predicted that much when I picked the Tide #1.

I just would have never guessed that LSU would have two losses that were this close. Regardless, my reasoning for predicting a good LSU season was sound. A lot of people whose careers are based on college football picked LSU for the top four, so that’s really an annoying attack I’ve gotten.  If people who do this for a living said LSU wouldn’t get out of September without two losses, I might have re-evaluated my position.

Also, feel free to give me credit any time for going against the experts by ranking Wisconsin and not ranking Notre Dame or USC in the preseason.

Les Miles

Not surprisingly, people are calling for Les Miles’ head already.  I don’t agree that the last sequence was his fault though.  What was he supposed to do?  Tell Etling not to throw the ball on fourth down to put them in that situation?  Get on the field and snap the ball himself when it was whistled ready?  Ideally, there would have been more time, but there are only so many variables in actual game play you can control.

Les Miles being carried off the field the last time everyone said he was done.

I think the problem – more  than finishing the game – is there wasn’t a drastic change on offense that would have allowed LSU to run out the clock against Wisconsin and Auburn instead of having to try to score at the end in the first place.

Some people say the LSU AD was overruled by the president about keeping Miles.  If so, I thought he should have fired Cam Cameron as a substitute for firing Miles.  If Miles does not keep his job, some will say it’s because Les is just bad with quarterbacks (not to mention clock management), but I think his undoing will have been loyalty to Cam Cameron.

Etling has shown better control and the ability to execute a good drive, but obviously he hasn’t done so consistently.  The announcer who said he wasn’t an improvement over Harris didn’t know what he was talking about.  Cam was the one to bring in Etling, so I guess that was at least a marginally good thing; but we’ve had inept offenses for a few years now, so it doesn’t make up for his other inadequacies.

Anyway, the offseason decisions are water under the bridge.  All you can do in this situation (assuming a decision isn’t made immediately) is win the rest of your games.

 

Conference Summary and Week 4 Preview

Guess which conference has the fewest losses in non-conference play? (discussion of conference losses will mean non-conference play below)

The SEC has only lost one (Vanderbilt to Georgia Tech) since opening weekend. Five of its 7 losses were against Power-5 opponents. Only the Mississippi St. upset at the hands of South Alabama and Kentucky’s loss to Southern Miss were not to that group.

The Big Ten still has a higher overall average winning percentage, but it has faced twice as many FCS opponents, two of which were victorious. Also, although there are many Power-5 wins, they’re often not against quality opponents. Four of the wins were Duke, Iowa St., Oregon St., and Colorado.

In the SEC, on the other hand, four of the five wins against the Power-5 were against teams that were ranked in the preseason. 78% and 75% aren’t far enough apart to overcome the strength of schedule disparity, so I’d give the SEC a slight edge at this point, but it will depend on some future games, and the SEC will have more of them.

For #3, I’m going to go with the ACC. They played five SEC opponents as well as Oklahoma St. and Oregon. The Pac-12 has similar records against slightly worse teams.

The Big XII is only 15-11 right now. The best wins were over Notre Dame and Pitt. Not only would I put them last among the Power-5, I would also argue the American (AAC) should go ahead.

The bottom tier of conferences is harder to rank. I would say the MAC and MWC are roughly even. The MAC would be ahead if it weren’t for the three FCS losses. The Sun Belt is a little better than CUSA. Mississippi St. is a better key win than Kentucky, and Southern Miss and Ohio are better than Bowling Green and Miami U.

Week 4 Preview

There are a few major inter-conference games this weekend. I already covered the SEC games.

I’ll address the ones going on right now first. If Eastern Michigan beats Wyoming, that could arguably break the MWC/MAC deadlock. TCU vs. SMU is another chance of an upset by the AAC over the Big XII.

Similar to TCU, Boise St. is only a story if they lose, but it’s still good to get a road Pac-12 win even if it is against Oregon St. Central Michigan is another G5 (meaning not in the Power-5 of ACC, Big XII, Big Ten, Pac-12, and SEC) team on the road that should probably win, at Virginia in their case.

Another game in the state of Virginia is East Carolina against Virginia Tech. The Pirates were able to beat North Carolina St. but were not so lucky against South Carolina. The Hokies have a chance to rehabilitate somewhat from their previous non-conference game against Tennessee.

BYU will play its fourth Power-5 opponent, this time traveling to West Virginia. The Cougars beat Arizona before losing to Utah and UCLA in close games.

I’ll be very interested in the Wisconsin-Michigan St. game, the big game between two ranked teams.

The Pac-12 has a couple of big games involving Southern California teams. USC is playing Utah right now, and UCLA plays Stanford tomorrow Of course Stanford beat USC last week, so they’re trying to sweep L.A.

I also wanted to mention there is a big game in the ACC Coastal between North Carolina and Pitt in conference openers for both.

SEC Wednesday #4: Recap and Predictions

I know this is late, but it’s SEC Wednesday, not Thursday. For reference, here is the previous edition.

Finally doing this on an actual Wednesday.

Two of the games were looking really good factoring in the spread, but as I mentioned previously, LSU had a late fourth-down conversion that was controversially reversed on replay. This led to a Mississippi St. touchdown, which led to an on-sides kick for 30 yards, which led to another touchdown. The other Mississippi team did something similar with scoring after an on-sides kick to beat the spread as well. So without that I’m .500 against the spread, which is where you want to be. A lot of these bets are not ones I would actually take. Maybe I should try just doing a selection of them if this doesn’t turn around.

I did get a little lucky on one when Kentucky decided to play defense in the fourth quarter against New Mexico St. The Wildcats only beat the spread by half a point.

I got Tennessee right. I thought they were going to have a bit of a letdown against Ohio U. after the strong win over Virginia Tech, and that looks like exactly what happened.

Otherwise, the only one I got right was Florida. North Texas can’t do much against SEC defenses, but I guess their defense can do all right (at least if all right means giving up fewer points than the entire spread is). The Mean Green has been outscored 56-0 over the last two games against the SEC though. North Texas has been shut out 3 times since 2011, all at the hands of SEC opponents.

Auburn haunted me last year and tripped me up last week. I hope they take a day off.

I still can’t make much sense of Auburn. Other than the two fluke good seasons (and if I recall correctly even those were not easily predictable against the spread), they’re consistently inconsistent. John Chavis (now at Texas A&M) won the battle of former LSU defensive coordinators, but next week current LSU DC Dave Aranda gets a crack at his immediate predecessor on the Plains. He’s had an interesting September.

Another former LSU coordinator is head coach at South Carolina now, and I was surprised they managed to beat East Carolina. I guess the Gamecocks have done pretty well against other teams from the Carolinas in recent years. It’s nice when an SEC team who hasn’t been doing very well in conference can win a game like that, but it’s even nicer when you see it coming.

The only game I didn’t touch on was Arkansas against Texas St. Like I said last week, it’s hard to predict when a blowout is coming. They could have just as easily had a close game against Texas St. and won easily over Louisiana Tech.

I was 8-2 in picking winners but only 3-7 against the sprea. So now I’m 30-5 in picking winners and 14-15 against the spread for the season.

I was initially unsure what to do with Alabama against Kent St. since I think they’re overdue for a solid game in all aspects.  It is Nick Saban’s alma mater. I wonder if that might allow him to take the foot off the gas in the second half. I’m not a fan of his, but he had a very humanizing moment this week in talking about the Kent St. shooting in 1970 that left four students dead. He wasn’t present at the scene, but he was on campus around that time. The Golden Flashes lost to a really bad team in Week 2 but had respectable showing against Penn St. in Week 1. Maybe they get up for the challenge. 44 points is a lot, so I’ll take Kent St. Alabama to win obviously.

Ole Miss is favored by 7 over Georgia in an intriguing inter-divisional matchup. Georgia has been disappointing, but they like to play close games. I don’t expect Ole Miss will be very well-rested and energetic after Saturday, so against my first inclination, I’ll take the Bulldogs and the points. Ole Miss to win though. Kirby can only dodge so many bullets, right?

I almost feel sorry for Tennessee fans and their struggles with Florida. If not now, when? But that’s what I said about LSU-Alabama and Florida-Kentucky in the last couple of years. I think Tennessee will benefit from having played a tough opponent already, and I think the crowd will be in full force (it was lackluster most of the time in the first two home games), so I think they will defeat the curse this time. I have to take the points though. I’m almost always for Tennessee in this rivalry, but part of me hopes Tennessee loses just to diffuse the hype and perhaps allow them to sneak up on Alabama. Also, it would look much better for LSU to beat Florida if Florida wins this game.

Mississippi St. @ UMass. Do I look back at South Alabama or will State do what Arkansas did and have a completely different non-conference personality for this one? UMass has played surprisingly well this season. If they only lost by 17 at the Swamp, I struggle to see them losing by 22+ at home. The Bulldog backup QB did well last week, but it usually takes a little luster off when the defense prepares for you.

Missouri is a weird team, but I don’t do point spreads for FCS games. I pick Mizzou to win.

Vandy played Western Kentucky really close last year only losing by 2 at the end. I think they’re at least marginally better this year even though they were terrible against Georgia Tech last week. The ’Dores beat Middle Tennessee by 23. I don’t think the Blue Raiders and Hilltoppers are that far apart. I will pick the Hilltoppers to win since they’re at home though.

3.5 isn’t enough to try to split the difference with LSU. I can’t even countenance LSU losing the game right now, although I never expect an easy time @Auburn. This is Danny Etling’s first road SEC start, but he had several starts in hostile environments when he was at Purdue and doesn’t seem very easily shaken. It was Brandon Harris’s first start period two years ago.

This was the only picture I could find of Danny Etling during his last start outside of his home stadium.

That was the only convincing loss by LSU in the series since 2002 (rivalry series blog). LSU lost two controversial games, 10-9 in 2004 and 7-3 in 2006. Then Cam Newton was just a little too good in 2010. Those were vastly different Auburn teams though. So my guess is the game two years ago was an aberration and LSU can do well this time. The Fighting Tigers dominated at home last year.

Kentucky is favored by 2 somehow. I don’t see it. Gamecocks +2 all day long. Sometimes there is some unique bookie insight I’m not privy to, but I’d rather risk suffering in ignorance than outsmart myself out of a win.

The night game is Arkansas @ Texas A&M. The Aggies are coming off a decent win on the Plains, but the Hogs usually play them close and then had a bit of a breather last week. Arkansas with the points but the Aggies to win. I still expect the Aggies to lose a few this year, but not this one. The game went to overtime each of the last two years with A&M winning both. If that happens again, hopefully they only win by 3. I hate when you take a team with the points, they tie over 60 minutes, and then you get screwed in overtime.

Post-Game Comments and Week 4 Top 25

I’ve updated the Mississippi St. Rivalry blog, and here is the one for Auburn.

LSU really needs to work on the end of the game. Everything was going great at halftime for the last two games, and the second half was underwhelming even though it didn’t hurt nearly as much against Jacksonville St. Against Wisconsin, the second half was better than the first, but the Tigers had the lead late in the fourth quarter and were in field goal position on the last drive before the interception that essentially ended the game.

There were a couple of bad calls in this one. There was a highly questionable pass interference call that set up one of the Mississippi St. field goals. Then Leonard Fournette appeared to have converted a fourth down play but was stripped as he crossed the line to gain. It was reversed by replay, although I don’t see how the video evidence was indisputable. Mississippi St. scored a touchdown on the ensuing possession then scored another touchdown 40 seconds later following an on-sides kick.

Fournette was effective most of the game, but a late fumble (his second of the game) helped keep the Bulldogs alive.

I do want to give some credit to the defense for that last series. They didn’t give State a chance at a tying or winning drive.

I think things are improving, but there is a long way to go before LSU can claim to be a top team. Going to Auburn is never easy even though the War Eagle Plains Tigers lost to A&M at home.

That’s all I have to say about that. There were some more significant developments elsewhere.

The Florida St.-Louisville game blew me away. If Louisville wins by a touchdown, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised, but someone wrote that they made the Seminoles look like the Charlotte 49ers, which isn’t too far off. I mentioned before that I don’t like to move teams more than 10 spots in a week, but I had to make an exception and move them up 15 spots.

Louisville’s Lamar Jackson had no problems with the Florida St. defense.

It seems that Florida St. and Oklahoma are showing that having a top-4 season and a talented team doesn’t guarantee anything for the next year or even a couple of years later after a successful rebuilding year.

There were a couple of other dramatic movements that were necessary. Of course Florida St. had to go down pretty far, and so did Iowa for its loss to North Dakota St. The Bison would probably go about .500 (if not better) in the Big Ten West, but still.

I did the first trial run of my computer rankings. I only used them as a somewhat small part of the consideration this week, but next week I’ll do a full computer formula and a subjective top 25 and roughly average the two.

Since I am relying more on what’s happened on the field, I feel it is appropriate to move Michigan down even though I still think they’re a potential competitor for championships.

Since 9 of the 14 SEC teams started Week 1 against power 5 opponents and there have been a number of such games since then (both in conference and out of conference), it’s not really surprising that five undefeated SEC teams are in the top 10 in the formula. However, other teams will still get a couple more weeks to see what they can do in big games before I would rank those SEC teams so highly.

LSU’s win last night helped to bolster Wisconsin, so that’s why they’re up there. Oklahoma is almost certainly out of the running for the national title, but beating them still looks pretty good right now. Maybe they’re just not good and Houston and Ohio St. didn’t do anything special, but for now, it’s hard to justify not giving the Cougars and Buckeyes high rankings.

UCLA (who fell to the Aggies in Week 1) beat BYU and of course Texas A&M beat Auburn, so that’s why they move up again. Arkansas is also 3-0 with all games against FBS opponents, which is significant at this point.

As I mentioned, I moved Louisville up as far in one week as I was willing to. It will be interesting to see if they keep blowing out teams like this. I think Stanford’s results are what you expect of a #9 team, but I didn’t see anything that seemed to require that they move up. I’m also comfortable with where Clemson is. I’m OK with moving LSU up one spot because I do think they show some potential.

Florida goes up two spots. They’re also 3-0 against (not very good) FBS opponents, and they have won comfortably.

San Diego St.’s Week 2 win over Cal could be significant if the Aztecs make a run toward a New Years Day bowl.

San Diego St. beat Cal, and Cal looked pretty decent last night. Maybe Sports Illustrated was right to rank the Aztecs in pre-season. At least it looks good for the moment.

I only dropped Georgia one spot even though they looked pretty bad at times in a close win again. You win on the road in the SEC, and I can’t gripe too much about the margin. I wouldn’t be confident about the next two weeks (@Ole Miss and hosting Tennessee) if I were a Dawgs fan though.

I moved Nebraska up six spots for the win over Oregon even though the two teams scored the same number of touchdowns. Going for two every time is a losing battle.

I don’t think Notre Dame is anything special, and I didn’t think so in preseason either, so I kept Michigan St. in the same spot. I also saw no reason to move Boise St. or Washington.

I think of Oklahoma St.-Central Michigan as a tie roughly, and the Cowboys just beat the Pitt Panthers, so they seem to be good selections for 23 and 24. I thought about #25 for a long time, but Cal was pretty high in the computer ranking and Texas is a good win. I won’t penalize them any more for San Diego St. until the Aztecs have a loss.

I think we’ll have a much better idea about a lot of things next week. I count about 10 games that could have a major influence on how the divisions and conferences shake out at the end of the year.

rank/team/previous
1 Alabama 1
2 Wisconsin 5
3 Ohio St. 6
4 Tennessee 7
5 Houston 8
6 Arkansas 14
7 Texas A&M 16
8 Louisville 23
9 Stanford 9
10 Clemson 10
11 LSU 12
12 Michigan 3
13 Utah 11
14 Florida St. 2
15 Florida 17
16 Iowa 4
17 San Diego St. —
18 Nebraska 24
19 Georgia 18
20 Mich. St. 20
21 Boise St. 21
22 Washington 22
23 Okie St. 25
24 C. Michigan —
25 Cal —

Out of rankings: (13) Oklahoma, (15) Texas, (19) Oregon

Week 3 College Football Preview

Mississippi St. cowbell from the days when they regularly beat LSU.

LSU-Mississippi St. Rivalry blog (updated annually). Reminder that this is LSU’s most-played series.

So there are a couple of big games in the middle of the country – Michigan St.-Notre Dame and Ohio St.-Oklahoma – and one on either coast – USC-Stanford and Florida St.-Louisville.

This is probably Florida St.’s toughest road test all year in their first ACC game. I’ve been a Louisville skeptic to this point; but the Cardinals were up 21-0 at one point two years ago, so good teams can have trouble visiting Louisville.  This would make a good baseball match-up too, come to think of it.

Ohio St. isn’t in conference, but the Buckeyes will have one of a few big tests in Norman. Later in the season, they will have trips to Wisconsin, Penn St., and Michigan St. This is why I thought they might have a few losses this season. I certainly suspected going into the year that this game would be one of them, but now I’m not so sure. Chances are inexperienced teams lose such games, but on paper Oklahoma should have beaten Houston, so who knows?

I’ve also been a Notre Dame skeptic, and I’m not quite sure why they’re ranked, but at least for a few hours maybe they’ll be ranked roughly correctly if they win. The Irish are playing at home though, so you can’t say they don’t have a chance even though I believe Michigan St. has the better team.

USC has had trouble with Stanford over the years even when they’ve had a better team, and going to Stanford is an additional challenge. The Trojans did win there two years ago despite themselves, but they lost the previous two games there. USC also lost to Stanford last year, so this is an opportunity to take a big step forward. The Trojans have been expected to return to the glory days many times in recent years, but it hasn’t materialized.

There are a couple of other interesting games involving Pac-12 teams, but not quite as compelling and not conference games. Oregon-Nebraska is a top-25-adjacent matchup. Oregon was near the top of football a bit more recently, but this would also be a really strong win for them in the effort to go back. Another is Texas-Cal. I don’t think Cal is a good team, but Texas needs to do well to back up its ranking.

I think the SEC (see my SEC Wednesday entry for more) will continue to have more unknowns than knowns. For instance, if LSU wins, it won’t really prove much. If Miss St. wins, then they’re just inconsistent; although 2-0 in conference is always a good way to start.

If Ole Miss beats Bama (the only game between two ranked teams), it would be a big deal; but I’d be pretty shocked by that. A&M at Auburn is a good test for both teams, but they both have so far to go from last season, it won’t prove either is going to compete for the West.

SEC Wednesday #3: Recap and Predictions

The SEC East has me all confused, but at least I picked the right teams to win. I thought Vanderbilt would be the doormat this season, but right now it looks like it will decidedly be Kentucky.

I’m not sure if South Carolina, which beat Vanderbilt in week 1, turned in a poor game or Mississippi St. turned in a good one, but I thought the Gamecocks with the points were a good bet. Nope.

Missouri showed more life than I thought they would, so they’re not looking so doormat-like either. Speaking of the SEC East, I felt really good about my Virginia Tech pick with the points for a quarter or so, but they got destroyed after that.

It’s probably a good thing I didn’t pick a Georgia spread.

I predicted the SEC West better even though the numbers were not much better. I was not surprised about Arkansas taking the game into overtime, I just didn’t think they’d win there. Actually, I picked Arkansas to win in a pick ‘em game with some other bloggers, but I didn’t actually pick them to win on here.

I wasn’t really wrong about Alabama, but I got bitten by that last .5.

I made the right pick in Auburn, and of course I got the winning team right in that one too.

Finally doing this on an actual Wednesday.

So I was 11-1 in picking winners last week, but only 2-6 against the spread. This brings my totals to 22-3 and 11-8.

I really don’t know about LSU. Etling showed some promise, but his anticipated first game as a starter (although Les doesn’t want to call him that) could be tricky. We don’t really know how Fournette will respond, even if he is fully recovered.

The team who will be on the other sideline, Moo State, had one awful week and one respectable one. If it were LSU vs. a consistent SEC team, I’d pick the other team. I guess since both of Bulldog games were at home and they’re still pretty inexperienced, I’ll pick LSU to win -14.

Dak Prescott converts a key third-down play in 2014 as State got its first win in Baton Rouge since 1991.

The SEC home opener went pretty well last year after all (even though I swore it would be close before), 45-21 over Auburn; but LSU also had that lead at the half. Mississippi St. may be better than that Auburn team, but LSU should be better than they were last year.

Tennessee has already had its home opener and probably won’t have their peak motivation this week, so I’ll take the Ohio Bobcats and 27.5. Watch the Vols win by 28 just to annoy me. Ohio beat Kansas fairly comfortably, although Lawrence is no comparison to Knoxville.

Georgia Tech beat Mercer by 25 and only beat Boston College by 3. I think BC and Vandy are similar, so I’ll take the ’Dores +6.5, but the Wreck to win at home. I was pleasantly surprised by Vandy’s level of play the first two weeks, but they still don’t look like winners yet.

Ole Miss hasn’t impressed me for the last 93 minutes of game play, and Alabama isn’t a good team to find your footing against. It’s a good line, but I’m thinking 11+ points is more likely than 10 or less, so I have to pick Alabama -10.5. I hope I’m wrong. Saban was in an “ass-chewing” mood after last week’s performance, so I expect they’ll tidy (get it, Tide-y) things up this week. The motivation is there.

East Carolina looked pretty good, and South Carolina certainly did not. I have to pick the Pirates +3, although second-tier SEC teams at home are usually good bets.

Kentucky disappointed me last week, but the NMSU Aggies will probably have a hangover from the exciting win over the Lobos. It is at Kentucky, so I’ll take the Wildcats -19.5. I think they’ll want to let out some frustration. If it’s close, Mark Stoops needs to quit during the post-game press conference to give someone else a chance. Alabama in two weeks could be embarrassing.

Thirty-six-and-a-half is just too many for Florida against North Texas. I expect the Gators will not be particularly up for the game. North Texas only won a single game last year, but they only lost to Tennessee by 24. I expect similar, but even an extra touchdown and field goal wouldn’t cover the spread.

I feel the same about Arkansas-Texas St. TSU won the battle of bobcats in Week 1 and had a week off to prepare while Arkansas played the aforementioned crazy game against TCU. Arkansas only beat Louisiana Tech by 1. They could go undefeated with close wins at this rate, but beating a not-terrible team by 31 I’m not so sure about. The kinds of lines drive me crazy though. It’s just hard to predict whether a team is in the mood to beat down an inferior team.

Georgia RB Nick Chubb fumbles against Nicholls St.

Speaking of playing inferior teams, Georgia (who only beat Nicholls St. by 2) was much worse than I expected while Mizzou was better than I expected, but I think that’s factored into the line of only 6.5. I would predict Georgia to win by some number in the teens.

I actually forgot Texas A&M-Auburn.  I’ll pick Auburn to win.  Three-and-a-half isn’t enough to change that, although it very well could make the difference on the field.  I think A&M beat UCLA because it was in Texas, and this is a team of similar quality at home.  Auburn has played two decent games.

Post-Game Comments and Week 3 Top 25

Inter-conference Play and LSU Recap

So there was a lot of critical talk last week about the SEC being that there were a few losses. The conference went 6-6 against strong outside competition while other conferences mostly played slates of FCS or low-level FBS opponents. Now that the SEC had opponents more similar to what the other conference had last week, it didn’t lose any. Not to minimize the wins over TCU and Virginia Tech, but there were a lot of expected wins by the conference as a whole.

The Big Ten did well last week but Northwestern, who won 10 games last year, fell to 0-2 with a loss to Illinois St., an FCS team. I mention how many they won last year because I wouldn’t pick on some team who had finished last in the conference or something of that nature.

The Big Ten will no longer be scheduling FCS opponents, but their non-conference schedules would be pretty empty without MAC opponents, and the MAC has split its six games against the FCS so far. There are good FCS opponents even though there are also very bad ones. The same is true of the MAC.

Speaking of FCS opponents, LSU played a high-quality FCS opponent, Jacksonville St., which was the national runner-up in last year’s FCS playoffs. Their success has been aided over the years by a number of SEC transfers. They were good enough to expose a couple of weaknesses in some of the defensive reads, and they were also good enough to show that starting QB Brandon Harris does not seem to have what it takes to run an effective offense.

When Etling couldn’t complete a pass in the second half, he was able to score on the ground.

Danny Etling, a Purdue transfer, came into the game and led the team on three consecutive touchdown drives. With a ridiculous punt return added in, that helped give the Tigers a 27-10 halftime lead. Etling didn’t have a good second half, but he didn’t need to. The running game and defense were able to dictate the rest of the game, and the Gamecocks were never a serious threat again.

LSU has had the other pieces in place; they just need a decent game-managing quarterback of the type that Alabama has seemed to produce on an annual basis the last 9 years.

The Tigers were without star running back Leonard Fournette, who got banged up at the end of the Wisconsin game, but it is reportedly just a soft-tissue injury. Etling could be made even more comfortable by his presence on the field. Derrius Guice played well in Fournette’s absence, but he was tackled in the backfield a few times to force some long-yardage situations in later downs. Fournette is better at turning 1-yard losses (for normal people anyway) into 3-yard gains. He can break off long runs too of course.

It’s not always fun to be the first defender to reach Leonard Fournette.

Anyway, the SEC is the only Power-5 conference without a loss to an FCS opponent. All conferences but two have now matched or exceeded the SEC’s six inter-conference losses. Those are the ACC and the American Conference (AAC), with 5 apiece. The SEC has now played 9 Power-5 opponents, but the ACC and AAC have only played 7 apiece. The SEC and ACC are one game over .500 in such games, and the AAC is one game under. Also, the SEC has played 18 FBS opponents compared to the ACC’s 14 and the AAC’s 11.

I’d put the Big Ten third, the AAC fourth, the Pac-12 fifth, and the Big XII sixth right now. The Pac-12 may improve, but as of right now their Power-5 wins consist of Virginia (which lost to FCS Richmond, and it wasn’t even very close), Rutgers, Texas Tech, and Kansas St. I guess BYU is a quality win by Utah, but it’s balanced with a loss to BYU by Arizona.

Top 25

I decided that all competitive programs with two FBS wins should be in the rankings somewhere. I tried to do this without moving other teams down for no other reason, but you can see the teams that stayed in the same spot below.

The teams I excluded are Army, Indiana, and Wake Forest. They really haven’t beaten anyone so far, and I just don’t think any of the three have the talent to be ranked, at least not at this stage. Another FBS win or two (depending on the opponent), and maybe it’s a different conversation.

Also, I wasn’t really comfortable with removing any teams apart from the ones that I removed below, so that squeezed them out. Oklahoma St. was dropped substantially, but I didn’t want to take them all the way out, particularly since the game should have ended before the final play.

I thought I caught ESPN making a mistake, but it turns out ESPN was right and the referees were wrong. Still, you shouldn’t report a final score until the refs leave the field.

A fun fact about that. You probably know that Les Miles coached at Oklahoma St. before he went to LSU, but you may not know that his wife went to Central Michigan. He says he doesn’t watch other teams on game day, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he at least checked out the highlights or was told about it.

Teams like North Carolina, USC, and Ole Miss didn’t do anything wrong, but I’d rather rank teams that have two FBS wins ahead of them at this point.

September is always tricky because it’s a transition from expectations to solid results that gets stricter every week. People ask me, “why did you do x when you did y last week?” It’s because we’re not in last week anymore. The rules have to change slightly every week or it would just be an abrupt change the second I bring in the computer formula. That happened with Missouri when they won their first SEC East title. I keep not believing they were actually good and keeping them out of the top 20, and then they jumped 20 spots in one week.

North Carolina was hurt in my opinion when Georgia struggled though. That was the only team that was somewhat securely in the top 25 at #21 last week. This won’t have much impact in my formula when I implement it though. The rest can pretty easily play their way back in. If Ole Miss wins next week, for instance, they’ll be in good shape.

I don’t really think there will be multiple Big Ten teams in the semifinals, but a decent number of them started with two FBS opponents. Next week I’ll be more critical about who those teams are (and it will be easier to assess who the better teams are anyway. The week after that I might be able to make a dry run of my rankings and do some kind of average of subjective and objective ratings.

rank/team/previous
1 Alabama 1
2 Florida St. 2
3 Michigan 4
4 Iowa 7
5 Wisconsin 11
6 Ohio St. 14
7 Tennessee 17
8 Houston 8
9 Stanford 9
10 Clemson 3
11 Utah 6
12 LSU 12
13 Oklahoma 13
14 Arkansas 22
15 Texas 16
16 Texas A&M 15
17 Florida 19
18 Georgia 10
19 Oregon 18
20 Mich. St. 20
21 Boise St. —
22 Washington —
23 Louisville —
24 Nebraska —
25 Okie St. 5

Out of rankings: (21) N. Carolina, (23) Ole Miss, (24) TCU, (25) USC