The only decent interconference records are held by the Big XII (23-4 including 11 FCS wins), Big Ten (23-7, including 6 FCS wins), and SEC (30-6, including 8 FCS wins). You can only tell a limited amount from the games between those conferences, but I think Arkansas’ win over Texas is significant. Arkansas is usually one of the worst teams in the West, and Texas is usually one of the best teams in the Big XII. To my shame as an LSU fan, I think the Tigers have the SEC’s worst loss, but the good thing is the Pac-12 barely has a winning overall record, so they’re not close to being considered. UCLA is an improving program, but they shouldn’t beat a team with LSU’s recent success in the SEC.
It is bad that Vanderbilt lost to East Tennessee St., but it’s not that unexpected for the worst of any conference to lose to an FCS opponent. This year, FCS teams have won 10% of the time against FBS opponents. Also, the Commodores redeemed themselves somewhat against Colorado St. On the other hand, the Big Ten and Big XII have not suffered such losses yet.
The best win by the Big XII was West Virginia over Virginia Tech, but the Mountaineers also suffered a loss to Maryland. I don’t really fault the Big XII for the other two losses: Iowa St. usually loses to Iowa, which looks to be a very good team this year; and Kansas staying with Coastal Carolina as long as the Jayhawks did was a positive in my view.
WVU RB Leddie Brown runs for a touchdown on Saturday in Morgantown. He rushed for 161 yards on the day.
The Big Ten has the most losses in this group, although most are excusable. Nebraska did well to keep Oklahoma close. Illinois (losses to Virginia and Texas-San Antonio) is just having a bad year. Northwestern has had recent success though, so their loss to Duke isn’t as well-taken. I also didn’t expect Indiana to beat Cincinnati. I do fault Ohio St. a bit for losing to Oregon.
So, for the Big Ten, I just think there is too much blame to go around. There also isn’t a really great win. Michigan St. had a good win against U. Miami, but I think the Hurricanes were just overrated. Penn St. was a good win over Auburn, but Auburn has a new head coach after losing at least 4 games every season since the national-championship loss to Florida St. in the 2013 season. Auburn is just not what they used to be. I know Penn St. did poorly in last year’s abbreviated season, but after going 11-2 and winning the Cotton Bowl in the last full season, I still think they’re a program more on the right track. It just wasn’t a huge deal that they beat Auburn at home.
The SEC’s other losses weren’t anything to write home about. Pittsburgh was somewhat of an upset against Tennessee, but the Vols are usually in the bottom half of the SEC if not the bottom quarter. Mississippi St. has an accomplished head coach with an entertaining personality and therefore some potential, but we haven’t seen much from the Bulldogs since Dan Mullen left after the 2017 season. I’d frown upon losing to most American Conference opponents, but Memphis is a much better program than most in that conference.
I’m giving to the edge to the SEC at this point based on Georgia’s win over Clemson. Neither the Big Ten nor the Big XII has that giant-killer sort of game on its resume. Georgia is one of the top 5 to 10 programs right now, don’t get me wrong; but Clemson is one of the top 2 programs right now. West Virginia beating Virginia Tech (who was only ranked because they beat a likely overrated UNC team) is no comparison.
Since this is a combined blog when originally I meant it to be two separate blogs, I’m just going to give a list of the other conferences with their records and my ranking.
The American Conference (AAC) might raise some eyebrows based on record alone, but trust me that they have better wins and a stronger schedule as a whole. I mentioned a couple of them above: Memphis over Mississippi St. and Cincinnati over Indiana.
4. ACC (22-12, including 10 wins over FCS) 5. Pac-12 (16-15, including 7 wins over FCS) 6. MWC (20-13, including 8 wins over FCS) 7. AAC (17-18, including 8 wins over FCS) 8. Sun Belt (17-10, including 8 wins over FCS) 9. Independents (13-6, including 2 wins over FCS) 10. CUSA (16-17, including 12 wins over FCS) 11. MAC (13-22, including 10 wins over FCS)
As for the rankings, the first thing I wanted to note was that I left USC in last week’s rankings by accident. I should have ranked Central Florida #24, although last week’s performance has taken the Golden Knights back out of the rankings. I also should have taken UL-Lafayette, which lost to Texas in Week 1, out and left Texas in at #25.
So this should have been the final three teams and the “out of rankings” list last week:
23 Ball St. 23 24 C. Florida — 25 Texas 15 Out of rankngs: (20) UL-Lafayette, (21) S. California, (24) Buffalo
Week 3 Top 25
Moving on to this week, I decided to move Oregon up another chunk of spots. I know at the end of the season “win chains” (Team A beat Team B who beat Team C and so on) get ridiculous, but it’s one of the few things to go on as we transition from a general sense of a team in preseason to a situation where we can exclusively rely on observations from this season alone. We also don’t have enough games played where we can disregard a win chain where maybe a 3-win team upset an 8-win team.
Anyway, the Ducks beat Fresno St. in Week 1. The closeness of that game was actually part of the reason I didn’t rank the Ducks after Week 1, but now that the Bulldogs beat UCLA, who beat LSU by a couple of possessions, the Ducks have two good wins. This increase in rank doesn’t have anything to do with Oregon’s win over Stony Brook last week.
Oregon RB CJ Verdell outruns the Buckeye secondary for a 77-yard touchdown in Week 1 in Columbus. This is still a very significant game for both parts of this blog.
Also, Ohio St. (the other meaningful victim of the Ducks) has improved in status in my view. The Buckeyes are the only team to beat Minnesota, who just beat Colorado by 30. The Buffs played a close game against Texas A&M the week before. Anyway, this not only bolstered my decision to move up Oregon, it also led me to move Ohio St. up and Texas A&M down. I also moved Oklahoma down after another close game against a seemingly mediocre opponent.
Although I didn’t want to punish Liberty or Coastal Carolina for any particular reason, I don’t mind them being the victims of the Buckeyes’ and Ducks’ improvements given Coastal’s close game against Buffalo and Liberty’s close game (in week 2) against Troy. Those were both road games against respectable Group of 5 programs though. I also didn’t want to move Oklahoma down that far, so someone had to get the short end of the stick.
Partly because Georgia Tech lost to Northern Illinois, I also moved Clemson down considerably for its struggles against the Ramblin’ Wreck. In the Tigers’ defense, they did score nearly twice as many points as did the Yellow Jackets; but when that margin is one possession, that’s still a cause for concern. I don’t see this as a contradiction to giving Georgia credit for beating Clemson, but this is another instance of the natural process of changing the focus to this season. Clemson needs good wins to compensate for the loss now, and that wasn’t one. They can’t just point to success over past seasons.
Also, Georgia and Clemson seem to be moving in opposite directions. I’m encouraged by the Bulldogs’ 96 points in the last two games. UAB isn’t great, but the Blazers have won 8 of 12 including last season. Asking Georgia to score any more points than they did would have been wrong, and UAB was held off the scoreboard until the fourth quarter. South Carolina was not a good team last year, but don’t forget that the last time the Gamecocks went to Athens they won. So a solid 27-point win was also about as much as you could ask of the Bulldogs. No need to give South Carolina bulletin-board material for next year.
Again, I hope you’ll forgive my lack of elaboration for the other new and moved teams since I’m trying to keep the size of this combined blog under control. Apart from Wyoming, all of the new teams are also being recognized by the major pollsters.
Wyoming beat both Northern Illinois and Ball St. I mentioned that Northern Illinois beat Georgia Tech, whom Clemson barely beat. I ranked Ball St. in the preseason, and the Cowboys beat the Cardinals by a larger margin than Penn St. did. For all I know, Ball St. may not win another game; but I don’t think they changed much between playing Penn St. and playing Wyoming at the very least. Northern Illinois’s other loss is to Michigan, which I’m also giving credit for starting the season well. It’s only consistent to also include Wyoming at this point. I did rank the Cowboys a couple of spots below the Wolverines, but they had a much closer game against the Huskies than Michigan did. I know they don’t attract the attention of many voters (although someone in the AP put them 25th); but if Wyoming were named Notre Dame with the same resume they do now, they’d probably be in the top 10. I definitely don’t think they’ve done anything as bad as losing to Fresno St. They haven’t beaten LSU either, but we don’t really know what that means yet. Doubt should be resolved in favor of the undefeated team, at least in September.
Wyoming QB Sean Chambers led the offense to over 200 passing yards Saturday in Laramie. He also added 21 net yards on the ground.
rank team last 1 Alabama 1 2 Georgia 2 3 Iowa 3 4 Penn St. 4 5 Oregon 13 6 Cincinnati 6 7 Florida 8 8 Ohio St. 14 9 B. Young 11 10 Clemson 5 11 Oklahoma 7 12 Liberty 9 13 Coastal Car. 10 14 Texas A&M 12 15 Notre Dame 15 16 Oklahoma St. 16 17 Arkansas 21 18 Iowa St. 22 19 Texas 25 20 Ole Miss — 21 Fresno St. — 22 Michigan — 23 Michigan St. — 24 Wyoming — 25 UCLA 19
Out of rankings: (17) U. Miami, (18) Indiana, (20) Virginia Tech, (23) Ball St., (24) Central Florida
Early next week (after the college football games). probably on Sunday, I plan to post something about how the conferences are doing against each other. I’m still trying to establish a rhythm.
rank team last 1 Alabama 1 2 Georgia 3 3 Iowa 8 4 Penn St. 7 5 Clemson 5 6 Cincinnati 6 7 Oklahoma 9 8 Florida 10 9 Liberty 11 10 Coastal Car. 12 11 B. Young 13 12 Texas A&M 4 13 Oregon — 14 Ohio St. 2 15 Notre Dame 14 16 Oklahoma St. 17 17 U. Miami 18 18 Indiana 19 19 UL-Lafayette 20 20 S. California 21 21 UCLA 22 22 Va. Tech 25 23 Arkansas — 24 Iowa St. 16 25 Ball St. 23
Out of rankings: (15) Texas, (24) Buffalo
I don’t think too much about this is mysterious.
I know Iowa St. hasn’t impressed in either game; but I feel like they’re still likely going to be a good team, and the Cyclones have not done anything bad enough to fall out. It’s not like Iowa blew them out; and as this indicates, Iowa has had one of the best starts at least based on preseason ranking of opponents.
Tyler Goodson of Iowa evades a tackle by Isheem Young of Iowa St. on Saturday in Ames. The Hawkeyes retained the Cy-Hawk Trophy, 27-17. The game was not played last year, but the Cyclones have not won the contest since 2014.
Penn St. went on the road to beat Wisconsin in Week 1, and I ranked Ball St. based on last season. The Nittany Lions had little trouble with the Cardinals. I recognize Ball St. probably will not finish the season ranked, but with so many 2-0 and 1-1 teams right now, you have to have some basis to differentiate. I could have ranked Wisconsin instead as the possibly more legitimate opponent, but the Badgers lost 4 of 7 going back to last season until the win last week.
With another lackluster performance by Notre Dame, I had to move them down, so it made sense for that to be the best team (other than Ohio St.) to put Oregon ahead of. If anyone else in the vicinity did anything particularly impressive last week, I would have moved Notre Dame farther down, especially in light of their Week 1 being roughly equivalent to Jacksonville St.’s Week 2 (both barely beat Florida St.).
Arkansas was somewhat impressive against Texas, but I’m not sure if that was the Hogs being good or the Horns being bad. I didn’t list anyone after #25, but Arkansas moved ahead of a lot of teams you don’t see as it is.
The only thing else that seems remarkable is Texas A&M losing a number of spots for only managing 10 points against Colorado.
I’m still a bit thrown by last year’s COVID season. I was on vacation recently, but even if I weren’t, I don’t really know how to do a preseason ranking when I had no real method of comparing teams last year with vastly different lengths of seasons and many major-conference teams playing one or no inter-conference games. Also, because of that vacation, I didn’t get to complete my blog about the previous academic year. I’ll get to it, but I didn’t want to just put up a list without talking about it.
The last time I didn’t have a previous season of my own rankings to look at was the first time I started ranking teams myself back in 1995; so like then, I’m just relying on a vague notion of how good teams are as reported by others.
Since Clemson lost, I felt it was only right to put the two most credible teams on an annual basis who aren’t Clemson in the first two spots. Those are Alabama and Ohio St. For #3, why not the team who beat Clemson? Georgia is also no stranger to big games and major bowls in recent seasons. Tulane was theoretically the home team, I’m not on the Boomer Schooner after a 5-point win over the Wave in Norman. I have to stay with the current SEC even though that makes three of four. #4 for me is Texas A&M based on last year’s 10-1 season and Orange Bowl win combined with a lack of drama in Week 1.
In what was supposed to be the big heavyweight match-up, there was one touchdown.. by a defensive player (Christopher Smith, #29). Either things are changing in college football or maybe they’re not such heavyweights after all.
Clemson needs to find more offense somewhere, but I can’t find any other credible #5 team at the moment.
Cincinnati also only lost one game last year on the way to the Peach Bowl, also losing to Georgia in that game, so they’re #6.
Penn St. started out with a true road game against a good program in Wisconsin, so I’d like to give them credit. Unlike the polls, I don’t feel some obligation to only move them up a limited number of spots.
Iowa also won an early Big Ten contest between ranked teams, beating Indiana at home. Indiana probably isn’t a huge player on the national scene permanently, but it’s something.
Florida and Oklahoma seemed like two appropriate teams to round out the top 10 since both went into the Cotton Bowl as top 10 teams last season. Since Oklahoma won by 35, I’ll give the Sooners the nod for #9. Tulane isn’t great, but they went .500 going into the bowls last season, so they may be better than Northern Iowa (who lost narrowly to Iowa St.), for instance.
In that process, I’ve ranked two teams who played 10 or more games last year with only a single loss: Texas A&M and Cincinnati.
Next I’m just going to rank the teams in that category who haven’t lost yet this year. Again, I don’t operate with similar constraints to the polls. Even though polls technically don’t matter anymore there is still this custom of not ranking teams without major conference schedules very high because what if they keep winning? Because later someone might have to cogitate a bit and not just automatically move teams up for not losing. That doesn’t bother me at all.
Also, I’ve already listed almost every team that finished ranked with two losses last season if that team has not yet lost this season. Other than Iowa St., the highest-ranked team in the AP poll with 3 losses (Texas) was only #19, so I don’t feel like I’m being unfair to teams with better schedules than these.
11. Liberty, which won the non-major Super Bowl over the next team… 12. Coastal Carolina 13. BYU
Liberty handed Coastal Carolina its only loss last season on this blocked field goal in overtime by #55 Elijah James.
Maybe it’s because when I first watched college football, there were still ties, but overtime wins don’t sit well with me. I don’t regard those as 100% wins. But Notre Dame didn’t lose in Week 1 and the Irish did only lose two games last season, one to Clemson, so I’ll put them #14.
The next group is the 3-loss teams that finished ranked last season. Of those, I will put U. Miami last since they lost, but losing to Alabama isn’t really evidence the Hurricanes don’t belong.
15. Texas 16. Iowa St. 17. Oklahoma St. 18. U. Miami
The next two teams had really good seasons last year, especially for them, so I’m not going to be too harsh as a result of losing to teams already ranked above.
19. Indiana 20. UL-Lafayette
So far, I have not considered any Pac-12 teams. They didn’t play enough of a season last year and certainly didn’t do enough against other conferences to warrant inclusion. The only two that I will rank happen to be cross-town rivals. Oregon played in a major bowl with only 4 wins. In my view, they shouldn’t have even been considered. Beating Fresno by 7 in Week 1 this year doesn’t make me feel any differently.
21. USC 22. UCLA
Two other teams won bowl games last year after entering the bowls with one loss. They didn’t play full schedules either, but I think they deserve some recognition. They also happen to be in the same conference as one another.
23. Ball St. 24. Buffalo
Looking at last year and the preseason consensus, the best team that I won’t rank is probably North Carolina. I won’t rank the Tar Heels because they lost to…
25. Virginia Tech
Virginia Tech QB Braxton Burmeister ran for one touchdown and threw for another in the first half, but the Hokies’ game against North Carolina was also largely a defensive struggle. The Tar Heels were defeated by a score of 17-10.
I think this is a reasonable mix of teams from various regions and conferences giving due regard to last season’s level of success and the Week 1 opponents. You might not like which teams I put in what order, but this makes a lot more sense to me than the way the polls do things.
Most if not all of the non-major teams would probably finish near the bottom of the SEC, but we don’t know how good much of the SEC is right now. LSU might beat every single one of the non-majors above, but they lost to a team that rightly was not ranked. LSU and the other SEC teams rightly were not ranked last season and have done nothing yet to show things are different this season. Ole Miss had a great bowl win last year, but they still finished behind LSU in the SEC. Lamar Jackson hasn’t played for Louisville in a few years, so I’m not giving the Rebels (are we still allowed to call them that?) a spot in the top 25 for beating the Cardinals.
I think after one game it’s OK to still largely consider last season. Also, many of the non-major teams were willing to play whomever was available. It’s not their fault that conferences like the SEC wouldn’t even give them a chance to schedule opponent from that conference. It would be different if some of these conferences played 10 games against the SEC and lost every single one of them last season. I don’t think it’s appropriate to look back to before last season to support rankings this season.
Also, since I’m not considering any rankings from last season official, I want to give credit to those teams that took advantage of the opening last season provided to show something special. UL-Lafayette, for instance, deserves recognition even though I don’t think they’ll ever be the best team in the state talent-wise or a serious national contender. They couldn’t play an SEC opponent last year, so they played a Big XII opponent, and not even a close one. Still they traveled there (to Ames to play Iowa St.) and won. I’m not going to take that away from them because they lost to another well-regarded Big XII team to start out this season.
If the Cajuns deserve to be where I put them, then teams that didn’t lose their opener are appropriately placed here too.
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The Bayou Blogger 
Arkansas, Ball St., Big Ten, Big XII, Clemson, College Football, Conferences, Fresno St., Georgia, Georgia Tech, Illinois, Michigan, Michigan St., northern illinois, Ohio St., Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Oregon, SEC, Texas, Texas A&M, Top 26, Vanderbilt, Virginia Tech, West Virginia, Wyoming
Week 3 Top 25 and Conference Report
In College Football, Conference Reports, General LSU, Post-game, Rankings, Rankings Commentary on September 24, 2021 at 5:10 PMWeek 3 Conference Report
The only decent interconference records are held by the Big XII (23-4 including 11 FCS wins), Big Ten (23-7, including 6 FCS wins), and SEC (30-6, including 8 FCS wins). You can only tell a limited amount from the games between those conferences, but I think Arkansas’ win over Texas is significant. Arkansas is usually one of the worst teams in the West, and Texas is usually one of the best teams in the Big XII. To my shame as an LSU fan, I think the Tigers have the SEC’s worst loss, but the good thing is the Pac-12 barely has a winning overall record, so they’re not close to being considered. UCLA is an improving program, but they shouldn’t beat a team with LSU’s recent success in the SEC.
It is bad that Vanderbilt lost to East Tennessee St., but it’s not that unexpected for the worst of any conference to lose to an FCS opponent. This year, FCS teams have won 10% of the time against FBS opponents. Also, the Commodores redeemed themselves somewhat against Colorado St. On the other hand, the Big Ten and Big XII have not suffered such losses yet.
The best win by the Big XII was West Virginia over Virginia Tech, but the Mountaineers also suffered a loss to Maryland. I don’t really fault the Big XII for the other two losses: Iowa St. usually loses to Iowa, which looks to be a very good team this year; and Kansas staying with Coastal Carolina as long as the Jayhawks did was a positive in my view.
The Big Ten has the most losses in this group, although most are excusable. Nebraska did well to keep Oklahoma close. Illinois (losses to Virginia and Texas-San Antonio) is just having a bad year. Northwestern has had recent success though, so their loss to Duke isn’t as well-taken. I also didn’t expect Indiana to beat Cincinnati. I do fault Ohio St. a bit for losing to Oregon.
So, for the Big Ten, I just think there is too much blame to go around. There also isn’t a really great win. Michigan St. had a good win against U. Miami, but I think the Hurricanes were just overrated. Penn St. was a good win over Auburn, but Auburn has a new head coach after losing at least 4 games every season since the national-championship loss to Florida St. in the 2013 season. Auburn is just not what they used to be. I know Penn St. did poorly in last year’s abbreviated season, but after going 11-2 and winning the Cotton Bowl in the last full season, I still think they’re a program more on the right track. It just wasn’t a huge deal that they beat Auburn at home.
The SEC’s other losses weren’t anything to write home about. Pittsburgh was somewhat of an upset against Tennessee, but the Vols are usually in the bottom half of the SEC if not the bottom quarter. Mississippi St. has an accomplished head coach with an entertaining personality and therefore some potential, but we haven’t seen much from the Bulldogs since Dan Mullen left after the 2017 season. I’d frown upon losing to most American Conference opponents, but Memphis is a much better program than most in that conference.
I’m giving to the edge to the SEC at this point based on Georgia’s win over Clemson. Neither the Big Ten nor the Big XII has that giant-killer sort of game on its resume. Georgia is one of the top 5 to 10 programs right now, don’t get me wrong; but Clemson is one of the top 2 programs right now. West Virginia beating Virginia Tech (who was only ranked because they beat a likely overrated UNC team) is no comparison.
Since this is a combined blog when originally I meant it to be two separate blogs, I’m just going to give a list of the other conferences with their records and my ranking.
The American Conference (AAC) might raise some eyebrows based on record alone, but trust me that they have better wins and a stronger schedule as a whole. I mentioned a couple of them above: Memphis over Mississippi St. and Cincinnati over Indiana.
4. ACC (22-12, including 10 wins over FCS)
5. Pac-12 (16-15, including 7 wins over FCS)
6. MWC (20-13, including 8 wins over FCS)
7. AAC (17-18, including 8 wins over FCS)
8. Sun Belt (17-10, including 8 wins over FCS)
9. Independents (13-6, including 2 wins over FCS)
10. CUSA (16-17, including 12 wins over FCS)
11. MAC (13-22, including 10 wins over FCS)
As for the rankings, the first thing I wanted to note was that I left USC in last week’s rankings by accident. I should have ranked Central Florida #24, although last week’s performance has taken the Golden Knights back out of the rankings. I also should have taken UL-Lafayette, which lost to Texas in Week 1, out and left Texas in at #25.
So this should have been the final three teams and the “out of rankings” list last week:
23 Ball St. 23
24 C. Florida —
25 Texas 15
Out of rankngs: (20) UL-Lafayette, (21) S. California, (24) Buffalo
Week 3 Top 25
Moving on to this week, I decided to move Oregon up another chunk of spots. I know at the end of the season “win chains” (Team A beat Team B who beat Team C and so on) get ridiculous, but it’s one of the few things to go on as we transition from a general sense of a team in preseason to a situation where we can exclusively rely on observations from this season alone. We also don’t have enough games played where we can disregard a win chain where maybe a 3-win team upset an 8-win team.
Anyway, the Ducks beat Fresno St. in Week 1. The closeness of that game was actually part of the reason I didn’t rank the Ducks after Week 1, but now that the Bulldogs beat UCLA, who beat LSU by a couple of possessions, the Ducks have two good wins. This increase in rank doesn’t have anything to do with Oregon’s win over Stony Brook last week.
Also, Ohio St. (the other meaningful victim of the Ducks) has improved in status in my view. The Buckeyes are the only team to beat Minnesota, who just beat Colorado by 30. The Buffs played a close game against Texas A&M the week before. Anyway, this not only bolstered my decision to move up Oregon, it also led me to move Ohio St. up and Texas A&M down. I also moved Oklahoma down after another close game against a seemingly mediocre opponent.
Although I didn’t want to punish Liberty or Coastal Carolina for any particular reason, I don’t mind them being the victims of the Buckeyes’ and Ducks’ improvements given Coastal’s close game against Buffalo and Liberty’s close game (in week 2) against Troy. Those were both road games against respectable Group of 5 programs though. I also didn’t want to move Oklahoma down that far, so someone had to get the short end of the stick.
Partly because Georgia Tech lost to Northern Illinois, I also moved Clemson down considerably for its struggles against the Ramblin’ Wreck. In the Tigers’ defense, they did score nearly twice as many points as did the Yellow Jackets; but when that margin is one possession, that’s still a cause for concern. I don’t see this as a contradiction to giving Georgia credit for beating Clemson, but this is another instance of the natural process of changing the focus to this season. Clemson needs good wins to compensate for the loss now, and that wasn’t one. They can’t just point to success over past seasons.
Also, Georgia and Clemson seem to be moving in opposite directions. I’m encouraged by the Bulldogs’ 96 points in the last two games. UAB isn’t great, but the Blazers have won 8 of 12 including last season. Asking Georgia to score any more points than they did would have been wrong, and UAB was held off the scoreboard until the fourth quarter. South Carolina was not a good team last year, but don’t forget that the last time the Gamecocks went to Athens they won. So a solid 27-point win was also about as much as you could ask of the Bulldogs. No need to give South Carolina bulletin-board material for next year.
Again, I hope you’ll forgive my lack of elaboration for the other new and moved teams since I’m trying to keep the size of this combined blog under control. Apart from Wyoming, all of the new teams are also being recognized by the major pollsters.
Wyoming beat both Northern Illinois and Ball St. I mentioned that Northern Illinois beat Georgia Tech, whom Clemson barely beat. I ranked Ball St. in the preseason, and the Cowboys beat the Cardinals by a larger margin than Penn St. did. For all I know, Ball St. may not win another game; but I don’t think they changed much between playing Penn St. and playing Wyoming at the very least. Northern Illinois’s other loss is to Michigan, which I’m also giving credit for starting the season well. It’s only consistent to also include Wyoming at this point. I did rank the Cowboys a couple of spots below the Wolverines, but they had a much closer game against the Huskies than Michigan did. I know they don’t attract the attention of many voters (although someone in the AP put them 25th); but if Wyoming were named Notre Dame with the same resume they do now, they’d probably be in the top 10. I definitely don’t think they’ve done anything as bad as losing to Fresno St. They haven’t beaten LSU either, but we don’t really know what that means yet. Doubt should be resolved in favor of the undefeated team, at least in September.
rank team last
1 Alabama 1
2 Georgia 2
3 Iowa 3
4 Penn St. 4
5 Oregon 13
6 Cincinnati 6
7 Florida 8
8 Ohio St. 14
9 B. Young 11
10 Clemson 5
11 Oklahoma 7
12 Liberty 9
13 Coastal Car. 10
14 Texas A&M 12
15 Notre Dame 15
16 Oklahoma St. 16
17 Arkansas 21
18 Iowa St. 22
19 Texas 25
20 Ole Miss —
21 Fresno St. —
22 Michigan —
23 Michigan St. —
24 Wyoming —
25 UCLA 19
Out of rankings: (17) U. Miami, (18) Indiana, (20) Virginia Tech, (23) Ball St., (24) Central Florida
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