Oh the polls, how much I love to argue with you for example one team drops in the polls by beating a 5-2 team on the road by eight while another team wins at home against a 4-3 team by one and moves up in the poll, huh?? Here’s how I stack ’em up, hypocritical and all.
Real AP Poll:
- Alabama (60)
- Michigan (1)
- Clemson
- Washington
- Louisville
- Ohio State – Remember, Michigan State overcame that Nebraska loss on November 7th, a team worse than Penn State and a game later in the year than what OSU did this weekend and still made the tournament. Lots of football left.
- Nebraska
- Baylor
- Texas A&M
- West Virginia
- Wisconsin
- Florida State
- Boise State
- Florida
- Auburn – Umm, wow, that was a statement. They travel to Ole Miss next a team with some defensive issues of their own. Tigers could be a lot like WVU and start mounting an unexpected run here folks.
- Oklahoma – 66-59, how does a team with a defense this bad get to be ranked this high?
- Utah
- Tennessee
- LSU – At one point do we stop making qualifications for Ole Miss and just realize they’re not that good?
- Western Michigan
- North Carolina
- Navy – With a head-to-head win over Memphis and two losses now for Houston, the Middies are now in firm control over the AAC west, yet thanks to losing to Air Force are struggling in the Commander in Chief trophy race. 2016 has been a strange year.
- Colorado
- Penn State
- Virginia Tech – At one point do we stop making qualifications for Miami and just realize they’re not that good?
My Top 25:
- Alabama
- Michigan
- Washington
- Clemson
- Louisville – The ville routed that NC State team that Clemson struggled with so much and I was tempted to make the flip; however, CU still has the head-to-head and once we see Clemson against a FSU team that UL crushed, we will get another common opponent data point so I felt making the flip this week was a little premature.
- Ohio State
- Wisconsin
- Baylor
- Nebraska
- Florida State
- Texas A&M
- West Virginia – WMU and Boise State won but were rather ho-hum. WVU has hammered their last two opponents so they get a little bump thanks to some style points.
- Western Michigan
- Boise State
- Auburn – I wanted to tap the breaks just a pinch on Auburn for a couple reasons. First is the way I construct my poll, I rarely have a team jump up just because they won bigger than other teams ranked near them. The second is sometimes blowouts say more about the losing team than the winning team. What if Arkansas doesn’t win again this year? Let’s see AU take this show on the road and string several dominant performances in a row like West Virginia has done.
- Florida
- Tennessee
- Troy – One weakness I have is. since I use my rankings from previous weeks and give teams passes as long as they keep winning is Troy is ranked probably a spot or two too high. On the other hand, UNC and Navy have much better opponents coming up so if they win big, they will pass Troy and if the Trojans lose a Sun Belt game they will tumble so while this is strange to see Troy in the top 20, the fact is that this is a snapshot poll for this week only and by the time every game of football is played, the worthy teams will prove it at the end.
- North Carolina
- Navy
- Colorado
- Wake Forest – Wake had a bye and then plays Army and Virginia. Get used to seeing them ranked by me for the next few weeks.
- -25. SEE BELOW – Final Verdict
This is the most prestigious rankings on the internet, I can’t just give teams the final spots all willy nilly. I had a reader say that this section wasn’t very clear so I’ll try and state the process more clearly. Since many leagues will have a ton of teams on my radar, I only take one team from each league to start with. On rare exceptions, I’ll take more than one team but for the most part, I really try and weed out within leagues first. Then I see if my final selections have played any FCS teams or have had a bad game (for example a 3-0 win by a SEC school over a .500 Sun Belt team would qualify or a lopsided loss would count as a bad game). After those first two criteria, I take the remaining teams and examine their best win, worst win, best loss, and worst loss to make the final selections.
American Athletic Conference
The AAC is an absolute mess with a lot of solid clubs but difficult arguments to unravel for ranking purposes. In the East USF and Temple are both 3-1 in league. USF has the better record, but Temple just won the head-to-head. In the West Houston, Memphis, and Tulsa all have two losses. Houston has the win over Tulsa and Memphis just lost to Navy. I’m going with the team that has the best win as a result among these five teams and that is Houston with that opening day defeat of Oklahoma.
AAC Nominee: Houston
Atlantic Coast Conference
The Atlantic has a weird team in Syracuse. At 4-4 they don’t look too worthy of consideration but they’ve won two straight, including that rout of Virginia Tech. Hookies have the blowout win over North Carolina but that had weather play a huge role. The fact is they don’t really have any other win than that and just lost a week ago to that ‘Cuse team. That leaves Pitt. Their win over Penn State keeps getting better and better. Oklahoma State (a loss) looks way better now that the Pokes are 5-2 than it did a few weeks ago. Plus Pitt went toe to toe with UNC in favorable weather conditions. That shows more evidence of a worthy team than what Tech did in surviving a hurricane. By the way, Pitt and Tech square off this week so this argument will be moot by next Sunday.
ACC Nominee: Pittsburgh
Big 12
New week, same teams. Oklahoma and Oklahoma State both have two losses hurting their resumes. Worse they have defensive numbers killing their eye test. OSU has the 64th ranked scoring defense and the Sooners have the 115th. Can you really be a top 25 team that refuses to play defense? I’m very skeptical but going with OU again this week. Why? Well the Pokes have won three straight over Texas, Iowa State, and Kansas. Some of the worst teams in the nation and Iowa State (see what I did there!). But yeah, they’re all bad clubs. OU has won four straight and at least Kansas State and TCU (maybe) have somewhat of a pulse.
Big 12 Nominee: Oklahoma
Big Ten
Penn State obviously had the big win but I also took a look at Maryland who got back in the win column and is the same 5-2 mark as PSU, Minnesota who is also 5-2 after a win against Rutgers, and Northwestern who is only 4-3 but has ripped off three straight. This was really easy however because PSU has wins head-to-head wins over both Maryland and Minnesota as well as a better record and individual win than Northwestern.
Big Ten Nominee: Penn State
Mountain West Conference
Did you know that Boise State isn’t the only MWC team with a 3-0 league record? Wyoming and SDSU also boast that same mark. Hawai’i is stunningly not far back either at 3-1. UH though is just 4-3 overall so they don’t come anywhere close yet to getting into this poll. SDSU and Wyoming though are worth a look. The Cowboys have a loss to Nebraska (understandable) and a loss to a surprisingly frisky Eastern Michigan team. SDSU has that lone hiccup down at South Alabama. The eye test comes into play here. SDSU looks like a good team with just one bad week. Wyoming looks like an okay team that is starting to build their program. Nod to the Aztecs.
Mountain West Nominee: San Diego State
Pacific 12 Conference
I have been highly skeptical of Utah, with good reason too, as their opponent’s win percentage is dreadful, but the Utes keep winning and are now up to 7-1 on the year. Washington State has won five straight after an 0-2 start. Of their wins only Stanford is above .500 and of course they lost to a FCS team. USC has also won three straight and has that impressive victory over Colorado. Unfortunately for them, they have a head-to-head defeat against Utah.
Pac 12 Nominee: Utah
Southeastern Conference
With LSU ranked in the real poll and having Arkansas and Ole Miss ranked a week ago all three are automatically looked at. Ole Miss is under .500 now and easily dismissed this week. Arkansas and LSU are each five win teams but the difference is league performance. The Tigers are 3-1 in the SEC and the Hogs are 1-3. LSU also played both Wisconsin and Auburn very tight in losing efforts.
SEC Nominee: LSU
Elimination Time
The above seven teams join Toledo and Appalachian State to create a list of nine teams looking to get one of the final three spots in the poll. The first criteria I will look at is who has played FCS teams and then look at any bad games.
FCS Much…Oklahoma, Penn State, and App State are all FCS free. Everyone else has faced and knocked off their FCS club. San Diego State has six wins but one is over that FCS member to go along with wins over awful San Jose State, Fresno State (who just fired their coach), and a Norther Illinois team that is 2-6, adios Aztecs. Pitt is 5-2 and the win over Penn State is nice but take away their FCS win and they are just 4-2. The other three wins outside the Lions? Marshall, Georgia Tech, and Virginia. Peach out Panthers.
Bad Game(s)…Appalachian State lost 45-10 to Miami. I realize Penn State lost 49-10 to Michigan but a)Michigan is better than Miami and b)Penn State beat Ohio State, a win that App State can’t match yet. Catch ya later, Mountaineers.
Final Six
From nine teams to six and then slotted into just three spots in the poll. For this I try to just look at a couple of games: each team’s best win, worst win, best loss (i.e. a moral victory), and worst loss.
- Houston
- BW: Oklahoma
- WW: FCS
- BL: @ Navy (by 6)
- WL: @ SMU (by 22)
- LSU
- BW: Ole Miss
- WW: FCS
- BL: TIE – Wisconsin by 2, @ Auburn by 5
- WL: N/A
- Oklahoma
- BW: Kansas State
- WW: UL Monroe
- BL: Houston (by 10)
- WL: Ohio State (by 21)
- Penn State
- BW: Ohio State
- WW: Kent State
- BL: @ Pitt (by 3)
- WL: @ Michigan (by 39)
- Toledo
- BW: @ Eastern Michigan
- WW: FCS
- BL: @ BYU (by 2)
- WL: N/A
- Utah
- BW: USC
- WW: FCS
- BL: N/A
- WL: @ Cal (by 5)
The first thing that hops out at me is Toledo’s lack of a power five win. All these other teams have multiple victories over top conference competition. Rockets get bounced.
The next thing that caught my eye is Houston, OU, and Penn State all have 3 touchdown (or more) losses. Seems like one of these teams can be eliminated as a result. Oklahoma’s is at home. Not good. Houston’s is to a sub .500 team. Very not good. Penn State’s was the largest margin, 39. Woof. Unlike Oklahoma and Penn State, Houston hasn’t had an opportunity to atone for their defeat and the fact that they are 1-2 in their last three is jarring. The fact that they could have dropped that Tulsa game to be 0-3 is down right scary. I love ’em but the Cougars aren’t worthy of a ranking this week.
The last few weeks I have noticed that Utah’s opponent’s record is in the gutter. I decided to see if that trend held up this week. The first number is opponents’ win-loss for all games and the number in parenthesis are opponents’ record for wins. For example, Utah’s first number would be all eight foes and the second number would be all seven of their wins.
- LSU: 27-22 (17-16)
- OU: 28-22 (16-19)
- PSU: 35-16 (23-14)
- UU: 24-35 (20-32)
Holy smokes does that trend hold up! Utah and LSU’s are the closest winning percentages at .407 and .551 overall while Utah and Oklahoma’s are the closest in just wins at .385 and .457. What does this data tell us? Well it says that while going 7-1 Utah’s opponents aren’t good. Like…at all. Their opponents with winning records: USC and Cal at just 4-3 and in that Cal game the Utes couldn’t even win. The fact of the matter is, Utah just cannot justify a ranking right now. Utes fans have to feel like I’m ganging up on them but I’m not, it is just a reality that the Pac 12 isn’t nearly as good as people thought it would be.
So with Utah eliminated again due to a terrible schedule, how do these teams shake out? It is pretty clear that Penn State is ahead of LSU and Oklahoma. The Lions have faced by far the best schedule and have battled through it pretty will, all things considered. They will be 23rd.
LSU and Oklahoma are pretty similar resumes. Oklahoma has technically faced the better slate, but hasn’t beaten any of their tough opponents. While LSU’s is one win worse overall, the fact is the Tigers have beaten better clubs in their wins, as evident by a little bit better winning percentage (.515 vs .457). As a note, one of LSU’s opponents is 6-1 Jacksonville State of the FCS. JSU is the defending runner up in that level of play though and is as good (probably better) than Oklahoma’s worst win: UL Monroe.
Two other criteria I glanced at when trying to split these teams were road wins. Granted the Sooners have two to LSU’s none but to me that doesn’t fully negate the fact that OU’s defense is one of the worst in the entire nation. Boomer Sooner gets the last spot.
FINAL VERDICT:
23. Penn State
24. LSU
25. Oklahoma
League Breakdown:
6 – SEC
5 – ACC, Big Ten
3 – Big 12
2 – Pac 12
1 – AAC, MAC, Mountain West, Sun Belt
Big Ten and Counting 