Oh the polls, how much I love to argue with you but I need to apologize. Like the majority of voters across the country I buried Houston after that SMU game. They are clearly one of the 25 best teams. Losing to a difficult triple option executed by a good team, Navy, and a cross-town arch rival who has lost to you for years and has everything to play for in that singular game resulting in an upset should not have erased the Oklahoma win. The good news is, they will be back in without question. Here’s how I stack ’em up, hypocritical and all.
Real AP Poll:
- Alabama (61)
- Ohio State
- Michigan
- Clemson
- Wisconsin
- Washington
- Oklahoma
- Penn State
- Colorado
- Oklahoma State – Okay, so we know that the tournament will come from these ten teams because a 3-loss USC Pac 12 champ feels like a stretch and 2-loss Florida doesn’t have the wins that a 2-loss PSU or UW will have if they win out. So who has the best shot of making it? Bama and Clemson are nearly locks – they’ve already clinched their divisions and have easy(ish) title games. OSU is eliminated from winning the Big 10, it will be interesting how much that benchmark hurts them. Obviously the loser of the OSU-UM game is out. Penn State is also out if Michigan wins because they can’t make Indianapolis. Oklahoma and Okie State play each other so one of them will be eliminated. Washington has that tricky Apple Cup game then the title game so the odds of them stubbing their toe feels higher. As a result of the top ten, I think Alabama, Clemson, Michigan, Wisconsin, Colorado, and Oklahoma are holding the best cards to make the CFP.
- Louisville
- USC
- Florida
- Western Michigan
- Florida State
- Auburn
- Nebraska
- Houston
- West Virginia
- Boise State
- Utah
- Texas A&M
- Washington State
- Tennessee – huh? Didn’t expect to see them again this year.
- LSU
My Top 25:
- Alabama
- Ohio State
- Washington
- Michigan
- Clemson
- Wisconsin
- Florida State – Why are they ahead of UL? Well, I don’t have a great answer other than the head-to-head was so long ago that these teams are just in different places now.
- Louisville – This team with Lamar Jackson is still downright scary. If there is any lesson to Houston being unranked for so long is, look at the body of work and not overreact to a team on their worse day. UL has had more good days than bad days.
- Western Michigan
- Penn State
- Auburn
- Colorado
- Oklahoma
- Florida
- Nebraska
- Oklahoma State
- Boise State
- Houston
- USC
- North Carolina
- West Virginia
- Texas A&M
- -25 SEE BELOW – Final Verdict
See Below, What the Hell Is That?
This is the most prestigious rankings on the internet, I can’t just give teams the final spot 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
My podcast co-host Matt and I did a very scientific look at the AAC compared to the Big 12 and ACC. We found it is better than the Big 12 and not as far from passing the ACC as people would have you believe. As a result I am very intrigued who between USF, Temple, Navy, and Tulsa can possibly join Houston in the rankings.
A few weeks ago I was all about this Tulsa team but they now have the weakest of these four resumes. They are 8-3 with zero wins over their big tests – Houston, Navy, and non-con Ohio State. They’re out. South Florida and Temple sort of cancel each other out. Despite the Bulls knocking off Navy, they lost to Temple. Temple turns around and has a worse record than USF as well as a head scratching loss to Army and dropped the game to Memphis. They both are gone.
That leaves Navy. Their win over Houston looks even BETTER now but they also boast wins over 7-win Memphis, 8-win Tulsa, and are very likely (if they can defeat SMU) to win their division over, you guessed it, Houston. If we are looking for the 25 best teams in the country, shouldn’t won who, ya know, can win the league be at least looked at?
AAC Nominee: Navy
Atlantic Coast Conference
Virginia Tech’s comeback over Notre Dame, as well as being in the driver’s seat of their division, puts them in great shape but to do my due diligence I looked at Pitt and Miami who are both now at the 7-win mark on the year. This was a pretty quick test though, I forgot that Tech beat BOTH of these teams.
ACC Nominee: Virginia Tech
Big Ten
8-win Minnesota and 7-win Iowa are the only teams left with resumes that can possibly get into the top-25 left in the Big Ten since our league already has so much representation. Despite having more wins, Minnesota has just one victory over a team with a winning record, 6-5 Colorado State. Worse, UM lost the head-to-head to Iowa. I’m not sure the Hawk’s win over Michigan will be enough once opened up to comparison across the nation but for this stage of consideration, Iowa advances.
Big Ten Nominee: Iowa
Conference USA
I nominated 8-3 La Tech over 8-3 WKU a week ago and both were idle so the rational stays. However, Old Dominion won to also get to 8-3. Tech has the head-to-head win over WKU and Western has the victory over ODU so with their schedules being insanely similar (for example, both Tech and ODU faced independent UMass) that I think the dreaded transitive property works here.
C-USA Nominee: Louisiana Tech
Mountain West Conference
A quick word about this league and why you will see Wyoming shortly. 7-win New Mexico lost to Colorado State so they wouldn’t be considered. Wyoming beat SDSU who was ranked in the real poll (not mine) and moved to 2-1 against AP teams while SDSU hasn’t even faced a ranked club yet.
Mountain West Nominee: Wyoming
Pacific 12 Conference
Washington State and Utah were ranked a week ago so they will automatically get looked at again. Who else is back though, Stanford. They have 8 wins as well, the same tally for WSU and Utah. I hate the smugness of “I told you so” so I won’t go that far, but I’ve been very skiddish on this Utah team. Just last week I had them 20th and the real AP had them 11th. This week the voters dropped the Utes 10 spots because they lost to a 7-loss Oregon team at home. They have just two wins over winning teams (USC and BYU) and have two wretched losses (Oregon and Cal) to go along with some close call. I think Utah has to be dropped from consideration.
That leaves WSU and Stanford, which is an absolute no-brainer. Not only did the Cougars destroy Stanford, 42-16, but we just saw WSU pass an eyetest by going toe-to-toe with a highly ranked Colorado team in Boulder. Wazzu, easy.
Pac 12 Nominee: Washington State
Southeastern Conference
LSU was ranked a week ago and that defense should give them a great shot at being ranked again but they are 6-4, which makes them the worst ranked record in the current poll. As a result they will get looked at against Tennessee, a team I still really like in Georgia, as well as an Arkansas team that has more wins than LSU.
Georgia has the best win of this group, knocking off Auburn, but their 1-4 swoon in the middle of the season that included a loss to Vanderbilt is really hard to ignore. Factor in a head-to-head loss to the Vols, the Dawgs have to sit for the time being. Arkansas has the next most impressive win, Florida, but they have a head-to-head loss to LSU, were worked over by Auburn 56-3, and have a sub. 500 league record. Pigs are also out.
UT has the wins over Florida and Georgia working in their favor but lost three straight in the middle of the season including one to South Carolina. Their three game winning streak is against a FCS team, so-so Kentucky, and awful Missouri. LSU has a much, much better defense, a way better showing against Alabama, drubbed that Arkansas team by 28, and scheduled way tougher than UT. I think the deciding factor is who I would want to face less and that answer is clear: LSU.
SEC Nominee: LSU
Elimination Time
The above seven teams join BYU and Toledo to form a master list of nine teams trying to get the last three spots in my poll. The first criteria I will look at is who has played FCS teams and then look at any bad games.
FCS Much?…Everyone on this list has played a FCS team and two (Iowa and Washington State) even lost to their foes. Knocking out BYU here though. They’ve turned their season around from a 1-3 start to 7-4 but they have just one win over a team with a winning record (Toledo) and removing their FCS win drops them to a pedestrian 6-4. Catch ya later, Cougars.
Bad Game(s)…La Tech got eliminated here thanks to losses to Middle Tennessee, a so-so seven win C-USA team, and Texas Tech, a 4-7 team that just got THROTTLED by Iowa State. Bye, Bulldogs. Speaking of teams with bad games, look at Iowa. They got drubbed out at Penn State, 41-14, and earlier in the year gave up yards and points at will to Northwestern (now 5-6) in a loss. They also lost to a FCS team! Black Hawk Down, and out of consideration.
Final Six
From nine down to six as I search to find the 23rd through 25th best team in America. 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.
- LSU
- BW: Arkansas
- WW: FCS
- BL: Alabama (by 10)
- WL: Florida (by 6)
- Navy
- BW: Houston
- WW: FCS
- BL: at Air Force (by 14)
- WL: at USF (by 7)
- Toledo
- BW: Arkansas State
- WW: FCS
- BL: at BYU (by 2)
- WL: Ohio (by 5)
- Virginia Tech
- BW: at Pitt
- WW: FCS
- BL: N/A
- WL: Syracuse or Georgia Tech
- Washington State
- BW: at Stanford
- WW: Arizona
- BL: at Colorado (by 6)
- WL: FCS
- Wyoming
- BW: Boise State
- WW: FCS
- BL: at Nebraska (by 35)
- WL: at Eastern Michigan (by 3)
First take away is Toledo’s best win doesn’t quite cut it. I realize Arkansas State is a good team, hell, they haven’t lost a Sun Belt game since 2014 so to beat them by 21 is impressive but it just doesn’t cut it in a group this good. Virginia Tech and LSU have the most questionable resumes. We are assuming because LSU has the 6th best defense that they are better than their 6-4 mark. We are also assuming that because Tech upset North Carolina in a hurricane that they are good.
I’m going to drop Virginia Tech because of those terrible Syracuse and Georgia Tech losses. Jackets are just 7-4 but Syracuse is even worse at 4-7. Neither game was particularly close (Ga Tech was by 10) and don’t forget the Hokies lost by 21 to Tennessee earlier in the year. Simply put, Virginia Tech does not pass my eyetest. LSU’s amazing defense does.
I now have three resume’s I really like in Navy, Wyoming, and Washington State’s to go along with that pesky LSU team. Since group of five teams may just have a single win, I though I’d bring in one other aspect for this week since there is a lot of Go5 in these final few teams and that is Second Best Win:
- LSU: Ole Miss (5-6)
- Navy: Tulsa (8-3)
- Washington State: Arizona State (5-6)
- Wyoming: SDSU (9-2)
Well that inadvertently hurt the Power teams. Actually, that’s not true, I knew Wyoming and Navy had a better resume than LSU and that WSU was feasting on weaker opponents but wanted to highlight that point.
I know this is where every SEC fan will say, but Josh, LSU is losing to Wisconsin, Auburn, Alabama, and Florida, all highly ranked teams. Their strength of schedule is so much harder. The problem with that argument is you are rewarding losing. Let’s play a crazy hypothetical. No conferences no names. Team A plays #1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 in the season. They play the cream of the crop. They lose every game by 1 point. They are 0-12 with a margin of defeat of 12 points. Team B plays #115, #116, #117, #118, #119, #120, #121, #122, #123, #124, #125, #126. They play the worst of the worse. They win every game by a single touchdown. They are 12-0 with the margin of victory at just 84 points. Who is the better team? At some point to be considered the best team you NEED TO WIN YOUR GAMES!
That is what Navy and Wyoming has done and what LSU hasn’t. The polls are not trying to figure out if LSU would beat Navy in a game. The polls are trying to find out who has the best resume to date and those will always be teams who win and in the case of Navy with wins over Houston and Tulsa are winning frequently. In the case of Wyoming with wins over Boise and SDSU are winning frequently.
Since I know those “little” teams are in, what do I do with WSU and LSU head to head? Simple, honestly. Washington State scored 24 points against a good defense in one crack. In four tries against good defenses LSU has 37 total points. WSU destroyed Stanford. LSU’s best win? Yikes, just Arkansas. You’re still ranked up there in Pullman!
Final Verdict:
23. Navy
24. Wyoming
25. Washington State
League Breakdown:
5 – Big Ten
4 – ACC, Pac 12, SEC
3 – Big 12
2 – American, Mountain West
1 – MAC
Big Ten and Counting 