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2017 Week 2 Poll

I hate the polls. I think it has silly swings of teams and doing a poll before several games are played clouds judgement. For instance, MSU was 8th in the nation last year when Wisconsin beat them on the road. UW soared through the rankings as a result, but MSU finished 3-9 (1-7) so was it really an impressive win? As a result, I don’t do my poll until the first month of the season is in the books, but I’ll weigh in on what the poll right now.

Real AP Poll:

  1. Alabama (60)
  2. Ohio State (1)
  3. Clemson
  4. Penn State
  5. Oklahoma
  6. USC
  7. Washington
  8. Michigan
  9. Wisconsin
  10. Florida State – This feels right.  If Deondre Francois wasn’t out for the year, I think FSU would have slipped from #3 to #5 but with his injury the ranking slide had to be a little bit more.  Hell of a defense the ‘Noles have, though.  Don’t count them out quite yet.
  11. Oklahoma State
  12. LSU
  13. Auburn
  14. Stanford
  15. Georgia
  16. Miami
  17. Louisville
  18. Virginia Tech – My biggest concern was their quarterback uncertainty.  Joshua Jackson certainly shut me up nicely.
  19. Kansas State
  20. Washington State
  21. USF
  22. Florida – They sure didn’t look like one of the 25 best teams last week.  If I was to actually rank the teams like the real poll, I would’ve knocked them all the way out…but going from 17th to un-ranked is a huge swing, which is why I don’t bother doing a poll until some games are out of the way.  It’s called a sample size, people!
  23. TCU
  24. Notre Dame – Is Temple that bad?  Is Notre Dame that good?  We’ll find out a lot more in week two when the Irish host Georgia and Temple gets an opportunity against Villanova to regain their footing after taking one on the chin in the opener.
  25. Tennessee – Should I retract my snide comment from last week?  Maybe.  Will I?  No.

Dropped: West Virginia (22), Texas (23)

RV: Utah, UCLA, West Virginia, Colorado, Maryland, Oregon, South Carolina, Boise State, Northwestern, Houston, SDSU, Texas Tech, Kentucky, Iowa, Cal, Mississippi State, Navy, Michigan State, Nebraska, Pittsburgh, Vanderbilt

Josh’s Top 25:

N/A, I’ll wait until week four to formally introduce my poll but I would have had at least 20 of these teams ranked as well. Here are a few gut reactions in bullet form:

  • LSU only went up one spot after annihilating BYU 27-0 but a lot of their points came on field goals from drives that stalled deep in Cougar territory.  Wonder what their ranking would be if that game had been 40 something to zero.
  • Don’t remember seeing Stanford last week?  That’s because you didn’t.  The Cardinal opened against Rice in Australia in week 0 and then had last Saturday off.  I’m inclined to think that will help more than hurt as they head to the Colosseum on the 9th to go against USC.  If they pull that win off, top 10 for sure….but could that slip them up to a top 5 position???
  • USF is 2-0 on the season but because they didn’t destroy either opponent they went two positions down.  I’m curious how destroying Central Arkansas or Montana State warranted K-State or Wazzu hopping the Bulls so easily.
  • TCU gets in by being “26th” last week in the RV and destroying Jackson State but it might not last too long as they head to Arkansas next.  Frogs have a really high ceiling but until Kenny Hill shows that he can consistently play well, especially between the ears, I’m going to be a bit of a TCU skeptic.
  • Who is voting for Nebraska and Pittsburgh and can I have a sip of whatever they are drinking?

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