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2017 Week 14 Poll

Fresno?  Fresno?  I don’t remember a season where my 20-25 teams have been so up and down.  Looks like yet another change at the bottom while a (relatively) stable top ten.

Real AP Poll:

  1. Clemson (27)
  2. Oklahoma (24)
  3. Wisconsin (10)
  4. Auburn – Not a single first place vote?  So the voters who voted Georgia and Alabama number one don’t think Auburn should be that high.  Hmm, interesting.
  5. Alabama
  6. Georgia
  7. Miami
  8. Ohio State
  9. Penn State
  10. TCU
  11. USC
  12. UCF
  13. Washington
  14. Stanford – If only there were a head-to-head between UW and Stanford to help us make this ranking.
  15. Notre Dame
  16. Memphis
  17. LSU
  18. Oklahoma State
  19. Michigan State
  20. Northwestern
  21. Washington State
  22. Virginia Tech – Yes, because blowing out Virginia 10-0 is impressive.
  23. South Florida
  24. Mississippi State
  25. Fresno State

Dropped out: Boise State (25)

Receiving votes: NC State, SDSU, Louisville, Boise State, Toledo, Michigan, Virginia, Missouri, Florida, Iowa State, Kansas State, Troy

Josh’s Top 25:

  1. Clemson
  2. Auburn
  3. Wisconsin
  4. Oklahoma
  5. Ohio State
  6. Georgia
  7. Alabama – Way too many injuries and not a good enough quarterback to stay in my top 5 after that dominating Auburn performance.
  8. TCU
  9. Miami
  10. Penn State
  11. UCF
  12. USC
  13. Washington
  14. Memphis
  15. Notre Dame
  16. Oklahoma State
  17. San Diego State
  18. Stanford – Yes, they beat Notre Dame and Washington but also lost to USC and Washington State.  You have probably also noticed that I don’t have wide swings in my poll.  Stanford went from 21 up to 18.  That is a reasonable climb for a home win against a flawed Irish team.  Beat USC and they’ll keep climbing.
  19. Mississippi State – Not going to be too harsh because Nick Fitzgerald got hurt.  We know with him healthy what they can do to teams.  Sort of like what they did to my 20th ranked team.
  20. LSU
  21. Michigan State
  22. Northwestern
  23. – 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.

Atlantic Coast Conference

Well my Wake Forest team let me down with a loss to Duke so I’m back to the drawing board since I don’t think a 7-5 Wake team will justify being ranked.  A pair of 8-4 teams in NC State and Louisville were looked at as well as 9-3 Virginia Tech.  NC State and UL ironically lost to Wake, the team I am no longer ranking, but still have some nice aspects to their resume.  For the purposes of this though, I’m looking at trends.  NC State finished 2-3 in their final five and 2-1 in those last three.  UL went 4-1 in their final five and 3-0 in the last three.

As for Tech, I don’t like the eye test for this team.  They struggled with a seven loss Pitt team before a flat game against Virginia.  They have just one win against a ranked opponent in their nine victories, back in week one against West Virginia.  Their quarterback play has dropped and if UL and Tech were to square off on a neutral field, I would take the red hot Cards.

ACC Nominee: Louisville

Conference USA

We got the title game we all wanted with FAU and North Texas, right?  Well even if that isn’t what people predicted last summer, the Owls are 9-3 (8-0) and the Mean Green are 9-3 (7-1).  For the purposes of this poll, I’ll go off the FAU victory in the middle of the season over UNT.

C-USA Nominee: FAU

Mountain West Conference

Boise State was in my poll last week but Fresno State knocked them off a week before their MTW title game re-match to put both clubs at identical 9-3 (7-1) marks.  It is a shame that neither is playing SDSU because I think the Aztecs are superior to both (despite losing to both, I know…but just watch Rocky Long’s team and Rashaad Penny).  Anyway, thanks to the head-to-head I am going with Fresno, despite Boise having a pinch better resume.  Again, a weird call but this has been a weird conference.

MTW Nominee: Fresno State

Elimination Time

The above three teams join the AAC’s Bulls of South Florida, the MAC’s Toledo Rockets, Washington State from the Pac 12, SEC hopeful South Carolina, and Troy out of the Sun, aka Fun, Belt.  The first criteria I will look at is who has played FCS teams and then look at any bad games.

FCS Much?…South Carolina has gone 8-4 this year, good stuff out of the SEC, but if you take off their win over Wofford it is really 7-4.  Combine that with some ugly losses to Clemson and Georgia as well as their injuries, the Gamecocks just don’t justify ranking right now.  Fresno State will also be bumped.  Their 9-3 mark is adjusted to 8-3 after dropping the Incarnate Word win.  Worse, the bottom half of the MTW was terrible this year.  Among Fresno’s wins are 3-9 Nevada, 2-11 San Jose State, 3-9 New Mexico, 3-9 Hawai’i, and an out of conference win over 4-9 BYU.  That’s what we like to call a soft schedule.  Bye, Bulldogs.

Bad Game(s)…At first I thought this would doom Washington State thanks to some really lopsided games but they still have those USC and Stanford wins.  Louisville doesn’t have that luxury of having nice wins to fall back on.  In addition to the FCS win that nearly cost them, their four losses include a 26 point stinker, two more double digit losses, and a theme of the defense totally no-showing in the losses.  Later, Louisville.

Final Five

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.

  • FAU
    • BW: North Texas
    • WW: FCS
    • BL: at Wisconsin (by 17)
    • WL: at Buffalo (by 3)
  • South Florida
    • BW: Temple
    • WW: all of them?
    • BL: at UCF (by 7)
    • WL: Houston (by 4)
  • Toledo
    • BW: Northern Illinois
    • WW: FCS
    • BL: at Miami (by 22)
    • WL: at Ohio (by 28)
  • Troy
    • BW: at LSU
    • WW: FCS
    • BL: at Boise State (by 11)
    • WL South Alabama (by 11)
  • Washington State
    • BW: USC or Stanford
    • WW: FCS
    • BL: N/A
    • WL: all of them were blowouts

The first thing that jumped out was Troy having the only power five win of the group of five contenders and the only road power five win out of all the teams left standing.  That LSU win really holds up and going all the way to the Smurf Turf and competing is also impressive.  I **think** this is the week Troy gets ranked.

The next thing I noticed were Toledo’s blowouts.  Both of their losses were ugly.  I think the Miami one is defensible if Toledo had finished 11-1 but losing by four touchdowns to a rival MAC team will eliminate them this week.

Lastly, I can’t shake those two monster wins by Washington State.  In addition to those wins they also have victories over bowl bound Boise State, Oregon, and Utah.  The Ducks and Utes aren’t as good as past teams but are both power league teams that made bowls.  It is safe to say that when WSU is off, they are really off, but they are still extremely dangerous and thus will be ranked.

That leaves (probably) Troy and the two Florida schools.  Time for the fun of the opponent W-L look.

  • FAU wins: 54-52 (.509)
  • FAU overall: 78-63 (.553)
  • USF wins: 37-72 (.339)
  • USF overall: 55-76 (.420)
  • Troy wins: 41-60 (.416)
  • Troy losses: 54-70 (.415)

Nooo!!!  Troy!!!  What are you doing to me?!?  Those numbers don’t exactly pop even when you do factor in knocking off LSU and division champ Akron from the MAC.  Not only is FAU one of the hottest teams in the nation, the fact that C-USA has so many bowl eligible teams speaks to the depth of the conference compared to Sun Belt or even the lower half of the American.  As a result, FAU will join Washington State in the rankings, surprising even me…and I’m freaking writing this!

So here’s the thing for that last spot.  South Florida looked like a ranked team against UCF.  On a neutral field, they probably beat Troy.  Yet they haven’t beaten anyone of consequence yet.  Their schedule stinks.  Troy has the wins (LSU and to a lesser extent Akron) to back up being ranked.  Could Troy get smoked by Arkansas State and make me look like an idiot?  Sure.  Could USF dominate their bowl and get in to the final poll?  Of course.  But hitherto, the team that justifies being ranked are the Trojans.

Final Verdict:

23. Washington State
24. Florida Atlantic
25. Troy

League Breakdown:

5 – Big Ten, SEC
4 – Pac 12
3 – Big 12
2 – ACC, American
1 – C-USA, Indy, MTW, Sun Belt

 

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