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2022: Week 12 Poll

Welcome to the most difficult poll to get into. Zero poll inertia. Ya win, ya stay the same (mostly). No preseason ranking clouding my judgement. No wild jumps just because of an upset or a fall because of a bye week. It is truly merit based so some fans will be excited while some will cling to the goofballs over at the AP poll.

Real AP Poll:

  1. Georgia (62)
  2. Ohio State (1)
  3. Michigan
  4. TCU
  5. Tennessee
  6. LSU
  7. USC
  8. Alabama
  9. Clemson
  10. Utah – Heavy is the crown for the Pac 12’s highest ranked teams. Are the Trojans and Utes on upset watch now?
  11. Penn State
  12. Oregon
  13. North Carolina
  14. Ole Miss
  15. Washington
  16. UCLA
  17. UCF
  18. Notre Dame
  19. Kansas State
  20. Florida State
  21. Tulane
  22. Cincinnati – Three American teams?! I’m sure they’ll be well represented in future playoffs, baaahaha. No love for this league.
  23. Coastal Carolina
  24. Oklahoma State – Still ranked ahead of Bedlam? Feel like the Ralph Wiggum “I’m in danger” meme.
  25. Oregon State

Dropped: NC State (17), Texas (18), Liberty (19), Illinois (21)

Receiving Votes: NC State, Texas, UTSA, Troy, Duke, Liberty, Illinois, Minnesota, Florida, Boise State, South Alabama

Josh’s Top 25:

  1. Georgia
  2. Ohio State
  3. Michigan
  4. TCU
  5. Tennessee
  6. USC
  7. LSU
  8. Alabama
  9. Utah
  10. Clemson
  11. Ole Miss
  12. Oregon
  13. North Carolina
  14. UCLA
  15. Penn State
  16. Washington
  17. Oregon State
  18. Kansas State
  19. Notre Dame
  20. UCF
  21. Tulane
  22. -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(s) all willy nilly. I had a reader say that this section wasn’t very clear so I’ll try to 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 (bad games could be narrow wins over bad opponents, a blowout loss, or a stunning upset). 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

I barely had UCF out last week and then they upset a Tulane team I think incredibly highly of. So highly of in fact, I kept Tulane in my poll and put UCF in above them at 20th. That leaves just one possible nominee…those pesky Bearcats.

AAC Nominee: Cincinatti

Atlantic Coast Conference

NC State looked to be safe until Boston College knocked them off. Now they have to re-work in the elimination round. Joining them is another Florida team that was just a whisper away from being ranked a week ago. Louisville laid an egg and will not be considered this week. Joining is upstart Duke, who is now 7-3 and just beat the snot out of Virginia Tech.

ACC Nominees: Duke, Florida State and NC State

Big 12 Conference

Of my three nominees here last week, only Kansas State won and is now safely in the poll. Baylor got embarrassed and Texas while looking good, is now 6-4. That isn’t very rank-able. Re-entering the picture is Oklahoma State with 7 wins. However they still didn’t look very good against Iowa State.

Big 12 Nominee: No one

Big Ten Conference

Purdue’s upset at Illinois is tempting but they are just 6-4. Illinois is 7-3 but looking quite shaky. As big of an Iowa homer as I am, I can’t rank them anytime soon.

Big Ten Nominee: No One

Conference USA

Meep Meep! UTSA has been on my radar for weeks. They keep winning and keep getting nominated.

C-USA Nominee: UTSA

Independents

Liberty snuck in my poll last week but I didn’t feel great about them. Then they lost. Notre Dame was higher in my poll and won, so they moved up.

Independents Nominee: No One

Mid-American Conference

Ohio is the closest to consideration but they were outscored against power five competition 89-20 earlier in the year. Feasting on MAC foes will get them to the MAC title game, but they aren’t one of the 25 best teams in America yet.

MAC Nominee: No One

Mountain West Conference

Boise was ranked, then lost to BYU, then steamrolled Nevada. Nevada is awful though, so I’m not ready to put Boise back into consideration. Ironically the other best resume in the MWC is Wyoming – a team that also lost to BYU. BYU may only be 5-5 but they are 3-0 in Mountain West games. Hmm.

MWC Nominee: No One

Pac-12 Conference

I kept OSU in my poll last week despite the loss to Washington and they paid me back with a return-to-form victory against Cal. As a result they moved up. Behind those Beavers is 6-4 Washington State. Wazzu has played better in their two game winning streak but no well enough for consideration.

Pac-12 Nominee: No One

Southeastern Conference

Going into the weekend South Carolina, Kentucky, and Mississippi State were all 6-3 (3-3) and either getting votes or ranked in the coaches. I didn’t think any of them looked like ranked clubs. They all lost with Kentucky’s loss to Vanderbilt the most humiliating.

SEC Nominees: No One

Sun Belt Conference:

Coastal, Troy, and South Alabama are all bowl eligible with at least eight wins and Coastal leading the way at 9-1. None of these teams has a win over a power five which is an issue, but, the Sun Belt has been playing good ball and Coastal’s overall mark is tough to ignore. They will get to stack up against the rest of the nation.

Sun Belt Nominee: Coastal Carolina

Elimination Time:

We have our nominees set. Now we need to do some weeding! The first criteria I will look at is who has played FCS teams and then look at any bad games.

FCS Much?…I love the story coming out of Duke. First year coach, seven wins, going bowling…but…are they rankable? Unfortunately, not yet. Their schedule includes cupcakes like Temple, Northwestern, Virginia, and Boston College. On top of that they beat FCS North Carolina A&T. Take the FCS one out they are 6-3 with a lot of terrible clubs. Good on them for taking advantage of the schedule.

Bad Game(s)…NC State, what on earth happened? Losing to Boston College, really? Now this isn’t their only bad game. They were hammered by Syracuse (but Syracuse was good then…is that the defense?) and they had a one point win over Virginia Tech. On top of all this, they also stepped down into FCS. They are just too inconsistent right now to feel like a top 25 team.

Final Four

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.

  • Cincinnati
    • BW: at SMU or ECU
    • WW: FCS
    • BL: at UCF (by 4)
    • WL: at Arkansas (by 7)
  • Coastal Carolina
    • BW: at Marshall
    • WW: FCS
    • BL: None
    • WL: Old Dominion (by 28)
  • Florida State
    • BW: LSU
    • WW: FCS
    • BL: Clemson (by 6)
    • WL: Wake Forest (by 10)
  • UTSA
    • BW: Western Kentucky or North Texas
    • WW: FCS
    • BL: Houston (by 2)
    • WL: at Texas (by 21)

So this feels very obvious when looking at these teams. Coastal has the worst resume. They haven’t played the second or third best teams in their league like UTSA did and they have easily the worst loss. They are ranked because 9-1 is special, but it won’t be very highly. As for 22 this is also painfully obvious, Florida State has the single best win. They also have some smaller wins but that isn’t the point of this exercise since we are just trying to see the best and worst case scenarios of each team.

Finally the Roadrunners versus the Bearcats. Both of them have taken on the best their respective leagues had to offer and won them – outside UC’s narrow loss at UCF. I think the similar records combined with the harder schedule clearly favors UC over UTSA.

Final Verdict:

22. Florida State
23. Cincinnati
24. UTSA
25. Coastal Carolina

League Breakdown:

6 – Pac 12
5 – SEC
3 – AAC, ACC, Big Ten
2 – Big 12
1 – Conference USA, Independent, Sun Belt

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