One week is down in the current college football season, and while there were a lot of blowouts, there were also quite a few surprises. Six teams left my rankings, so there are also six new teams, joining the other 19, including a few that lost their opening games. Mississippi State and LSU were the big winners of the opening weekend, both playing much better than expected, one over a top-ranked team, and one over a nobody. Games against teams that are not part of the FBS do not help improve a team's ranking. Each team's current rankings is followed by last week's ranking, the team name, overall record, and current AP rank.
TW - LW - TEAM - RECORD - AP
1. (1) Stanford (1-0) (6)
2. (3) Boise State (1-0) (4)
3. (16) Mississippi State (1-0) (16)
4. (11) Louisiana State (1-0) (2)
5. (7) Oklahoma (1-0) (1)
6. (5) Alabama (1-0) (3)
7. (4) Arizona State (1-0) (26)
8. (8) South Carolina (1-0) (12)
9. (9) Arkansas (1-0) (14)
10. (21) Texas A&M (1-0) (7)
11. (NR) South Florida (1-0) (22)
12. (6) Florida State (1-0) (5)
13. (12) North Carolina State (1-0) (41)
14. (13) Florida (1-0) (18)
15. (2) Oregon (0-1) (13)
16. (15) Arizona (1-0) (44)
17. (22) Ohio State (1-0) (15)
18. (14) Wisconsin (1-0) (8)
19. (18) Virginia Tech (1-0) (11)
20. (19) Nebraska (1-0) (10)
21. (NR) Minnesota (0-1) (NR)
22. (NR) TCU (0-1) (25)
23. (NR) Northwestern (1-0) (30)
24. (NR) Clemson (1-0) (47)
25. (NR) Miami (0-1) (NR)
Dropping out:
(24) Northern Illinois (1-0) (44)
(10) Oklahoma State (1-0) (9)
(25) Missouri (1-0) (21)
(17) USC (1-0) (28)
(23) Notre Dame (0-1) (36)
(20) Auburn (1-0) (27)
Ranked Teams by Conference:
SEC - 6
ACC - 5
Big 10 - 5
Pac 10 - 4
MWC - 2
Big 12 - 2
Big East - 1
Stanford tore up San Jose State in the season opener, outscoring them 57-3, but each of those points was absolutely necessary due to the huge talent gap between the two schools. If just one of those touchdowns had been taken away, I'm not sure you could make a case for them to remain #1, so they did what was necessary.
Boise State went into Atlanta and took down the Georgia Bulldogs, who were not ranked in my initial rankings, but were sitting just outside at #26 and playing a virtual home game. The Broncos did the same thing they've done for the past few seasons, beat a very strong team from a power conference on the road to make a statement, although we'll have to see if it's enough to impress the computers by season's end.
LSU's win over Oregon was double impressive, because the game was played at a neutral site, and Oregon only lost once last season, in the National Championship Game to Auburn. The Ducks are not accustomed to losing, but the Tigers ran all over them, and the game wasn't as close as the score looked.
South Florida pulled one of the biggest upsets of the weekend when they took out Notre Dame in South Bend after a game that took most of the day due to weather delays. The Bulls are coached by Skip Holtz, who is the son of former Notre Dame coach Lou Holtz and a former Irish player also, so the upset was especially sweet for him.
Minnesota vaulted into the rankings despite losing its opening game, because they nearly beat a ranked USC team on the road, with the outcome in doubt until the final 40 seconds. The fact that they were in Los Angeles and not expected to perform well made that performance a virtual victory for the Gophers, who took USC's place in my rankings.
Prediction Results - 1-4 Sep
College Football: 24-3 (.889)
How is Asu so high?
ReplyDeleteASU was very underrated last year, playing close games with 4 ranked teams, then returned nearly every starter this year. We'll see how good they really are when they play Mizzou this weekend.
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