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| Rank | Team | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Florida | |
| 2 | Southern Cal | |
| 3 | Texas | |
| 4 | Alabama | |
| 5 | Penn State | |
| 6 | Brigham Young | |
| 7 | Boise State | |
| 8 | California | |
| 9 | TCU | |
| 10 | LSU | |
| 11 | Mississippi | |
| 12 | Utah | |
| 13 | Houston | |
| 14 | Georgia Tech | |
| 15 | Cincinnati | |
| 16 | Nebraska | |
| 17 | Miami (Florida) | |
| 18 | Virginia Tech | |
| 19 | Oklahoma | |
| 20 | Ohio State | |
| 21 | North Carolina | |
| 22 | Michigan | |
| 23 | Kansas | |
| 24 | Pittsburgh | |
| 25 | UCLA | |
[Update: Third time’s the charm… I had UNC [and Ohio State] listed twice. I removed them and Pittsburgh snuck in. Wannstache is due for an upset loss, but otherwise his team is 2-0 and is the same squad people thought would win the Big East, though Cincy looks better so far.]
More “gestalt”
- There’s a solid case to be made that USC should have leapfrogged Florida to be number one because they played a quality opponent, but I can’t get past my gut feeling that Florida would roll USC if they played right now. Later in the season? Who is to say. UT sleepwalked part of the way past Wyoming — and they have more questions than does Florida, obviously — but if the ‘Horns throttle Texas Tech at home (who I dropped this week for playing nobody, and have their chance to jump up this weekend as well), then they could shoot to #1.
- Penn State also leapt in front of ‘Bama as they still had a bit of a hangover from bruising up Va Tech, and I’m keeping the mid-majors like BYU who have beaten people ahead of teams like LSU and Ole Miss who still look like they will be standing at the end of the year but haven’t been truly tested yet. Houston jumped up this week after the big victory against Oklahoma State — who I actually dropped, because seriously — and Utah might be a little high but we’ll see how they do against an unimpressive Oregon squad. If the Utes manhandle the Ducks, then that could really jam up impressions of them as compared with Boise State.
- For some others, Cincy is surging, Georgia Tech is hanging on, Miami is heading into more of its terrifying part of the schedule, and I gave Michigan the nod into the polls. Notre Dame had risen to as high as the top 15 in some polls; the Wolverines have looked much better than anticipated so they snuck in ahead of teams like Texas Tech that got dropped for not playing anyone legitimate yet.
- Some of the losers remain in the polls: I couldn’t drop all of them too far. I don’t know if that counts as improper path dependence because they were mostly highly ranked teams previously, but I don’t think it is a stretch to say that Oklahoma, Ohio State, and Virginia Tech are going to win plenty of games this year, despite early stumbles.