CFB Rankings: Let’s Start the Journey
To help keep myself sane, I decided this year to cut down on college football coverage on LAist. So instead of doing the rankings there, I’m doing them here. Don’t worry if you don’t follow that logic. I don’t follow it either.
I have long said that preseason polls and the first four weeks of polls are bunk. You can’t judge a team based on their performance the prior year. Take USC last year. They were the preseason no. 1 after going 10-2 the prior year. USC crapped the bed to go 7-6 including the loss to Georgia Tech in the Sun Bowl. Yeah, good going.
Also, in the first few weeks, there are a lot of cupcakes being played. Can we really judge Oregon on how they played Nicholls State? Is Alabama the same monster they are after beating Georgia State 45-3? Did Louisville strain a finger while playing Eastern Kentucky?
Here’s the new AP poll and below is my rankings
| Rank | Last Week | School | Record | AP Rank | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | — | Alabama | 6-0, SEC | 1 | Sure they have played some cupcakes like Georgia State and Colorado State. Sure their defense looked awful against Texas A&M. Sure it looked alarming when they couldn’t score in the first quarter against Kentucky. But they got the 48-7 win, and that’s really all that matters, right? |
| 2 | — | Oregon | 6-0, Pac-12 | 2 | Yet again, Oregon looks like Oregon. The offense looks unstoppable, and the defense “pitches to the score” to borrow from the bag of baseball cliches which are actually lies. Really, the defense looked leaky against Washington. It wasn’t until they pulled away late in the game the 45-24 score looked respectable. |
| 3 | — | Ohio State | 6-0, Big Ten | 4 | Ohio State is undefeated under head coach Urban Meyer. They came way from Wisconsin and Northwestern in consecutive weeks unscathed. With the way the rest of the Big Ten looks, the Buckeyes could be waiting in the wings if Alabama or Oregon falters. |
| 4 | — | Clemson | 6-0, ACC | 3 | It’s amazing how far a Week 1 win against Georgia can take a team. The ACC is them and Florida State with Miami posing a threat. That’s it. Syracuse? Boston College? Duke? Wake me up when Wake Forest gets good again. But that Week 1 win is the only thing giving this school credibility. |
| 5 | — | LSU | 6-1, SEC | 6 | I might be a little biased here since I did spend the first eight years of my life in Baton Rouge. That loss in Georgia hurt, although that along with Alabama-Texas A&M were probably the most entertaining SEC games ever. LSU’s young defensive corps looked to come of age yesterday against Florida. Mmm. Fried gator tails. |
| 6 | — | Texas A&M | 5-1, SEC | 7 | I almost cried when I saw Johnny Manziel grab his knee in Oxford yesterday. Not really. They put a brace on him, he got used to it, and then in fourth quarter he reverted back to “Johnny Football”. That was fun to watch last night, the fourth-and-seven conversion, the TD misdirection run. Moral of the story: Fuck Ole Miss with their players heckling the Matthew Shepard play. |
| 7 | — | Florida State | 5-0, ACC | 5 | The Seminoles had the bye to get ready to go to Clemson next week. As great as quarterback Jameis Winston has been, I’ll be more impressed next week if they beat Clemson rather than their wins against Pitt, Nevada, Bethune-Cookman, Boston College and Maryland. |
| 8 | — | UCLA | 5-0, Pac-12 | 9 | Man, UCLA looked like they were sleepwalking against the awful and injury-riddled Cal team. But they left the mostly filled Rose Bowl with the 37-10 victory. Now comes the real test with road games against Stanford and Oregon in consecutive weeks. |
| 9 | — | Stanford | 5-1, Pac-12 | 13 | Stanford looked ill prepared for what they saw at Rice-Eccles Stadium yesterday. Utah proved they were a good team giving UCLA a scare last week. Perhaps it was the trap game. After beating Washington last week, perhaps they were taking a peek at UCLA next week? |
| 10 | — | Miami | 5-0, ACC | 10 | Like Clemson, a victory against an SEC team is what holding Miami in high graces. They took advantage of a sloppy Florida team in Week 2. Miami as of late has been pretty sloppy themselves struggling early against South Florida and Georgia Tech in consecutive weeks. They won’t get tested until November at Florida State and vs. Virginia Tech in consecutive weeks. |
AP has Louisville ranked 8. Sure they have a Heisman-caliber quarterback in Teddy Bridgewater. But in the remnants of the Big East conference, just where exactly are their challenges? Have fun at the Orange Bowl.
BTW, this was my first journey into HTML/CSS tables in a very long time. I’m glad I still have hand-coding skills and that being reliant on tools like WordPress hasn’t made me completely lazy. That’s it. I’m just patting myself on the back.