Week 3 College Football Rankings, Ratings and Bubble Watch

RK	AP Poll	USA Today Poll	Jeremy	Nick
1	Florida State	Florida State	Florida State	Florida State
2	Oregon	Alabama	Alabama	Alabama
3	Alabama	Oklahoma	Oregon	Oregon
4	Oklahoma	Oregon	Auburn	Georgia
5	Auburn	Auburn	Georgia	Oklahoma
6	Georgia	Georgia	Baylor	Auburn
7	Texas A&M	Baylor	USC	Baylor
8	Baylor	Texas A&M	Oklahoma	LSU
9	USC	LSU	LSU	Texas A&M
10	LSU	USC	Texas A&M	Notre Dame
11	Notre Dame	Notre Dame	Stanford	USC
12	UCLA	UCLA	Notre Dame	UCLA
13	Michigan State	Michigan State	Michigan State	Ole Miss
14	Ole Miss	Arizona State	Ole Miss	Kansas State
15	Stanford	Ole Miss	Virginia Tech	Wisconsin
16	Arizona State	Stanford	Louisville	Virginia Tech
17	Virginia Tech	Wisconsin	Arizona State	Nebraska
18	Wisconsin	Ohio State	Missouri	Arizona State
19	Kansas State	Virginia Tech	Kansas State	Stanford
20	Missouri	Kansas State	Wisconsin	Michigan State
21	Louisville	Nebraska	UCLA	Louisville
22	Ohio State	Missouri	Ohio State	South Carolina
23	Clemson	South Carolina	Florida	Clemson
24	South Carolina	Clemson	Clemson	Ohio State
25	BYU	North Carolina	South Carolina	BYU

 

 

 

Movers and Shakers

As expected, week 2 of the college football season gave us fireworks and the rankings reflect that.  The b1g’s well documented terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day reflects in where their teams are ranked this week.  Ohio State slides the farthest, going from No. 8 last week in the AP Poll to No. 22 this week.  Michigan State drops from No. 7 to No. 13 after their loss to Oregon.  Wisconsin, the only other b1g team still in the top 25 stays at No. 18 after a lack luster win over Western Illinois.  Nebraska drops out of the top 25 after a narrow win over McNeese State. 

 

The SEC still owns the rankings with eight teams in the AP Top 25.  Alabama relinquishes its No. 2 spot to Oregon but the top four will be pretty fluid the rest of the year.  Auburn (No. 5), Georgia (No. 6), A&M (No. 7) and LSU (No. 10) join Alabama in the top 10, with Ole Miss and Missouri on the rise.  South Carolina continues its slide, going from No. 21 last week to No. 24 this week (they started the season at No. 9).

 

The ACC still has four teams in the rankings as Virginia Tech makes its first appearance after their win at Ohio State over the weekend.  The Hokies check in all the way up at No. 17.  FSU remains No. 1 for now but their margin is narrowing.  Louisville is slowly climbing and show up at No. 21 this week.  Despite a huge win over the weekend, Clemson stands pat at No. 23.  This will change, however, as they take on FSU in two weeks.  UNC drops out of the AP Poll after another ugly win.  Keep an eye on Duke and Pitt over the next few weeks out of the ACC.  Both teams have a chance to start 5-0 or 6-0 and will be ranked before long.

 

The Pac-12 is clinging to Oregon, No. 2 and USC, No. 9.  Both teams had huge wins over the weekend and look like the conference’s best chance to be top 10 or top 5 teams.  Stanford is still a threat and tough they’re No. 15 this week, there’s a good chance they’ll bounce back.  ASU is 2-0 but it seems pretty flimsy given their opponents. 

 

 

Going Up

 

Oregon

Although Oregon didn’t move up in my poll this week even after a big win against Michigan State I still think this is an elite team on the rise. If we released power rankings I would consider putting the Ducks at No. 1. I don’t want to get overexcited about them just yet, but the Pac 12 appears to be theirs for the takings.

 

Virginia Tech

Wow. The Hokies went to Columbus at night in the Horseshoe and dominated Ohio State. Without a late turnover by the Hokies this is a 31-7 or 35-7 game. I think Va Tech’s defense is going to continue to improve and will be scary good by the end of the season.

 

USC

Great win on the road in Palo Alto for the Trojans. They looked like they could be a contender in the Pac 12 South if they can stay healthy. The Trojans have good quarterback play and their defense looks solid so far.

 

Notre Dame

The Irish made a statement on Saturday night running over Michigan 31-0. If Everett Golsen can continue to play like he has so far this season the Irish could be a dangerous team. They have a manageable next two weeks before getting into the heart of their schedule with Stanford coming to South Bend the first week of October.

 

BYU

Not ready to hear any BYU playoff talk, but the Cougars are defiantly on the rise after drubbing Texas in Austin on Saturday. Taysom Hill is a fun player to watch and the Cougar defense looks as tough as it has been in the past couple years.

 

 

Going Down 

 

Ohio State

It’s tough for a team like Ohio State to come into the season with such high hopes and then lose its starting quarterback and return to an average team. Virginia Tech overmatched the Buckeyes at the line of scrimmage bringing five or more pass rushers on 34 of 43 dropbacks and sacked quarterback JT Barrett seven times. Ohio State is still a solid football team and will win its share of games but they’ve got plenty of holes to fix (literally) along the offensive line.

 

North Carolina

I had the Tar Heels ranked last week and it looked like maybe some of that young talent was going to mature quickly this season, but I have yet to see it and so UNC dropped this week. I don’t think the Tar Heels are a top 25 team yet so maybe this season they could grow up quickly.

 

UCLA

UCLA didn’t move down much this week from No. 11 to No. 12, but this is its official warning. This team looks wildly inconsistent so far this season; first needing its defense to beat Virginia, then needing serious offense to beat Memphis last week. I heard a stat this morning that Memphis and Virginia combined to lose 19 games last season and UCLA has beat them by a combined 14 points. The Bruins better get it figured out quick as they have a tough stretch coming up the next month.

 

Stanford

I moved the Cardinal down this week because of its lack of any creativity on offense against USC.  For all intents and purposes the dominated USC, but on nine drives in the red zone came away with just 10 points! Ouch! It would seem to me that Stanford gets away from its identity of ground and pound when it gets in the red zone and tries to get too fancy and throw the ball. Stanford is still a Pac 12 title contender but it seriously needs to figure out a red zone offense that was atrocious.

 

 

Bubble Watch

 

BYU

The Cougars got a big win over Texas on Saturday and looking ahead at their schedule there really no serious threat.  BYU shows up at No. 25 in the AP and they should ascend quickly.

 

Florida

The Gators blew the doors off Eastern Michigan on Saturday night and looked like the team we think they should look like.  While they have bigger tests to come (like at Alabama in two weeks) I like this Florida team.  The schedule is brutal so we might not see them climb too high, but they’re good enough to hang around the top 25 and could rise quickly if they pull a few upsets.

 

Duke

The little engine that could has turned into pretty solid football team and have played well the first two weeks.  There next two games, against Kansas and Tulane are winnable and there’s a good chance they’ll be 4-0 at the end of September.  They’ll get a test in the coming weeks with back-to-back road trips to Miami and Georgia Tech but Duke can beat both of those teams.  Could we be looking at a 7-0 Blue Devil team heading into a Coastal division showdown at Pitt on November 1^st? 

 

Penn State

Happy Valley is happy once more as the Nittany Lions are 2-0, albeit a shaky 2-0 and are finally out from under the cloud of NCAA sanctions.  The Lions have a surprisingly tough road trip to Rutgers this weekend but if they win, their next two opponents are UMass and Northwestern.  Should Penn State grab a win over a much better Rutgers team than we originally thought an appearance in the top 25 is likely.

 

 

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