Power Rankings After Week 6
1. Oklahoma 5-0 (1st)
2. Texas 5-0 (3rd)
3. Missouri 5-0 (5th)
4. Alabama 6-0 (2nd)
5. Penn State 6-0 (4th)
6. LSU 4-0 (6th)
7. USC 3-1 (7th)
8. UGA 4-1 (8th)
9. Florida 4-1 (9th)
10. Texas Tech 5-0 (11th)
11. Ohio State 5-1 (12th)
12. Vanderbilt 5-0 (NR)
-Previous week’s ranking in parenthesis;
Out: Auburn (10th);
Next Three In: Auburn, BYU, Oklahoma State.
Explanation: After a crazy week 5 reeked havoc on my power rankings, things calmed down in week 6 and my rankings were much more stable as well. Strangely, no team fell out of my top 12 following week 5 but there was one team that fell out of my rankings this week. Auburn had been ranked in my top 12 all year and was 10th last week but after their 1 point loss at Vandy I had to drop them out. I still think they will be a great team by the end of the year but right now their offense is just too screwed up. Still, because of their defense I don’t think there are that many teams that would beat them on a neutral field, and I have them as my next team in. While Auburn was the only team to fall out of my top 12, there was still a good bit of movement. Throughout the season there has been conversation over whether the Big XII has caught up to the SEC, at least for this season. I thought that the Big XII was obviously better than every conference besides the SEC but I still thought that the SEC was the best. However, I’ve tried to look at things objectively and until recently I had been just about equally impressed with the two leagues. But in the last couple of weeks I have been a little disappointed in the SEC and impressed with the Big XII. I admit that part of it may be that high scores seem to get your attention more than low scores. Clearly the Big XII teams are much stronger offensively but the SEC is built on defense. So are the SEC offenses better than the Big XII defenses? I don’t know about that. We should find out soon. But for now I have to say that the top Big XII teams have been more impressive than the rest of the country, including the top SEC teams. Oklahoma remained #1 in my rankings for the second week in a row just as they did everywhere else after their 49-17 dismantling of Baylor on the road. I had Bama at #2 last week but I wasn’t impressed with their narrow escape against Kentucky. Again, maybe Kentucky’s better than I think they are. I actually think that Kentucky is a decent team, but I expected Bama to beat them by at least 17 points or so, not scrape by 17-14. The Tide has had a problem playing down to opponents at times over the last few years, and they seemed to do that again on Saturday. Therefore, I dropped Bama 2 spaces to 4th. I moved Texas up from 3rd to 2nd after they went to Boulder and hammered Colorado 38-14. My top 2 teams square off against each other on a neutral field this Saturday in Dallas. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they won’t be 1 and 2 in my rankings again next week. Depending on how things go around the country, if Texas and Oklahoma play a great game that isn’t decided until the final minute or something I might just keep them in the top 2 spots. That’s the beauty of my rankings. Anyway, I moved another Big XII team into the #3 slot where Texas had been. Missouri dominated Nebraska 52-17 in Lincoln on Saturday and I decided to move them up 2 spots from 5th to 3rd. I had been holding out on the Tigers a bit because I wasn’t sure about their defense but in their first game against a real opponent since week 1, they were unstoppable on offense and pretty damn good on defense and they did it on the road in a place where they hadn’t won since 1978. Penn State had been 4th last week but I dropped them to 5th despite the fact that they won on the road to get to 6-0. PSU won at Purdue, 20-6. Now holding a team to just 6 points and winning by 14 on the road is nothing to sneeze at. And I guess it’s a good sign for PSU that they were able to shut down a normally good offense. But the Boilermakers had been beaten 38-21 by Notre Dame the week before, so I was expecting Penn State to put a major hurting on them. I know Purdue is generally tough at home but I still thought PSU would put up 35 or 40 points at least. Either way, it’s not like I’m dropping them out of the rankings, I’m just dropping them to #5. The 6 through 9 spots in my top 12 stayed exactly the same. LSU was idle and stayed at #6; USC destroyed a crippled Oregon team at home and stayed at #7. Georgia was idle and stayed at number 8. The Gators were idle—er, played at Arkansas, and won 38-7, and stayed at #9. Auburn had been 10th but they were out of the rankings so I moved Texas Tech up to #10 after they beat Kansas State by 30 on the road. The team that impressed me the most last week was probably Ohio State. The Buckeyes and freshman QB Terrelle Pryor came from behind and won in the 4th quarter at Wisconsin on Saturday night. I moved Ohio State up a spot from 12th to 11th. In the final spot in the top 12, I reluctantly placed the 5-0 Vanderbilt Commodores. My deal is that while I know how competitive Vandy always is, I just find it hard to believe that they are that loaded with talent. They came from down 13-0 at home to beat Auburn by a point on national TV, and that’s good enough to get into my rankings. But I’m still skeptical. Some might wonder why I don’t have BYU or Utah in my top 12. I have BYU in my next 3 in but I wasn’t that impressed with BYU’s performance against Utah State. No, I’m not kidding. They haven’t played anyone worth a whatchamacallit this year so they need to keep beating teams by 45 points. A 20 point win over Utah State is not that great. As for Utah, I don’t even have them in my next 3 in. They should have lost to Oregon State at home last week. I think they’re a really good team but I’m not completely sold. I moved Oklahoma State into the final spot in the next 3 in after they blew out A&M at home to go to 5-0. I had to replace South Florida after they lost to Pitt at home and Kansas after they had to eke out a win at Iowa State last week. The other two teams I considered were Boise State and Virginia Tech but in the end I went with Oklahoma State. I’m thinking the rankings are going to change a lot this week with the Oklahoma-Texas, LSU-Florida, Oklahoma State-Missouri, Nebraska-Texas Tech, Penn State-Wisconsin, and USC-ASU battles.
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