The College Football Blog: Power Rankings (After Week 14)

Power Rankings After Week 14

1. Florida 11-1 (1st)
2. Texas 11-1 (2nd)
3. Oklahoma 11-1 (3rd)
4. Alabama 12-0 (5th)
5. USC 10-1 (6th)
6. Texas Tech 11-1 (4th)
7. Penn State 11-1 (7th)
8. Ohio State 10-2 (8th)
9. Utah 12-0 (12th)
10. Oklahoma State 9-3 (9th)
11. TCU 10-2 (NR)
12. Boise State 12-0 (NR)

-Previous week’s ranking in parenthesis;

Out: Missouri (10th), Georgia (11th);
Next Three In: Mississippi, Cincinnati, Georgia Tech.

Explanation: First of all let me say that I feel less sure of myself as far as knowing what’s going on in college football right now than I have at any previous point this season. I just have to point that out first before I try and explain myself. The top of my of my rankings are pretty easy to understand. Florida hammered FSU, 45-15, in Tallahassee last week to go to 11-1 on the year. For me they are a clear choice for the number 1 spot and they are my top team for the 5th week in a row. Texas did all they could do on Thanksgiving, crushing their rivals Texas A&M, 49-9, to get to 11-1. They’ve been in my top 2 now for 9 weeks in a row and I’m not about to move them just because the rest of the country thinks Oklahoma is “hotter.” The Horns are 2nd in my rankings for the 5th week in a row. I picked Oklahoma to win the National Championship this year and they were impressive again last week, outlasting Oklahoma State, 61-41, in Stillwater. The Sooners are 3rd in my rankings for a 2nd straight week this week. Alabama had been ranked 5th in my top 12 but I decided to move them up a spot to 4th this week. They finally won impressively last week over their rival Auburn, shutting out the Tigers (or War Eagle or whatever they call themselves) 36-0 to finish the regular season 12-0. In 5th place this week is USC, who dominated Notre Dame last week, 38-3, going to 10-1 on the year. Texas Tech had been 4th in my rankings, but I decided to drop them a couple of spots to 6th after they fell down 28-14 to Baylor at home, before coming back to win 35-28. Penn State and Ohio State were already finished with the regular season and thus they stay in 7th and 8th place respectively in my top 12. Utah had already wrapped up their season as well, but just a week after jumping back into my rankings, the Utes jump 3 spots from 12th to 9th in my rankings this week. I dropped Oklahoma State a spot from 9th to 10th after they lost at home to Oklahoma to fall to 9-3 on the year. While they have lost 3 times and their only win of any significance is over Missouri, their 3 losses are to teams in my top 6 and I think they’d beat most teams in the country on a neutral field. 2 teams make their debut in my rankings this week in the last 2 spots in my top 12. At #11 I have TCU, who had already finished a 10-2 regular season and was off this last week. And in the final spot I have Boise State, who crushed Fresno State at home, 61-10, last Friday to finish the year undefeated at 12-0. To show you how uncertain I am about things, this is the first time since week 1 and just the second time all year that more than 1 team fell completely out of my rankings. Missouri had been 10th in my rankings for the previous 3 weeks but I decided to drop them out of my top 12 after they lost 40-37 to a disappointing Kansas team on a neutral field. They finished the year 9-3 and their other 2 losses are at Texas and against Oklahoma State, but their most impressive win is a blowout road victory over Nebraska in week 6. They allowed 42 to Illinois, 40 to Kansas, and 56 to Texas. I knew they weren’t as good as I thought they would be before last week’s loss but I thought they had gotten on a roll and I did not think they were capable of losing that game. Now you might say this wasn’t really a bad loss but Kansas came into this game 6-5 with no solid wins. I couldn’t keep Missouri in the top 12 after they dropped that game. Moving on, for the first time all year Georgia was not included in my power rankings. They had been 11th in my rankings for the previous 3 weeks but I had to drop them out of my top 12 after they lost to their rivals Georgia Tech at home, 45-42. They finished the year 9-3 and their other 2 losses are to Florida and Alabama, but their most impressive win is a 14-7 victory over South Carolina on the road in week 3. I may be a die hard Dawg fan but I’m not blind and I do try my hardest to be unbiased in things like rankings. And with that in mind, it wasn’t hard for me to drop Georgia out of the top 12. I mean, if I kept them in my rankings it would be the worst case of blind devotion since Ted Bundy’s mother believed her son was innocent until he finally told her the truth on the eve of his execution. Of course he had grown up thinking his mother was his sister but I digress. The point is, Missouri and Georgia are teams from highly respected conferences with 9-3 records but I couldn’t keep them in my rankings any longer.

The thing that looks the most different about my rankings this week is the fact that there are 3 teams from non-BCS conferences in the top 12. The top non-BCS teams had spent most of the year occupying my “next 3 in” spot. Prior to this week, no non-BCS team had been higher than 11th in my top 12, and there had never been more than 1 non-BCS team in my power rankings at any time. This week a non-BCS team is ranked 9th and there are 3 non-BCS teams in the rankings. This is also the first week that a non-BCS team has stayed in my rankings for consecutive weeks. East Carolina (ha!) was 11th in my week 2 power rankings and then fell out the next week and was never heard from again. Utah was 12th in my week 8 rankings and then fell out the next week and didn’t return until week 13 when they were again 12th. So they are the first non-BCS team to be in my top 12 for consecutive weeks and they are ranked higher at #9 than any non-BCS team yet. My reasoning for putting the non-BCS teams higher in my rankings has less to do with my being impressed with them than my not being impressed by BCS teams. I’m still skeptical of all 3 of the non-BCS teams in my rankings. When I consider these “mid majors” the thing I always keep in mind is my firm belief in attrition by schedule. In other words: regardless of who these teams play in their non-conference games and no matter how badly they beat the teams in their conference, they simply do not face the same level of competition from week to week throughout the year that teams from BCS conferences do. I always consider a team’s schedule when deciding where to rank them but I’m going to discount a non-BCS team’s record more than other teams because their weekly competition is significantly weaker than even the worst BCS conference. So I don’t just put teams in my rankings because they haven’t lost yet. Ball State is undefeated but you won’t find them in my top 25, much less my top 12. Anyway, I’m still not sure how good Utah, TCU, and Boise State are. However, I’ve realized that some of the BCS teams that I thought were among the best in football are not as good as I thought they were. So I decided to move the non-BCS teams into my rankings, if only because they have not yet shown me that they aren’t worthy of being ranked that high. Again, that’s the problem with ranking those teams that high all along just because they haven’t lost. I mean, do you think Texas Tech would have a loss if they played in the WAC? Do you think Penn State would have lost if they were in the Mountain West? But just in case someone cares, I’ll explain the reasons I moved the 3 non-BCS teams up this week and why I still have them behind a few teams with worse records. Utah is the highest ranked team from outside the BCS. They went 12-0 which is always impressive, they beat Oregon State, they beat TCU, and they beat BYU in their last game, 48-24. They have a very good defense and they also can score some points. Some of their other wins are okay and they won most of their games decisively. The reason I don’t have Utah any higher is that I could discredit their big wins pretty easily. Their 3 biggest wins all game at home. Their wins over Michigan, Oregon State, TCU, New Mexico, and Air Force were by a combined 18 points. I watched all of those games and I can tell you that Utah was extremely fortunate to beat Oregon State and TCU. In fact, I’m still not sure that Utah would beat TCU on a neutral field. Speaking of TCU, they are my next highest rated non-BCS team, and like I said, I’m not sure they shouldn’t be the highest. They have an awesome defense and they can score as well. They nearly won at Utah before losing by 3 and their other loss is a pretty damn respectable 35-10 defeat at Oklahoma. They beat BYU, 32-7, and they crushed Air Force and New Mexico, teams that Utah struggled with. They also beat Stanford, 31-14. The reason I don’t have them higher is that they lost to Utah and like all non-BCS teams they don’t play as tough of a conference schedule as BCS teams do. Boise State is the other non-BCS team in my rankings and I was more leery of putting the Broncos in my top 12 than the other 2. Boise State dominates the teams in the WAC but to be honest, that’s not saying all that much. Does it mean that they are clearly, without question the best team in the WAC? Yes. But I don’t know how much it means as far as teams from BCS conferences are concerned. The best thing the Broncos have in their favor is their 37-32 win at Oregon in week 4. That is an impressive victory to be sure. The only little issue is that Oregon was severely handicapped at the time by injuries to their quarterbacks. They were playing with a 3rd string QB who turned the ball over again and again. That doesn’t mean the win doesn’t count. I’m just saying that there’s some question as to how big of a win it really was. Anyway, I ended up putting all 3 teams in because I didn’t think I could argue strongly against them anymore.

My next 3 teams in spot also has a different look to it this week. Ole Miss has only been there for the last 2 weeks, and neither Cincinnati nor Georgia Tech had been mentioned in my next 3 teams in spot this year prior to this week. But the significance is really more about the conferences. Going into this season, I thought that the SEC was not as good as the last couple of years but that it was still the best conference. Over the course of the season, I had come to believe that the Big XII was the best conference and that the SEC was significantly down this season. But in the last few weeks my opinion of the SEC has changed again. At this point—and as an SEC fan it pains me to say this—I’m having a hard time calling the SEC anything more than ordinary. This will partly explain why for the first time this year there are only 2 teams from the SEC in my top 12. In my preseason power 15, there were 7 SEC teams and 5 were in my top 12. There were 5 SEC teams in my top 12 for 5 of the first 6 weeks, and there were at least 4 SEC teams in my top 12 for the first 12 weeks. Then last week the number dropped to 3 after LSU lost to Ole Miss at home. And this week the number drops down to 2 after Georgia lost at home to Tech. I have Ole Miss in my “next 3 in” for the second week in a row and I thought about having them in my top 12 but then I just decided that there was no real reason to have them in front of the non-BCS teams. There’s nothing special about being the 3rd best SEC team this year. I do believe Ole Miss is the 3rd best SEC team and they did win at Florida and lose by 4 at Bama, but they also lost a close game at Wake Forrest and they lost at home to Vandy and South Carolina. I think they’re playing better than most teams in the country right now, but I can’t say that I would favor them over those non-BCS teams on a neutral field. The other 2 teams in my next 3 in are from the Big East and the ACC. That’s significant because for most of the year I basically dismissed those 2 conferences as being weak and without a great team. While I still think the Big East and ACC were pretty weak this year, I’ve changed my mind on them not having great or at least really good teams. Cincinnati is 10-2 with losses at Oklahoma and at UConn. They have an excellent defense and they’ve won 5 straight. The downside to Cinci is that they don’t have very impressive wins. Their best wins are at West Virginia in overtime and at home against Pitt by 7. The Big East was not strong this year and outside of Oklahoma their non-conference slate was very tame. So I’m not sure how good they are but the fact that I’ve got them in the discussion is a change. I had 2 Big East teams in my preseason power rankings and in my top 12 for week 1, and there was at least 1 Big East team in my top 12 for the first 3 weeks. But I haven’t even had a Big East team in my next 3 in since week 5. And then there’s Tech. Now you might say I’m being influenced by the fact that I’m a Georgia fan and Tech just beat my team at my team’s stadium. You may think that I’m overrating them because I overrate Georgia. But that’s not the case. I’ve basically ignored the ACC for most of the season because no team seemed to be better than above average but I think the league has improved over the course of the year. And I do think that Tech is the best ACC team even though they won’t even play for the conference championship. I also think BC is very good, but they don’t have their starting QB anymore and Tech beat BC in Boston and they are both 9-3. So anyway, the fact that I have an ACC team and a Big East team in my “next 3 in” and I have 3 non-BCS teams and only 2 SEC teams in my top 12 is pretty amazing.