The College Football Blog: Power Rankings (After Week 15)

Power Rankings After Week 15

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

-Previous week’s ranking in parenthesis;

Out: none;
Next Three In: Mississippi, Cincinnati, Georgia Tech.

Explanation: The 15th and final week of the regular season was a little anticlimactic if you ask me. It was pretty uneventful. Thus, it’s no surprise that my 15th and final power rankings are wholly unremarkable. For just the second time all year my rankings did not change in any way. Of the 12 teams in my rankings after week 14, only 4 were in action in week 15. Florida remained my number 1 team for the 6th straight week. Obviously I wasn’t going to move them out of the top spot after they beat previously undefeated Bama (my #4 team) 31-20 on a neutral field to claim the SEC title. Texas had been my #2 team and Oklahoma had been 3rd in my rankings and I kept both teams right where they were despite Oklahoma’s easy dismantling of Missouri in the Big XII Championship Game. That’s what everyone with a clue expected Oklahoma to do. I’m not going to move them to 2nd just because they lucked out and got to play in the conference title game. Texas would have dealt Missouri just as bad of a beating. I kept Alabama in the number 4 slot even though they lost for the first time all year. They lost on a neutral field to the team that I think is the best in the nation and they had the lead in the 4th quarter. That’s no reason to move them down from the 4th position. USC stayed in the 5 spot after they won easily over UCLA as expected. The rest of the teams in my top 12 were idle in week 15, and thus they all stayed the same. As for the next 3 teams in, I decided to keep them the same too, with Ole Miss, Cincinnati, and Georgia Tech maintaining that space. However, I almost moved the Bearcats out after they needed a lot of help from a gagging Hawaii team in order to pull out a miracle win in what was the last regular season game to be completed this year. Even though some of the teams in my rankings will be playing in just a couple of weeks and then some others won’t be playing for another two weeks, I’m just going to wait and do a final edition of the power rankings after all of the bowls have been played.