The College Football Blog: 2009 Power Rankings (After Week 2)

Power Rankings after Week 2

1. Florida 2-0 (1st)
2. Texas 2-0 (3rd)
3. USC 2-0 (5th)
4. Mississippi 1-0 (4th)
5. Alabama 2-0 (6th)
6. Oklahoma 1-1 (7th)
7. Cal 2-0 (9th)
8. BYU 2-0 (10th)
9. Penn State 2-0 (8th)
10. Michigan 2-0 (11th)
11. Virginia Tech 1-1 (12th)
12. LSU 2-0 (13th)
13. Boise State 2-0 (NR)
14. Ohio State 1-1 (14th)
15. Notre Dame 1-1 (NR)
Out: Oklahoma State (6th); Tennessee (15th).

Explanation: I had a more difficult time doing the power rankings this week than any time last season. It really seems like this could be another year of weekly shakeups. I really only feel good about a handful of teams. I’m running out of teams that I don’t think have major flaws. My top 5 stayed the same this week. #1 Florida and #2 Texas rolled after slow starts. #3 USC came from behind in the 4th quarter to pull out an 18-15 win over Ohio State on the road. That was damned impressive. Ole Miss was idle and Bama took care of business against FIU so I just kept those two at #4 and #5.

The first team this year to take a nose dive in my power rankings is Oklahoma State. I know I’m not alone in saying that I was totally caught off guard by this one. There are many reasons that I chose to drop Oklahoma State from 6th all the way out of my top 15.
The defense that we thought had improved enough to make Okie State legit got exposed badly on Saturday. But it goes way beyond that. You just can’t lose that sort of game the week after a statement-making win to open the season. It’s not that I think Houston is a bad team. And I understand that this was a close game that Ok State nearly won and in which a lot of breaks went against them. I realize that I might be looking at things differently if Oklahoma State had ended up on top in this one, which they easily could have. Having said all of that, their performance in this game screams “pretender.” They made a slew of mistakes in this game, including bad penalties, bad turnovers, missed kicks, fumbled snaps, and dropped passes. And I’m starting to really question the toughness of Dez Bryant, who seems to come out of the game each week for some sort of injury. I could go on and on about this one but the bottom line is that I had clearly overrated Oklahoma State coming into the year, and I overrated them again following their win over Georgia. Their lack of focus proved them to be frauds, thus I dropped them out of my rankings.

Oklahoma took their rivals’ spot at #6 in my rankings this week. I know they were playing Idaho State but they still won 64-0 without perhaps the best quarterback and tight end in the country. I moved them up a spot from 7th to 6th and I would not be all that surprised if they ran the table from here on out and got back to the National Championship Game. I moved Cal up 2 spots to 7th and dropped Penn State from 8th to 9th this week. Cal was impressive in their win over an FCS team, while Penn State won easily over Syracuse but really wasn’t all that dominant, putting up just 318 total yards. I moved BYU up from 10th to 8th after they crushed Tulane 54-3. I realize that Tulane is a weak opponent but BYU had every reason to lose focus this week after their win over Oklahoma. Michigan closes out my top 10 this week after their dramatic win over Notre Dame. I’m sure I’m one of the few people out there who only moved Michigan up 1 spot this week.

Virginia Tech demolished Marshall for their first win and I bumped them up from 12th to 11th. LSU took care of Vandy (albeit with some difficulty) and I bumped them up from 13th to 12th. At #13 this week I have a new team in my rankings: Boise State. Really this had more to do with me not liking anyone else than it did me particularly loving the Broncos. They threw a 58-0 shutout over Miami of Ohio on Saturday to move to 2-0. That doesn’t tell us much but one thing it says is that they are focused. They were also coming off a huge win to start the year but they did not come out flat on Saturday. I think they have some holes but I think they’d beat the overwhelming majority of teams out there.

The last 2 teams in my top 15 would have most folks scratching their heads. How could I leave Ohio State at #14 when they lost at home? Well, first of all, they lost to USC, who I have ranked #3 in the country. Secondly, they led most of the night and were very close to winning the game. Finally, I really couldn’t think of any teams not in my top 13 that I thought would beat them on a neutral field. My reasons for putting Notre Dame at #15 are similar. First of all, I don’t drop or raise teams in my rankings just because they won or lost a game. To me, a close loss to a good team is more impressive than a blowout win over a weak team. Second, I have Michigan ranked 10th in the country and this was a road game for Notre Dame. I actually expected them to lose by 7 to 10 points. They could have easily won this game and I was actually impressed by their performance.

Notre Dame of course took the place of Tennessee in my rankings this week. Even though they were only my #15 team, I’m still more embarrassed by their loss to UCLA at home than I am by my previous #6 team’s loss at home to Houston. They disgraced the SEC. I was totally off in my overreaction to their dominating win over Western Kentucky. To lose at home against what appears to be at best a decent UCLA team is just unacceptable. Clearly they still have a long way to go.