The College Football Blog: 2010 Power Rankings (After Week 2)

Power Rankings after Week 2

1. Alabama 2-0 (1st)
2. Ohio State 2-0 (2nd)
3. Oklahoma 2-0 (6th)
4. Florida 2-0 (3rd)
5. Oregon 2-0 (8th)
6. Boise State 1-0 (4th)
7. TCU 2-0 (5th)
8. Iowa 2-0 (9th)
9. Texas 2-0 (7th)
10. Nebraska 2-0 (11th)
11. Wisconsin 2-0 (15th)
12. Arkansas 2-0 (NR)
13. South Carolina 2-0 (NR)
14. Auburn 2-0 (NR)
15. LSU 2-0 (NR)

Out: North Carolina (10th); Georgia (12th); Virginia Tech (13th); Miami (14th).

Explanation: My rankings were shook up a bit this week. We’ve only gone through 2 weeks of the season and already I struggled to find enough teams to fill out the rankings. That normally happens much later in the season.

Keeping Bama #1 doesn’t need much justification. I think it’s hard to make an argument for someone other than the Crimson Tide being #1 at this point unless you’re going out of your way to keep everything based on just this season, and ignoring all past events, and frankly that would be stupid.

Ohio State is a clear #2 for me. They came into the season as one of the favorites to contend for a National Title and they’ve lived up to the hype so far. Outside of a few lapses on special teams, the Buckeyes creamed Miami at home on Saturday. They are going to be tough to beat if Terrelle Prior doesn’t try to do too much and get his team in trouble. I can’t see them losing a clean game to anyone in the Big Ten. If they were to fall inside the conference it would have to be due to costly turnovers and some fluke plays.

Two teams climbed 3 spots in my rankings this week, one of them being Oklahoma, who I had been quite disappointed with the week before. The team that obliterated Florida State was the Oklahoma I had expected to see this year.

I moved Florida back a spot from 3rd to 4th, as their offense again struggled to get rolling against South Florida. Once again there were some problems with the snap exchange, and they need to get that figured out quickly. I’m also unsure what to do with the suspension of Chris Rainey. Ordinarily I don’t consider suspensions or injuries unless they are season long. Rainey has not been kicked off the team but there’s no timetable for his return. My hunch is that he’ll be back with the team at some point, unless there is more to the story. Frankly, if all he did was send one threatening text message to an ex-girlfriend I can’t see him being kicked off the football team or facing any serious legal punishment. If Rainey is gone for good I think it will hurt. There have been times during Urban Meyer’s reign when the loss of one weapon wouldn’t have been a problem. That might not be the case this season.

The Oregon Ducks were the other team that moved up 3 spots in my rankings this week, jumping into the top 5. Consider me a believer in Oregon. I thought they’d be good this year, but I thought they took a big hit when Jeremiah Masoli was kicked out. Apparently they are going to be just fine without him. While I’m also now much more of a believer that Tennessee is a shambles, I was still awed by what they did at Neyland Stadium on Saturday night. They went down 13-3 early in the 2nd quarter, and then proceeded to shutout the Vols 45-0 the rest of the way. I didn’t want to freak out over their ass kicking of New Mexico, but they have now won me over.

The two non-BCS powers dropped in my rankings this week despite the fact that Boise State was idle and TCU won convincingly. Boise State dropped from 4th to 6th and TCU fell from 5th to 7th. It was really more about what other teams did. I think Boise State is very good but I’m just not sure how big of a win that Virginia Tech game was anymore. I thought VT was a really good team. But how good could they really be if they got worked by James Madison at home? I think both TCU and Boise State are great teams, but I still think the best teams from the big boy conferences would beat them on a neutral field if the game was equally important to both sides.

Iowa and Nebraska each moved up a spot in my rankings this week. I moved the Hawkeyes up from 9th to 8th after they smoked arch rival Iowa State. That game is almost always close but it wasn’t this time. Nebraska hasn’t had to play anyone yet, but they haven’t given me any reason to think I overrated them at the start of the year. I moved the Cornhuskers up a spot from 11th to 10th.

My decision to drop Texas from 5th to 7th might be a bit puzzling to some. Basically I just haven’t seen the Texas of the last few seasons yet this year. They eventually pulled away from Wyoming on Saturday but the offense was again stagnant for much of the afternoon. This may be one of those years where Texas is just a good team, and not a great team, like the first 2 years of the Colt McCoy era. On the other hand, last Saturday’s game was quite similar to last year’s week 2 game against Wyoming, so maybe it doesn’t mean anything.

The team making the biggest move in my rankings this week was Wisconsin, which jumped 4 spots from 15th to 11th. However, this was really more about the teams in front of them having disappointing performances than it was about anything the Badgers did. Wisconsin hasn’t been overly impressive, but they have taken care of business against a pair of weaker opponents, and I thought they were a much more dangerous team than most people did going into the year.

My preseason power 15 stayed intact for 1 week without anyone moving out or in, but this week that changed, as 4 teams exited. The UNC situation is one of the most annoying of any I can remember. I don’t understand how this whole thing still hasn’t been cleared up. The Tar Heels were off last week and my first draft of these rankings had them remaining in the top 15 at #11. However, with so many of those defensive stars still not eligible, I decided it was time for them to go away until we find out what the story is. If I thought they would eventually be eligible I wouldn’t have done this, but I’ll be shocked if they aren’t all ruled ineligible.

Three other teams fell out of my rankings this week. As much as it pains me, I had to move the Dawgs out after they lost to South Carolina last week. Obviously I was too optimistic in my forecast for Georgia this season. While I think the Dawgs will obviously be much more capable on offense when AJ Green gets back in the lineup, I don’t think it’s the offense that’s going to end up being the biggest problem. It looks like there will be some growing pains ahead on the defensive side of the ball as the 3-4 instituted.

Both of the ACC teams—Miami and Virginia Tech—disappeared from the rankings this week. Obviously VT’s loss to James Madison at home was the more discouraging performance. Look, I fully understand that they were playing on a short week. I know that they were down after the heartbreaking loss to Boise State. I know that many of the fans stayed away because of the weather, the opponent, and the mood after the disappointing loss to the Broncos. However, they got out worked and out played by JMU. I really don’t care how good James Madison has been at their level. That was an inexcusable loss.

Miami’s loss was much more respectable and understandable. In fact, it was expected. The Canes only lost by 12 at Ohio State, which is actually not that bad. Clearly the speed and power talent is returning to Miami. However, several of their big scoring plays were a bit fluky. They had 2 kick returns for touchdowns. Obviously that’s good in some ways, because it means that they have some athletes. On the other hand, if Ohio State had simply kicked it out of bounds on those 2 kicks the Canes probably would have lost by more than 12 points. Their main problem right now is that they have a really good athlete playing the most important position on the field, who isn’t a very good football player. Making matters worse, he thinks he’s really good. That’s a bad mix. I think the Canes will be inconsistent from week to week.

The most frustrating part of making these rankings was trying to fill out the back end of the power 15 and not really having anyone I wanted to put there. When in doubt, I always turn to the SEC, and thus all 4 of the new arrivals to my rankings are teams from the SEC (Arkansas, South Carolina, Auburn, and LSU). I felt pretty good about these teams going into the season and they’ve all been okay so far. South Carolina was impressive in their win over Georgia, holding the Dawgs to just 6 points and running all over the field. Arkansas was thought to be a dark horse contender going into the year. I had (and still have) concerns about their defense and we will learn a lot about them this weekend when they travel to Georgia for their first real game of the year. I thought Auburn was flying under the radar going into the year and they pulled out a tough conference road win over an improved Mississippi State team last Thursday. The last team in was LSU and I felt the least good about including them in my rankings. They basically replaced UNC when I decided that the eligibility issues could no longer be ignored. This was interesting because the Tigers opened up the season against the Tar Heels at the Georgia Dome a couple of weeks ago, nearly giving the game away after they appeared to have the game wrapped up on several occasions. I thought the Tigers would be down this season and they haven’t really done anything impressive this year to make me think otherwise. However, I still think LSU in a down year is probably as good as any of the other teams out there to choose from for the final spot in the rankings.

I’m sure some people are wondering about Michigan, but I got burned by the Wolverines last year and I’m going to make them prove it to me this year. I mean they were basically lucky to beat Notre Dame last week after allowing that long TD pass to fall behind with only minutes to go. Anyway, it doesn’t matter that much who the 15th team is. More than likely there will be several new teams again next week.