Tuesday, October 26, 2010

The College Football Blog: 2010 Power Rankings (After Week 8)

Power Rankings after Week 8

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

Out: Stanford (12th).

Explanation: Is it just me or are there significantly more candidates for the top 15 than normal at this point in the season?

Oregon remained in the #1 spot, destroying UCLA in an impressive performance on national TV last Thursday to go to 7-0. ESPN tried hard to make this seem like a legit test for Oregon, but the Ducks just wouldn’t play along. They led 32-3 at the half and 60-6 before the Bruins scored a garbage TD to make the final score 60-13. I really never thought that I’d have an offensive minded Pac-10 team from Oregon firmly atop my power rankings, but that’s where we are at this point. They look to be the top team right now and it’s not that close. I start to say to myself, “but wait, what about defense…” and then I realize that nobody plays defense. And maybe that’s where the game has gone. With all the restrictions and all of the increased focus on safety, maybe even the best defenses are bound to give up yards and points. Maybe having a great defense isn’t an absolute must anymore.

Bama pulled away from Tennessee last Saturday to go to 7-1 and the Tide are fairly secure at #2 for me. When the two teams went to halftime with the score just 13-10 Bama, I was thinking that perhaps I had given the Tide way too much credit based on last year’s team. But then they outscored UT 28-0 in the second half. I still don’t think Alabama is quite as good as I thought, but they are one of the only teams in the country that I trust from week to week, at home or on the road, against any type of opponent.

Ohio State shutout Purdue 49-0 to go to 7-1, moving up 1 spot in my rankings from 4th to 3rd. It was good to see the Buckeyes rebound from their first loss of the season and bludgeon a crippled Purdue team. Boise State was off last week but I moved the Broncos up a spot from 5th to 4th. TCU whipped Air Force to move to 8-0. They faced an Air Force squad that was missing some of its key components last Saturday. Never the less, the Horned Frogs absolutely demolished the Falcons by a 38-7 score that made things seem a lot closer than they were. TCU out-gained AF 562-231 and had a 30-13 edge in 1st downs. TCU moved up 1 spot in my rankings from 6th to 5th.

Auburn had one of the biggest wins of any team in the country last week, outlasting their fellow unbeaten SEC West Tigers from LSU to get to 8-0. It’s obvious at this point that Auburn and Cam Newton are for real. LSU may have been lucky to enter this game undefeated, but the Bayou Bengals have a legit defense, and Auburn put up 526 yards on them. Auburn out-gained LSU by283 yards, and yet they only won by 7 points. Perhaps it is Auburn’s style of winning games that is keeping me from vaulting them into my top 5 and beyond. I only moved Auburn up 1 spot in my rankings this week from 7th to 6th.

Michigan State pulled out a win over Northwestern on the road in a definitite trap game to get to 8-0 last week. I moved the surprise Spartans up 2 spots in my rankings from 9th to 7th. MSU fell down 17-0 and trailed by 10 heading to the 4th quarter, but they outscored the Wildcats 21-3 over the final period to win 35-27. This may not have been the most impressive win, but it was a game that many a surprise contender would have allowed to slip away. In its own way, this actually was an impressive win.

Oklahoma came up small last Saturday night in a battle of unbeatens, losing on the road at Missouri, 36-27. It was reminiscent of Ohio State’s stumble in Wisconsin, as the Tigers returned the opening kick for a touchdown. The Sooners took a 1-point lead to the 4th, but with less than 7 minutes to play they found themselves trailing 36-21. With all of the scoring going on across the nation, the fact that Oklahoma scored only 27 points in a game like this was amazing. When the game ended I was pretty disgusted with the Sooners. I figured that they would take a major tumble in my rankings. However, when I sat down to do my power rankings, I realized that I would still take Oklahoma over all but 7 teams in a head to head matchup on a neutral field. Perhaps this is just another case of me refusing to make the correction when I have overrated a traditional power, but we will see. I did move Oklahoma down 5 spots in my rankings from 3rd to 8th, but that’s probably not as big of a drop as most would expect.

Closing out my top 10 this week is a pair of 2-loss SEC teams. South Carolina moved up 1 spot in my rankings this week from 10th to 9th, while Arkansas moved up 1 spot from 11th to 10th. A lot of people would wonder what the hell these two teams are still doing so high up in my rankings, and maybe it is the SEC bias in me coming out. However, I tend to trust SEC teams more than others, and with good reason. And these teams haven’t proven me wrong yet. South Carolina struggled to put away Vandy again last week, but their 21-7 win was more convincing than the final score implied. They scored the final 21 points in the game, out-gaining Vandy 484-250. The Gamecocks had a 25-11 edge in 1st downs. Most importantly, South Carolina played the entire game without freshman running back Marcus Lattimore. They are merely a decent team without Lattimore. With Lattimore they are very dangerous. Arkansas also struggled to put away Mississippi at home last Saturday, jumping ahead 21-0 and eventually winning 38-24. They were actually out-gained in the game, but they led it from start to finish, despite more health problems for QB Ryan Mallett.

Wisconsin has to be one of the “hottest teams in the country.” Last Saturday the Badgers got their 2nd straight huge win, taking a back and forth battle over Iowa on the road by 1-point. Wisconsin moved up 2 spots in my rankings from 13th to 11th. Nebraska made the biggest climb in my rankings this week, jumping up 3 spots from 15th to 12th, after they rebounded from a stunning loss at home to Texas to defeat previously unbeaten Oklahoma State by 10 on the road. This was a total shootout, but the Cornhuskers can play that sort of game these days, and they led by 17 before the Cowboys scored a meaningless TD with 1:24 to go.

Missouri is the only new team in my top 15 this week, as the 7-0 Tigers debut at #13. Now some people would freak out that I only have the Tigers 13th, and 5 spots behind the Sooners, but remember that they were playing at home, and remember that it was really their first substantial win of the season. Having said that, I was very impressed with the job they did against Oklahoma’s offense, particularly in holding down the Sooner running game. I want to see how Mizzu plays against Nebraska this week before making a more drastic conclusion.

LSU lost to Auburn last week, finally dropping from the ranks of the unbeaten. However, I was actually more impressed with LSU’s performance against Auburn than I have been with several of their wins this season. You can’t quite figure out how or why, but somehow the Tigers just end up staying in every game, and they always have a shot to win. Despite losing, LSU stayed ranked 14th in my power rankings this week.

Iowa took the biggest fall in my rankings this week, dropping 7 spots from 8th to 15th after they lost for the 2nd time this season on Saturday. They only lost by a point, and they lost to a very good team in Wisconsin, but they were at home and they had plenty of chances to win. They just couldn’t hang on. These Hawkeyes do not seem to be as good as last year’s team. However, I still think they are one of the better teams around and they could end the year on a run.

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of my rankings this week is Stanford’s ousting from the top 15 all together. The Cardinal won last week to get to 6-1 on the season, and their only loss this year was on the road at Oregon. However, when I looked at it, I just didn’t favor them over teams at the end of my rankings like Iowa, Mizzu, and LSU. Plus, I was not impressed by Stanford’s 10-point win at home over Washington State Saturday night. They were coming off of a bye and going up against one of the worst BCS conference teams in the country, yet they only managed a 38-28 win. True, Washington State scored a couple of garbage TD’s at the end of the game, but the Cougars still amassed 388 yards of offense against Stanford. Anyway, Stanford fell all the way out of my power rankings from 12th this week. They were the only team to drop out of my power 15 this week.

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