Tuesday, November 8, 2011

The College Football Blog: 2011 Power Rankings (After Week 10)

Power Rankings after Week 10

1. LSU 9-0 (1st)

2. Alabama 8-1 (2nd)

3. Oklahoma State 9-0 (3rd)

4. Oregon 8-1 (4th)

5. Stanford 9-0 (5th)

6. Boise State 8-0 (6th)

7. Oklahoma 8-1 (7th)

8. Clemson 8-1 (9th)

9. Michigan State 7-2 (11th)

10. USC 7-2 (12th)

11. Wisconsin 7-2 (13th)

12. Arkansas 8-1 (15th)

13. Kansas State 7-2 (NR)

14. South Carolina 7-2 (14th)

15. Texas 6-2 (NR)

Out: Nebraska (8th); Arizona State (10th).

Explanation: Well, back to the old drawing board. Once again this week I had to search to find teams that hadn’t proven themselves unworthy of being in anyone’s top 15. 13 of 15 teams remained in the power rankings this week. In fact, the top 7 spots went unchanged. But things are still very shaky. 2 teams fell out of the rankings this week (Nebraska and Arizona State). No team remaining in the top 15 moved down in the rankings this week. Of the 5 teams moving up in the rankings, Arkansas made the biggest jump, rising 3 spots.

Obviously LSU held onto the top spot this week. Despite losing at home, Alabama remained in place at #2. I never really considered anything else. These are the best two teams in the country and it isn’t close. Bama missed 4 FG’s and lost in overtime. That’s no reason to move them down in the rankings (although all the traditional polls insisted on doing so).

Oklahoma State had much more trouble at home with Kansas State than I expected but they are still my #3 team. I still don’t know about that defense but for now you have to say that they keep getting it done against tough competition.

Oregon also kept rolling last week with a win at Washington. The Ducks are my #4 team heading into their show down at Stanford this weekend. Stanford won easily last week to get to 9-0 and they stay at #5.

My #6 and #7 spots stayed the same this week but those teams are a bit shakier than the rest of the top 7. Boise State had a 2nd straight lackluster performance, this time coming off of a bye on the road against UNLV. Now it’s all relative. The Broncos won 48-21. However, they were favored by 41 against one of the worst teams in the FBS, and it was just a 1-score game well into the 2nd half. The Broncos led 28-14 going to the 4th and then pulled away in the final quarter. Still, their last w games haven’t been that impressive (37-26 over AF at home; 48-21 at UNLV). I know it’s picky and this seems to happen every year with Boise State, but when you don’t play anyone for 10 weeks, you need to blow everyone out to impress.

Oklahoma is the shaky team at #7. The Sooners rolled Texas A&M at home last Saturday, 41-25, as they put the Texas Tech shocker further in their rearview. However, the win came at a terrible cost. All-American senior WR and return specialist Ryan Broyles blew out his knee, putting an end to his season and his career at Oklahoma. Not only was it a devastating event for the morale of the team it, it is also a crushing blow to the team on the field. The Sooners will still be tough to stop offensively, but the loss of a guy that special and that experienced will certainly bring them down a few notches.

Last week’s #8 and #10 teams both tumbled right out of the top 15 this week. A week after jumping back in the rankings at #8, Nebraska showed me why I had kept them out of the top 15 for so long, losing at home to Northwestern (without Dan Persa!). I had been losing faith in Nebraska over the first few games of the season and then when they got rolled by Wisconsin I basically dismissed them. However, they won a few games in a row, including victories over Ohio State and Michigan State, and I decided that I must have been wrong about them. I wasn’t. They are the same inconsistent, lackadaisical bunch as always. I gave them the boot again this week.

Arizona State also took a terrible loss last week. ASU had climbed to #10 in my power rankings, but I can’t remember having less conviction in my placement of a team during the time I’ve been doing this blog. I had expected them to be a good team this year but when they lost to Illinois early on I basically wrote them off. It seemed they were still capable of losing to anyone on the road. But then they trashed USC, blew out Utah on the road, and hung tough at Oregon. Also, I was looking for candidates. I should never have had them where I did. They proved it on Saturday night, losing at UCLA, 29-28. The Sun Devils dropped out of my rankings this week.

Clemson was off last week but they moved up a spot to #8 after Nebraska queefed. Michigan State struggled to hold off Minnesota, but the Spartans also benefited from the play of other teams. Michigan State moves up 2 spots to #9 this week.

USC and Wisconsin both had easy victories over weak opponents last week, but like Clemson and MSU, their moving up the rankings had more to do with the poor performances of other teams. USC moved up 2 spots to #10 while Wisconsin moved up 2 spots to #11.

Arkansas hammered South Carolina at home on Saturday night in the other SEC game featuring top 10 teams. The Hogs made the biggest jump in my rankings this week, climbing 3 spots to #12. There is just nothing South Carolina can do to overcome the loss of RB Marcus Lattimore. And with the stud RB gone, the absence of maligned ex-QB Stephen Garcia is much more palpable. Still, South Carolina is a good team with a stout defense. They hold at #14 this week.

The teams jumping into my top 15 this week are Kansas State at #13 and Texas at #15. I was probably way too hard on KSU after their loss to Oklahoma last week, dropping them out of the rankings. I guess I was still holding onto the idea that they had won their games by a series of flukes. They lost again on Saturday night but they proved to me that they are legit. They went toe-to-toe with Oklahoma State in Stillwater, keeping pace all-night in a wild shootout. The Wildcats drove down inside the Ok State 10 in the final seconds but couldn’t come up with the tying score, losing 45-52. Since winning by a point at A&M, Ok State had won 4 conference games by an average score of 53 to 26. Their closest game at home up to this point had been 23 points.

Texas jumps back into the rankings at #15 by default. Once again I was struggling to settle on a final team I could feel good about. I thought Texas would be very good going into the season, and while they did get crushed by Oklahoma and lose decisively to Ok State at home, they have won their last 2 games by a combined score of 95-20. That’s more like the Longhorns usually play.

No comments: