 |
||
| Rank | Team | Delta |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alabama | |
| 2 | Florida | |
| 3 | Southern Cal | |
| 4 | Cincinnati |
 1 |
| 5 | TCU |
 1 |
| 6 | Texas |
1 |
| 7 | Iowa |
5 |
| 8 | Virginia Tech |
2 |
| 9 | Boise State |
1 |
| 10 | Oregon |
1 |
| 11 | Georgia Tech |
2 |
| 12 | LSU |
2 |
| 13 | Pittsburgh |
2 |
| 14 | Miami (Florida) |
5 |
| 15 | Oklahoma State |
1 |
| 16 | Penn State |
3 |
| 17 | West Virginia |
4 |
| 18 | Oklahoma | |
| 19 | Utah |
3 |
| 20 | Ohio State |
4 |
| 21 | Arizona | |
| 22 | Houston | |
| 23 | California | |
| 24 | South Carolina |
4 |
| 25 | Central Michigan |
2 |
| Last week's ballot | ||
Screw it. I don't care that people get hung up on Oklahoma's W/L record. Last week's throttling of Kansas proved their case. Kansas had a somewhat good record, but lost to a bad Colorado team, and had really beaten nobody. Oklahoma didn't have quality wins either, but their losses did all come to good teams. Can anyone really make the case that say, Notre Dame, is a better team when they haven't looked all that good (outside of USC) without Michael Floyd?
I think we're also getting to the point of the season where head to head wins remain important, but are starting to be trumped by a total body of work. One-game mishaps happen. Sometimes the matchups aren't in a team's favor.
Iowa remains a tricky, tricky case. Their out of conference SOS is surprisingly excellent, although inflated by the flukey success of Iowa State. That's counterbalanced by the horrific Big Ten. Iowa is winning a lot of games on the margins, but their offense isn't that good, and I'm not convinced that their turnover rate is sustainable. Rutgers can build up a reserve there when beating up on Howard and Texas Southern. It's harder against semi-difficult competition. Can Ohio State just beat them already to end this silly debate? I think the Hawkeyes were pretty good last year, but are defanged without some critical personnel losses, and their quarterback has regressed too.
Still, on the other hand, it's difficult to keep them below the likes of Florida and Texas. If both end up undefeated, I may very well have Iowa jump the Horns by season's end. Still think that Cincy and TCU are better though, not to mention SC.