OTHERS TO WATCH: Troy, West Virginia, Navy, Notre Dame, Nevada, Auburn, Texas Tech, Oregon State, Virginia Tech, Clemson1. TCU (9-0)
2. Cincinnati (9-0)
3. Alabama (9-0)
4. Texas (9-0)
5. Florida (9-0)
6. Boise State (8-0)
7. Georgia Tech (9-1)
8. Pittsburgh (8-1)
9. Houston (8-1)
10. Iowa (9-1)
11. Utah (8-1)
12. Oregon (7-2)
13. Wisconsin (7-2)
14. USC (7-2)
15. Ohio State (8-2)
16. Penn State (8-2)
17. Oklahoma State (7-2)
18. LSU (7-2)
19. South Florida (6-2)
20. Miami (FL) (7-2)
21. Temple (7-2)
22. Arizona (6-2)
23. Rutgers (6-2)
24. Central Michigan (7-2)
25. Stanford (6-3)
Monday, November 9, 2009
TOP 25, WEEK 10
All those upsets in the Top 25 is a sure sign that it is November. Seven teams on my list lost. TCU solidified its position at number 1 by putting up 55 points in 3 quarters, while Cincinnati squeaked out a win against UConn. Cincinnati will prove its self in the couple of games with West Virginia and Pitt coming up. I feel more and more confident in the order of numbers 3 through 6, too. I did not penalize Iowa too much for its close loss to Northwestern. The injury bug bit the team's top offensive player, plus Iowa started the game by jumping out to a 10-0 lead. The loss has to be attributed to this injury, not to Iowa digging itself an insurmountable hole. The two-loss teams took some time to sort out. Oregon just crushed USC, so the Ducks had to stay above the Trojans, and USC beat Ohio State back in September, who just beat Penn State last weekend. LSU also joined the two-loss club, and, despite those losses being to the number three and five ranked teams, I took this opportunity to significantly drop the Tigers. The have failed to impress me all year long, so I am not going to give them an inflated ranking; however, I did keep them above some other two-loss teams. Stanford is the only three-loss team, by virtue of their upset of Oregon. For those keeping track, I have stuck to my resolve to boycott BYU from the rankings, even though they played the textbook definition of a complete game in its 52-0 win against Wyoming.
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Scott, I just must speak out against this BYU botcott. If you beleive that they actually belong in the rankings now, then you are just creating an artifical ranking for now, because it doesn't truely relect the real Top 25 teams. It also means that one team in your Top 25 doesn't really belong.
ReplyDeleteOn top of that, If BYU finishes the year strong and proves that not only they deserve to be ranked - but they deserve to be ranked in the Top 20 or even Top 15, it will difficult to justify taking from unranked to, say 13 or even just something like 18. What I'm trying to say is by refusing to rank them now you are effecting where you can rank them in the end. In order to be able to rank them in the proper place at the end of the season you must make the weekly adjustments necessary based on there preformance.
What I'm trying to say is you are skewing the rankings - both now and then - and it is not justified. Think about. They got beat by the team you are ranking as number one! And though they did get beat pretty bad, it wasn't nearly as bad as a lot of other teams have. Plus, if you compare this year to last year, BYU played a lot better against TCU (though the score didn't show it). I am demanding justice here - BYU deserves to be ranked!
Neal, your passion is commendable, and spoken with the spirit of a true die hard fan. I don't think that I am handicapping myself to properly rank BYU in the final, post-bowl game poll, because I have clearly stated what I am doing. Besides, if you could see each individual voters' ballot I am sure you would see that several have not included BYU in their rankings, so I am not alone in not ranking them. I recognize that BYU did play better against TCU (and FSU, for that matter) and I am working on a piece for that which will hopefully appear in the Thursday perspective column this week. As for the justice you are demanding, go to the www.isportsweb.com site for my more "journalistic integrity" response to BYU being ranked.
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