College Football is a funny sport, in the sense we use a set of rankings for more than half the season that actually don’t matter. To this point on the calendar, we have used the AP rankings to evaluate where every team stands in the sport’s pecking order. These rankings aren’t even the ones that determine who gets to play for a National Championship.
Those would be the College Football Playoff Selection Committee rankings, which will finally be unveiled next Tuesday night. In case you were wondering, this year’s inaugural rankings will be shown on Halloween night.
It will be interesting to see which teams get tricks or treats with their rankings(ok that pun was low hanging fruit i’ll do better). This is the time of the season where we separate the king sized candy bars from the raisins and toothbrushes. Now that I made a halfway decent Halloween pun, let’s get back to football.
All the top contenders are looking to make a strong impression on the CFP Committee, Ohio State did just that against Penn State. For the second time this season, the Buckeyes leaned on their defense to beat a high caliber opponent.
This hasn’t been the status quo for Ryan Day teams, which have always been explosive but could struggle against more physical squads. Day knew he didn’t have a Justin Fields or CJ Stroud under center this fall, so he adapted his team’s philosophy.
Second-year defensive coordinator Jim Knowles has this Buckeyes’ defense among the best in the nation. Penn State didn’t find the end zone until the game was well in hand and they were held to a dismal 1/16 on third down.
While he isn’t a Heisman finalist like Fields or Stroud, Kyle McCord has done a commendable job running the offense and keeping the ball out of harm’s way.
The Bucks’ biggest test still awaits in Ann Arbor, but this team has shown they can play the type of ball to avenge their losses from the past two seasons.
I mentioned last week that redshirt freshman Drew Allar would be facing the biggest test of his young career. While Allar is a talented signal caller, he looked how you would expect a freshman to look on the road against an elite defense.
Penn State’s offense lacks any explosiveness, which means it has to be able to extend drives on third down. Going 1/16 isn’t gonna cut it against any opponent much less Ohio State.
The Nittany Lions can still make the playoff, however their weak schedule outside of Ohio State and Michigan makes it difficult. If the Nittany Lions can beat Michigan and have the Wolverines beat Ohio State, they could win the East in a three-way tiebreaker. Don’t ask me who actually wins the division in that scenario, we’ll cross that bridge if we get to it.
Ohio State and Penn State weren’t the only Big Ten frontrunners making headlines this weekend, Michigan has been at the center of the nation’s attention for entirely different reasons.
On the field, Michigan continues to look as dominant as anyone in the country. However it’s what has transpired off the field that has the Wolverines in hot water.
Michigan has allegedly had a sign-stealing scheme that involves spying on future opponents in person. Suspended staffer Connor Stalions is the mastermind behind the scheme that was done by sneaking “fans’ ‘ into 30 games to record signals on their phone.
Now stealing signs in itself isn’t illegal, however sending people to record signs at games is very much illegal. I don’t really care about the scandal itself, sign stealing is a part of football to a certain degree and I’m not delusional enough to believe Michigan is the only program bending the rules.
While I do believe the Big Ten and NCAA should crack down on this type of sign stealing, I don’t believe this is gonna destroy what Jim Harbaugh has built in Ann Arbor. We won’t know the result of the investigation until after the season is over, all we can find out now is how Michigan responds on the field.
I believe this will be used as bulletin board material, everyone is calling them cheaters and this is not a team I would want to make angry. When Spygate came out in 2007, the Patriots didn’t lose a football game until the Super Bowl.
A team that has had plenty of external motivation lately are the Alabama Crimson Tide. After stumbling out of the gate with a loss to Texas and an ugly win against South Florida, many wrote this team off and went as far as to declare the Nick Saban dynasty over.
I fortunately didn’t drink the rat poison as Saban would call it, these past few weeks have shown why I didn’t bail on the Tide.
One year after Tennessee beat them in an all-time classic that resulted in some goalposts being chucked into the Tennessee River, the Crimson Tide got back to business on “The Third Saturday in October”.
It looked like Alabama might get upset by the Vols again in the first half, before rattling off 27 unanswered points to secure their second ranked win of 2023.
While this is one of the weaker Alabama teams in recent memory, the SEC has also been weak relative to its standard. Are we sure ‘Bama is that far behind Georgia as the top team in the conference? The Tide still has to beat LSU next weekend to get to Atlanta.
If the Tide can avenge another loss from last year against the LSU Tigers, they will likely have a chance to show they are still the top program in the SEC.
Chris’ College Football Top 25 Rankings:
1.Georgia Bulldogs (7-0) BYE, last week-1
2.Michigan Wolverines (8-0) W vs Michigan State 49-0, last week-2
3.Ohio State Buckeyes (7-0) W vs Penn State 20-12, last week-3
4.Florida State Seminoles (7-0) W vs Duke 38-20, last week-4
5.Washington Huskies (7-0) W vs Arizona State 15-7, last week-6
6.Oklahoma Sooners (7-0) W vs UCF 31-29, last week-7
7.Texas Longhorns (6-1) W vs Houston 31-24, last week-8
8.Alabama Crimson Tide (7-1) W vs Tennessee 34-20, last week-10
9.Oregon Ducks (6-1) W vs Washington State 38-24, last week-9
10.Penn State Nittany Lions (6-1) L vs Ohio State 20-12, last week-5
11.Oregon State Beavers (6-1) BYE, last week-11
12.Notre Dame Fighting Irish (6-2) BYE, last week-13
13.Ole Miss Rebels (6-1) W vs Auburn 28-21, last week-14
14.Utah Utes (6-1) W vs USC 34-32, last week-17
15.LSU Tigers (6-2) W vs Army 62-0, last week-15
16.Missouri Tigers (7-1) W vs South Carolina 34-12, last week-20
17.Louisville Cardinals (6-1) BYE, last week-21
18.Duke Blue Devils (5-2) L vs Florida State 38-20, last week-16
19.North Carolina Tar Heels (6-1) L vs Virginia 31-27, last week-12
20.Air Force Falcons (7-0) W vs Navy 17-6, last week-22
21.UCLA Bruins (5-2) W vs Stanford 42-7, last week-24
22.USC Trojans (6-2) L vs Utah 34-32, last week-18
23.Tennessee Volunteers (5-2) L vs Alabama 34-20, last week-19
24.Tulane Green Wave (6-1) W vs North Texas 35-28, last week-25
25.James Madison Dukes (7-0) W vs Marshall 20-9, last week-unranked
Dropped out of rankings – Iowa