2007 College Football Week No. 7 (week of 10/13/07)

[Dan Wishengrad]

I would have no problem at all with USC being out of the Top 10. Losing to Stanford should have cost them a bigger drop than 2 to 7 IMHO. But this is a wacky year, that's for sure! By the way I meant no offense to any team or conference -- I try (usually unsuccesfully) to be funny and think people take me for serious all the time.

Even everybody's #1, LSU, struggled against the weakest team on their schedule (Tulane) before putting them away with a dominant second half. Washington is still only a so-so team, yet we were tied with both Ohio State and USC at the half before coming back down to earth with poor play after intermission. I say, seriously, let the records and results count more than pre-season rankings at the halfway point and beyond. I'd vote Cal, South Florida AND ASU in my top 6 if I had a vote this week. Next week two of those teams might not make my top 20 LOL

I do think a year like this supports those of us who believe in a true playoff system. Who knows who will be worthy to play in the national title game, given all these weekly upsets? Teams draft their schedule years in advance, and teams from the mid-majors just can't ever be taken seriously by the powers-that-be who decide they are not worthy because of cupcakes on their schedule. I think a team like Hawaii, which has struggled in almost every game this season, might actually find a way to beat an elite team if given a chance. But I guess we'll never know. Nobody seemed to give Boise any chance last year, but I bet an Oklahoma grad "straight up" (would not take points) before their bowl game that Boise would win. He teased me mercilessly for a month for making the "stupidest bet ever laid" ... until he had to pay off afterwards. I don't profess to being an expert on college football. But I had watched both the Broncos and the Sooners in '06, and thought Boise was the better team. This year? I really have no clue... which most of you would agree with!!!

[FLAK]

You would think this would be the year for the NCAA to evaluate pre-season polls and how much weight they should really be given. Granted we wouldn't have any early season "upsets" but at the same time, teams that dont start out in the polls or that are ranked so low in the polls dont have a chance if they lose one game. While teams like UF and USC can lose two games and still be ranked just because they did well the previous year and had a good preseason ranking....

[byualum]

You would think this would be the year for the NCAA to evaluate pre-season polls and how much weight they should really be given. Granted we wouldn't have any early season "upsets" but at the same time, teams that dont start out in the polls or that are ranked so low in the polls dont have a chance if they lose one game. While teams like UF and USC can lose two games and still be ranked just because they did well the previous year and had a good preseason ranking....

In theory, I agree...but as long as there are magazines and sports talk radio, it will never happen.

[Vols2]

Completely agree....it's not the fact that they only drop 5 or so spots with a loss to the #1 team on the road this past week. It's that they only dropped 5 spots the previous week to an unranked team at home.

The Vols lost to the #12 team Cal (now #2) and dropped 9 spots.

And yeah it is pretty crazy that Georgia is ahead of Tennessee.

where should they drop after a competitive loss to #1 on the road?

Because the week before they lost to an unranked (at the time) opponent at home and dropped to what? like 10th?

Same thing with USC, how can you lose to an unranked opponent at home and still be in the top 10?

I thought there was supposed to be parity in college football, but I guess it's a popularity contest these days, and when you have ESPN covering stories about your third string linemen and their trials to get to THE USC....

[Danny Hogan]

Hey geniuses, 4 other top 10 teams lost the week that UF lost to an unranked team (who is now ranked with their "upset" loss to USF not looking so bad).

Had the top 10 not been evacuated that week i agree the gators would and should have dropped out.

The undefeated arguement is absurd

[FLAK]

Had the top 10 not been evacuated that week i agree the gators would and should have dropped out.

So just because other teams were overrated Florida and USC get a gimmie?

[Danny Hogan]

where would you have put them after their loss to auburn ?

[FLAK]

where would you have put them after their loss to auburn ?

11, behind OU and South Carolina, just because both of those teams lost on the road, and South Carolina lost to LSU. The reasoning for this is because UF had only played one decent team, Tenn, granted they killed em, but it was in Gainesville and at that time no one had any clue whether Tennessee was a decent team or not...

Plus they could have moved Mizzou up since they are still undefeated, but then again, at that time no one was sure how good Illinois.. but they (UF and Mizzou) both beat Ole Miss....

[Danny Hogan]

so this huge arguement is that they shouldn't be in the top 10 and you put them at 11...

[Gvlax]

i like Kelly at cinci plus he came from a power house D2 school...

[FLAK]

so this huge arguement is that they shouldn't be in the top 10 and you put them at 11...

Its the principle of the matter, and the fact that they now have two losses and still are in the top 15 speaks to the fact that the media has absolutely no clue how to rank teams. Because any other team with two losses wouldn't and shouldn't break the top 20. It shouldn't matter who you lost to or what you did the year before and that is one of the multitude of problems facing college football.

[Danny Hogan]

i woudl say that UF's efforts in BR this past weekend helped the media judge that they are in fact legit. Pretty much gave the best team in the country all they could handle on their own turf. Who do you think should be the most highly ranked 2-loss team?

i agree with your assestment of the principle but 2-3 spots at this point in the season is not a huge injustice.

[FLAK]

i woudl say that UF's efforts in BR this past weekend helped the media judge that they are in fact legit.

I will give you that, but i will be skeptical unless they run the table, one more loss to anyone and then Ill return to my previous point that they are just the media darlings.


This year is going to give the BCS nightmares and as usual, someone will get screwed and calls for a playoff will be made yet again..thus continuing the vicious cycle that is college football

[Danny Hogan]

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn...=forde_pat&id=3055285

pretty solid mid season report from pat forde

[Dan Wishengrad]

No wonder you liked that column, Danny, Forde sure heaped lots of love on your Gators.

It was a pretty fair piece, IMHO, but I think he is way off on his complete dissing of UCLA. They lost to Notre Dame without either their starting QB or even their capable back-up. Tough for any team to win with a third-stringer at the most important position on the field, and this led to turnovers which resulted in Irish scores. Having watched USC, Ohio State and UCLA against my Huskies, I think all three teams are pretty darn even. Hard to figure that blowout loss to Utah, though. I think the Bruins are just one of those Jekkyl-and-Hyde kind of teams -- really good one game and really bad the next. But if Olsen was healthy and playing QB, the Bruins might be unbeaten themselves.

Much as it pains me deeply to say anything nice about Oregon, the Ducks were a late fumble away from beating #2 Cal and being unbeaten themselves, yet Forde never mentioned them at all. If we give so much credit to a 4-2 Florida team for a close loss to #1 LSU (deservingly), why no props to 4-1 Oregon at all for a close loss to #2 Cal? Now excuse me while I rinse the taste of green-and-gold bile out of my mouth...