This week’s recent release of the AP and Coach’s Polls are a bit of a head-scratcher, but let’s face it, they almost always seem to be, and the CFP Polls are likely to be worse.
Mind you, if you disagree with any of it, make sure you show how in this week’s Mumme Poll:
First, let’s look at the AP Poll:
Firstly, Missou moved up quite a bit from “why are they ranked” last week at 25 all the way up to 14, while Florida was Free Fallin from 8th to 16th.
Oddly, Mississippi State got walloped by Alabama and only went down one place to 17th, while Alabama’s beating didn’t impress enough to move them ahead of Miami and Notre Dame, and let’s recall Ohio State already has one loss to their name, so what gives?
Northwestern is on a tear and beating folks pretty handily, yet it was Pitt that they decided should debut in the poll this week after eeking out a little over 200 yards and benefitting from a missed Virginia Tech field goal, where Pat Narduzzi took the gift and used it as his pulipt to whine about the polls.
Disregard that Pitt beat UCF 12-7 and a hapless Syracuse team 27-13.
Nebraska is undefeated with a nearly similar resume to Pitt and UCLA, yet remains unranked. Kentucky, on the other hand, has the 7th hardest schedule in the country, is 4-1 with a “good loss” to Alabama, yet sits outside the polls.
BYU, meanwhile, snuck out a win against TCU (now 2-3), 17-10, and remains in the top 10, despite being 16th in ESPN’s FPI and 21st in the Sagarin Rankings.
And people are screaming about Duke…but they have only played four games, two against P4 teams, which was a 28 point win against Stanford and a four point win against an Illinois team that just lost to *checks notes* PURDUE. Not exactly a resume to write home about…but let’s look at the Coaches Poll:
The Top 9 is pretty much the same as the AP (they give Indiana more credit in the Coaches Poll), but how is LSU ahead of Ole Miss and how is Florida ahead of Missouri? And look…there’s Duke at 23, formerly at 21…WHY?
And let’s pause for a second and ask ourselves the question…what is so damned appealing about the Men of Troy?
USC played their first three games against G6 teams, barely beat Rutgers by 7, lost to Oregon lead by Dylan Raiola, and took everything they had to beat Washington, who is currently 3-2.
Another oddity in the polls is SMU. It took a power outage unusual game in Tallahassee to beat FSU by 3, they lost to unranked Louisville, beat Boston College, arguably the worst P4 team in the land, by 9, and only beat Missouri State by 10. They have no quality wins on their resume, yet they occupy the bottom of both polls.
Why argue and bitch about it? Well, because they’re doing their damndest to make something out of nothing:
- The ACC is utter shit, and that’s the nicest I can be about it. Outside of Miami, who frankly is a question mark given they’ve played exactly nobody thus far, who else in the ACC is really that good? By ranking Duke and Pitt, they’ve added two more ranked teams to Miami’s already lousy schedule. That’s Miami’s resume booster for you.
- BYU at 8 is also odd, until you realize they play Notre Dame here this weekend. By inflating the BYU brand, it helps Notre Dame in the rankings by saying “they beat a quality BYU team” since the rest of their schedule is crap…except for
- Miami versus Notre Dame COULD be the meteor game for both teams. Whoever loses would be questioned relentlessly for the rest of the season, and grounds for keeping them out of the CFP at season’s end. By giving them a few other needless high ranked opponents, they’re helping them out in the polls.
The B1G and the SEC have a host of quality teams. The ACC and the Big XII do not. But man, they’re going to make them seem that way in the polls, aren’t they?