Four? Eight? Twelve? Sixteen?

I’m sure some would love to go to 24 teams like FCS.  Honestly?  Fuck that.  But expansion is coming and we know it.  Could be here as early as the 2023 season so the graphic above will only make sense for this season and possibly next and that’s it, that’s all.  The new era of college football truly begins (regardless of what happens in realignment).

But for now we stick with the way things are meaning it’s bowl projection time!  I can now take all I’ve done over the past few weeks and wrap it up in a nice, neat, little package.  OK maybe neat is too strong a word.  I’m sure it will be somewhat messy.  And you won’t agree with all the choices.  Oh well, it is what it is.

Let’s get right to it and start with the College Football Playoff matchups.  If you read all the conference preview posts (every single one, right?) you have a good idea who’s here.  Remember, the rankings I have here are the rankings I believe these teams will be going into the bowl season.  Most of the time I have hit pretty well on these picks although I have had some real stinkers like picking Michigan State when they went 3-9.  So yeah it’s not all good for ol’ Bossman:

December 31st	Orange Bowl	#2 Alabama	#3 Ohio State
December 31st	Cotton Bowl	#1 Oklahoma	#4 North Carolina

First of all, ugh.  New Year’s Eve semi-final games.  I’m sure most will hate this.  Bama was an easy pick as everyone would have them #1 for the season but with one loss they would get in at #2.  Most have Oklahoma as well and I have them running the table to this point so makes sense to have them #1.  Ohio State should outlast their Big Ten foes and with only one loss as well they should easily slot in to #3 and a huge matchup with the Tide out in Miami.  And at #4….not Clemson!  This is probably the Tar Heels’ best shot at winning the ACC.  Clemson has a new quarterback and UNC has a Heisman hopeful in Sam Howell.  Despite the Tigers running the table and heading into the conference championships at #1, their loss would do enough to harm them and move them down the rankings.  Plus it would look really shitty on The Committee if they kept Clemson above Mack Brown’s boys after a conference title game loss.  North Carolina should be #5 going into the ACC Championship and I think The Committee will do the right thing after a Heels win.  Yes, Clemson fans will scream bloody murder but to no avail.  It’s about time they learn how to lose (somewhat) again after so many years at the top.

Now we get the New Year’s Six with three of those four games actually on New Year’s Day (why couldn’t the other one have been on New Year’s Eve?):

January 1st	Sugar Bowl	#11 Texas A&M	#9 Iowa State
January 1st	Rose Bowl	#14 Wisconsin	#8 USC
January 1st	Fiesta Bowl	#6 Notre Dame	#10 Washington
December 30th	Peach Bowl	#5 Clemson	#7 Cincinnati

Cue the debates.  As is usually the case, the top 11 ranked teams will head to the CFP or NY6.  Georgia will not get in after, once again, losing the SEC Championship to Alabama.  I see Georgia falling to #12, just below the Aggies, who will sneak into the New Year’s Six, still probably seething from Texas coming to the SEC.  Cincinnati actually won’t be the undefeated Group of Five team this season.  Coastal Carolina will be but the Bearcats’ schedule is quite difficult whereas the Chanticleers’ schedule, not so much.  Therefore, it’s an easy choice for Cincy to be well in the Top 10 and heading to Atlanta.  Notre Dame has, yet again, a brutal schedule but will navigate enough of it to be clearly a Top 10 team and have their shot out in the desert to win a New Year’s Six bowl game.  Iowa State finishes at #9 and could end up with their best finish ever (again) with a win over the Aggies in New Orleans.  USC and Washington will both get in probably no matter the result of the Pac-12 Championship.

And then we have the Big Ten runner-up, the 14th-ranked Wisconsin Badgers.  The Big Ten is contractually obligated to send a team to the Rose Bowl unless the Rose is a College Football Playoff semi-final.  The Badgers luck out with Iowa and Georgia losing in their respective conference championships as Wisky sits at home and watches.  Let’s be honest: this isn’t all that bad.  Better than having a team that’s ranked like #20 getting into a prestigious bowl game because of stupid bowl tie-ins.  That issue goes away for the most part with the 12-team playoff but then a different problem comes up.  You think being #13 or #14 and missing out on the New Year’s Six rankles the fans?   Wait until the #13 team misses out on the CFP.  Their fans will be livid for sure.  Good times.

Now for the rest of my predicted bowl matchups:

January 4th	Texas Bowl	#12 Georgia	Iowa
January 1st	Citrus Bowl	#19 Florida	#16 Penn State
January 1st	Outback Bowl	Auburn	Indiana
December 31st	Sun Bowl	Virginia Tech	#22 Utah
December 31st	Gator Bowl	#24 Ole Miss	#17 Miami
December 30th	Las Vegas Bowl	#25 Northwestern	#15 Oregon
December 30th	Arizona Bowl	Boise State	Ball State
December 30th	Redbox Bowl	Nebraska	#20 Arizona State
December 30th	Music City Bowl	#18 LSU	Michigan
December 30th	Duke’s Mayo Bowl	Kentucky	Wake Forest
December 29th	Alamo Bowl	#21 Texas	UCLA
December 29th	Cheez-It Bowl	#23 TCU	Boston College
December 29th	Pinstripe Bowl	Minnesota	Pittsburgh
December 29th	Fenway Bowl	UTSA	Memphis
December 28th	Guaranteed Rate Bowl	Tennessee	Oklahoma State
December 28th	Holiday Bowl	NC State	California
December 28th	Liberty Bowl	Missouri	West Virginia
December 28th	First Responder Bowl	Houston	Liberty
December 28th	Birmingham Bowl	Arkansas	UCF
December 27th	Military Bowl	Florida State	Eastern Michigan
December 27th	Quick Lane Bowl	Rice	Ohio
December 25th	Camellia Bowl	Louisiana	Buffalo
December 24th	Hawaii Bowl	Tulsa	Hawaii
December 23rd	Union Home Mortgage Bowl	Mississippi State	SMU
December 22nd	Armed Forces Bowl	Army	Baylor
December 21st	Frisco Bowl	Air Force	Texas State
December 21st	Idaho Potato Bowl	San Jose State	Toledo
December 20th	Myrtle Beach Bowl	Western Michigan	#13 Coastal Carolina
December 18th	New Orleans Bowl	Appalachian State	Florida Atlantic
December 18th	LA Bowl	Stanford	Nevada
December 18th	LendingTree Bowl	Kansas State	Central Michigan
December 18th	Independence Bowl	BYU	UAB
December 18th	New Mexico Bowl	Wyoming	Louisiana Tech
December 18th	Boca Raton Bowl	San Diego State	Southern Miss
December 17th	Cure Bowl	New Mexico	FIU
December 17th	Bahamas Bowl	Marshall	Kent State

Fenway Bowl!  LA Bowl!!! And they added the Myrtle Beach Bowl last year.  And now with the new 12-team playoff on the horizon there may be downsizing.  Hilarious.  At least Canadians can see most of the bowl games as per usual.  Well, as long as the specialty packs cooperate.  Here’s some notes on the wacky fun-time bowl season predictions:

• I have three games predicted between ranked teams: Florida-Penn State in the Citrus, Ole Miss-Miami in the Gator, & Northwestern-Oregon in the Las Vegas.  Really good games that you honestly would rarely get to see.  This is really what bowl season always used to be about (at least on the field).
• I’m not even bothering with showing you which tie-ins couldn’t be satisfied or which bowls have teams with 5-7 records (there are a few).  Trying to decipher how bowl season will shape up is difficult as is going into December.  Imagine how difficult (or near impossble) it is to do now.  Showing you all that info doesn’t matter much to be honest.
• Some of the better matchups include:
  • the three ranked-on-ranked matchups mentioned above
  • Auburn-Indy in the Outback Bowl
  • Georgia-Iowa in the Texas Bowl
  • BYU-UAB in the Independence Bowl
  • Louisiana-Buffalo in the Camellia Bowl
  • Texas-UCLA in the Alamo Bowl
  • Virginia Tech-Utah in the Sun Bowl
• Now, the naming rights to the Arizona Bowl has gone to Barstool Sports.  Interesting and not totally surprising.  What is surprising is that it won’t air on regular television as far as I know.  It will, as of this point, air on Barstool Sports’ website (which you would need to pay to see the game I believe).  That’s the weird part and I wonder what kind of viewership they will get.  Then again it is the Arizona Bowl so it’s not like they were getting a ton of viewers to begin with having it air on CBS Sports Network in the past.

The College Football Playoff semi-final games should actually both be good for once.  Bama-tOSU should be a classic with the Tide pulling out the win.  The other one should also be relatively close but the Sooners will finally get their semi-final win and their first berth in the national championship in the playoff era.  But the winning streak will end in the national championship as I have Nick Saban’s Alabama Crimson Tide winning their second straight championship and their third in five seasons.

Next up is the post where I actually make some pretty good predictions: the Coaching Hot Seat Report.  After that is a post I always do horrifically bad at for some reason, the Heisman Predictions.  After that I might as well do some NFL predictions which are also historically kinda bad.  We are 26 days away from the start of the college football season but at least now we have some actual football on the horizon to get us in the football watching mood…not that I usually need that but watching live football is gonna feel great after over six months of none.  And soon enough I will have a schedule up for Week Zero.  Will be interesting to see what ends up going to the specialty pack and if the specialty pack even starts that day.  Wouldn’t surprise me if they didn’t.  Why?  Because fuck you that’s why.  Enjoy your Civic Holiday if you are actually celebrating it (by being civic-minded I guess).

Another proposal from yours truly – Week 11 College Football Recap

You probably know this already but over 15% of the college football games this past weekend were postponed or outright cancelled.  Unfortunately this is not a surprise considering we are in the throes of the second wave of COVID-19.  College football doesn’t get exempted from this.  And to be honest, it feels like even though the powers that be are doing the best they can, they are screwing things up.  Considering it’s the kind of year it has been you have to be flexible with a lot of things these days.  College football is doing that as well.  Just look at the Pac-12 with UCLA and California.  They both had their games cancelled so on Friday, set up a game for yesterday.  This has never been done before in the history of college football considering some teams schedule non-conference games 25 years out.  So it shows you don’t need weeks to prepare for scheduling changes.  Which brings me to my proposal.

Just so you know, this is something that has been bandied about by quite a few people in and out of the college football mediasphere.  Really, it is the same thing I have said about the NFL: create a week (or two) at the end of the season (or near the end) to fill in these games that have been lost to allow for a fuller season to be played.  The SEC has kind of done that as during conference championship week, teams can reschedule lost games if they can’t find an open week any other time.  A good idea but mine would be better.  Just move conference championship day to Boxing Day.  Now you have December 19th for make-up games which could end up being very important.  And don’t start bowl season the day of the conference championships.  I mean way to make those two teams playing that bowl game feel like shit.  Start the bowls on the 28th, and move the damn Rose Bowl and Sugar Bowl back.  Many are saying you can’t but have you noticed how fucked up everything is these days?  Is the most important thing to get the season finished properly?  Oh that’s right, it’s not.  It’s about money.  Just not for the players.

Alright enough of my awesome plan to help college football (yet again).  On to the recap of what was a pretty good week of college football.  It wasn’t the best week and I think a lot had to do with all the games cancelled.  My only hope is that the last month of the regular season is better (fingers crossed).

Recap

• Nebraska had a nice win over Penn State in a battle of winless teams.  Scott Frost has to be relieved.  It was a huge victory that has been mired in a slump not seen in this part of the country in decades.  Not saying this makes it so the Huskers now have a shot at the division title because they really don’t.  Saying that, it’s not like their schedule is super difficult.  Illinois, Iowa, Purdue, and Minnesota left for them.  Win out and they are 5-2 and with some help who knows.  As for PSU, wow the bottom has dropped out for them.  Only winless team left in the Big Ten.  This is not looking good for them and for James Franklin.
• NC State is quietly at 5-3 on the season after their win over the hapless Florida State Seminoles.  The game wasn’t even as close as the 38-22 score would make you believe.  FSU being relegated to the ACC Network says all you need to know about the state of that program.  They are in dire straits meaning Mike Norvell will be on a hot seat starting next season for sure.
• A very slow start for Cincinnati turned into an absolute rout when they scored 28 second quarter points on East Carolina to pick up the win.  They still have two more big games against UCF and Tulsa coming up that could put other teams back in the race to get to the American Conference Championship.  The Bearcats would have to lose at least one of those, if not both, though and I honestly can’t see that happening.
• No big matchups this day but there was the Red Bandana Game at Boston College.  If you haven’t heard about it, it’s in honour of Welles Crowther.  He was a lacrosse player at BC who ended up moving to New York City to become an equities trader.  The other thing he was was a volunteer firefighter.  He ended up helping people get out of the South Tower during 9/11 and ended up dying.  One of the people who survived talked about being saved by a man who wore a red bandana and that man was Crowther .  So this game was created annually and it’s a great tradition that was created in Boston.  And then Notre Dame came in and beat the Eagles pretty badly.  Actually that may have been a little bit of an exaggeration but the Eagles were never really close.  The Irish were too much for BC and Ian Book may have pushed himself into the Heisman conversation.  Notre Dame continues their run to the ACC Championship but have to get through North Carolina first which could be a very interesting game.
• In Big XII news, Texas Tech BARELY beat Baylor.  It was looking for a while there that the Bears had the Red Raiders’ number.  Tech needed a FG late to win this one and got it.  Neither team is doing any good, especially Baylor who has only won against Kansas and may not win another game this year.  Rough start for Dave Aranda in Waco.
• Illinois had an actual great game against Rutgers and no, I am not joking.  It looked like the Scarlet Knights were driving for the winning score until an unfortunate interception.  Huge for the Illini.  This allowed them to hit a long field goal with almost no time left to get their first win of the season.  And with all teams bowl-eligible, Lovie Smith could take his team to a bowl game in two consecutive seasons.  The last time that happened in Champaign?  2010 and 2011 in the last two years under Ron Zook.  Yeah.
• Appalachian State ended up with what ended up as a huge win as they beat Georgia State in a close one.  This makes it so their game against Coastal Carolina is still huge and for the Sun Belt East division crown.  The Mountaineers have no real shot at the New Year’s Six so now their goal is to kill the Chanticleers’ chances.  It wouldn’t surprise me if they were the favourite when those two teams meet up this coming Saturday.
• Could the Florida Gators somehow be a true factor in the CFP race?   They sure could.  I mean their offense took Arkansas to the woodshed and now Kyle Trask has to be considered a real Heisman candidate.  And the Hogs aren’t bad this year.  The Gators still need to truly figure out their defense since the entire conference has decided to become the Big XII East.  A game against Vanderbilt coming up should help them figure things out before the final stretch of games.
• Are the Wisconsin Badgers a juggernaut?  They mopped the floor with Michigan dropping 49 relatively easy points on them.  Their path to the Big Ten Championship is now very simple.  Beat Northwestern this Saturday, don’t lose anymore games to COVID and they are headed to Indianapolis.
• So what can we make of the Kentucky Wildcats this season?  They looked OK, I guess, against Vanderbilt and were able to eek out a win.  They’ve been all over the place this season and no one can quite figure them out.  Unfortunately for them, their next two games against Alabama and Florida.  Good fucking luck.
• SMU lost to Tulsa.  No New Year’s Six for you!
• There were no games between ranked teams this past weekend.  The closest we probably got is Miami’s thrilling victory over Virginia Tech.  A back-and-forth affair that came down to the wire with The U pulling out the win with a touchdown with six minutes to go and a defensive stand shortly after that.  The Canes need to keep winning to move up the chain and hope that one of Clemson or Notre Dame loses down the stretch so they can get back into the ACC Championship.
• Maybe we should call them Windiana.  Are the Hoosiers ready for real pressure?  They have it coming up.  They went way out in front against Michigan State and cruised to the shutout this past weekend to move themselves squarely into the Top 10.  Now they have, arguably, the biggest game in program history as they play Ohio State this coming Saturday.  They win that and they have to be considered, amazingly enough, a true College Football Playoff contender.  Amazing.
• It looked for a while that Oregon was not going to be able to pull through in their game against Washington State.  A 22-point fourth quarter helped them to the big win.  At this point, other than maybe USC, the Ducks are feeling like the only Pac-12 hope for the CFP.  And struggling to beat a team like Wazzu just doesn’t cut it.
• Marshall beat Middle Tennessee.  I would honestly be shocked if the Thundering Herd don’t get to 10-0 going into the Conference USA Championship.
• Is the ACC the new Big XII?  North Carolina and Wake Forest both put up 50-burgers in their defense-optional matchup.  Both teams are the epitome of the ACC mid-card.  Good teams but none of them seem like contenders, even if they are ranked as such.  Both of these teams are good and it wouldn’t surprise me to see them both ranked at the end of the season but neither of them look like they could contend with Clemson or Notre Dame.  Now watch the Heels beat the Irish.
• Finally, USC and Arizona had a fun match out in Pac-12 land.  Another back-and-forth match with three touchdowns in the final four minutes.  The Trojans keep rolling with the win and are looking like the only challenger to Oregon in the entire Pac-12.

Normally at this point of the season we would be heading into SEC Sleepwalk Saturday followed by Footballgasm Weekend and that would end the regular season.  Instead, we have a good week coming up, followed by American Thanksgiving, followed by two more weeks of the regular season.  So yeah these games are important but still not as important as those final regular season games.  Anyway, let’s get to my Top 25 which may or may not be of any importance:

#1	Alabama
#2	Notre Dame
#3	Florida
#4	Ohio State
#5	Cincinnati
#6	BYU
#7	Clemson
#8	Texas A&M
#9	Oregon
#10	Miami
#11	Wisconsin
#12	Indiana
#13	Oklahoma State
#14	Georgia
#15	Marshall
#16	Coastal Carolina
#17	USC
#18	Iowa State
#19	Oklahoma
#20	Auburn
#21	Texas
#22	Northwestern
#23	Louisiana
#24	Liberty
#25	North Carolina

Not much has happened at the top but there should be a lot to come in the last few weeks of the regular season.  Unless something weird happens, both Georgia and Auburn won’t get to the CFP.  Alabama is almost a shoo-in at this point unless they don’t just shit the bed but fill the bedroom with diarrhea.  Notre Dame wins out and they are essentially a lock.  Ohio State is probably the same.  I can’t see a game that Ohio State would lose the rest of the way.  I am going to continue to drink the Kool-Aid and say Cincinnati and BYU are going to make things very difficult for The Committee.  The most important thing here though?  Indiana is in the Top 10 in the AP Poll but not quite in my poll.  They beat tOSU though, they are easily in the Top 10 if not the Top 5 in both of those venerable polls.  And let’s not forget about Coastal Carolina.  And Marshall.  Two Group of Five teams who are playing well, haven’t lost, and could cause other issues for The Committee.  I would love to see Indiana win out and get in the conversation for the College Football Playoff because I like the discomfort of a team that is not a college football blueblood being in the mix.  The media, as much as they they say otherwise, do not want these non-traditional football powers in these big games.  Except for the ones who love controversy like it’s crack.  Those are the people I like.

We got some MACtion tomorrow night!  Buffalo and Bowling Green tussle starting at 7:00 on CBS Sports Network and Akron faces off against Kent State starting at 7:00 on ESPNU (if you can get that).  Ohio and Miami-OH were supposed to play but they are the first MACtion game to be cancelled due to the Coronavirus.  Even MACtion can’t handle the virus.  Then the next night is another set of MACtion games with one of them being on CBSSN: Toledo-Eastern Michigan.

Tomorrow we got some bowl projections (which aren’t early anymore).  Wednesday, I will try and get the weekend-plus of college football and its TV schedule up.  Finally, the NFL gets the sked treatment on Thursday (hopefully).  Wish me luck and enjoy your week (and the games) everyone!

Well, well, look who’s back (kind of) – Week 3 College Football Recap

This guy is very happy.  And he should be.  Kalani Sitake’s BYU Cougars pulled off the upset of the season (so far) with their win over the #6 Wisconsin Badgers.  It was a stunner to say the least.  BYU’s one-year sojourn into being below average has been overblown (kind of) and we can safely say they are back to where they were before: the second-best Independent team behind Notre Dame (although Army is pretty good as well).  As for the Badgers, they were the perfect metaphor for the Big Ten West this past weekend.  Let’s review:

• Wisconsin lost to BYU.  Stunning and not so good for the Big Ten West’s number one team.
• Nebraska pays Troy over a million dollars for the Trojans to come and beat them in Lincoln.  Oof.  So much for Scott Frost Will Save The Huskers.
• Northwestern loses in what may be the second biggest upset of the year to Akron.  This is getting bad.
• Illinois had USF on the ropes and blew it at the end.
• David Blough threw for almost 600 yards and it still wasn’t enough for Purdue to beat Missouri.

Iowa’s win over Northern Iowa and Minnesota’s win over Miami-OH are mere blips on the shit radar for this division.  It was an unmitigated disaster.

There is so much more to talk about Week 3 so let’s get right down to it!

Fun-Time Recap!

• Will Willie Taggart be fired this season? No and it’s hilarious that four different GoFundMe’s have raised less than $100 to buy him out.  But make no mistake about it: the Seminoles were throttled by Syracuse.  It looks bad for this team and there doesn’t seem to be an easy fix here.
• Penn State destroyed Kent State. It was kind of boring.  But then again it was Kent State.  So also expected.
• OK we need to refrain from saying Texas is back. They aren’t there yet.  But man did they look impressive against USC.  I think it may end up saying more about USC and the Pac-12 South as a whole than Texas who still has the whole Big XII conference schedule in front of them.  Also, I said this would happen.  Considering how many of my picks went, I am going to chalk that one up in the win column for yours truly.
• Hey how did of my other Upset of the Week picks do?   San Diego State, baby!  I had a feeling Arizona State was still who we thought they were (kind of).  The ending was very controversial though.  Having a receiver drop the ball solely because of a hit that was about the easiest targeting call ever?  This made it so instead of ASU getting the ball on the SDSU 2, they only got a 15-yard penalty and the ball was on around the 35 for the final play of the game.  Big difference.  Don’t know how you can change that rule to accommodate that but it is sure to be discussed in the offseason.
• Hey how about dem Tigahs (the LSU kind)?  Ed Orgeron doing a good job in Baton Rouge must actually frustrate some people who want him to fail.  He’s doing one of the best coaching jobs so far this season beating two Top 10 teams in the first three weeks.  And Cole Tracy is a magnificent find for LSU.  The kicker who was on a Division II school last year, calmly came in and booted the game-winning field goal with no time remaining to beat Auburn.  Cold as ice.
• Vandy nearly upset Notre Dame.  Is this going to be the same Notre Dame that ran the table in 2012 but kind of looked not so good doing it?  It almost feels that way since they are not mopping the floor with most opponents like a Bama does.
• How about Ohio State? A flurry of scoring in the third quarter vaulted them ahead of TCU and they held on for a hard-fought win.  What surprised me a bit was the fact that there were more Ohio State fans than TCU fans at JerryWorld.  How does this even make sense?
• Oklahoma State ruined Boise State’s potential perfect season.  I think it’s a bit of Boise State not being the juggernaut I thought they would be and a bit the Pokes being better than advertised.  This definitely opens up the New Year’s Six conversation as I think UCF is your new leader on the course at this point.
• A bunch of games were cancelled over concerns about Hurricane Florence and rightfully so.  A few ranked teams were part of those cancellations (UCF, Virginia Tech, West Virginia) so it will be interesting later on in the season if these teams are still undefeated or with only one loss if this will affect them in the polls or with The Committee.
• People.  Brace yourselves.  Kansas beat Rutgers.  Yes that isn’t a big deal.  What is a big deal is they beat them by 41 POINTS!  Seriously?  Could Kansas actually be considered a contender to go to a bowl this season?  Not so fast there, my friend.  Let’s wait and see how the Jayhawks tackle the conference schedule.  But hey, they are already better than they have been in years.  Rock Chalk indeed.
• Ole Miss got boatraced by Alabama.  It was actually kind of embarrassing to watch.  Luckily there were other games on because man this was about as non-competitive as it gets.
• Washington kind of remains the Pac-12’s best hope for the College Football Playoff.  They didn’t look great against Utah but the Utes looked bad.  The winner of Stanford-Oregon this Saturday remains the only possibly Pac-12 hope it seems.
• North Texas beat up on Arkansas.  Doesn’t feel like an upset.  Best part of that game was the fake fair catch punt return touchdown for the Mean Green.  The Hogs are gonna have a long season that is for sure.
• Hawaii is no longer undefeated so sports journalists can stop the “hilarious” tweets about Hawaii going to the College Football Playoff.

So it was a fun day of watching college football.  A few upsets and some decent movement in the polls.  Including mine which actually isn’t a poll unless I count it because I am polling myself.  But that would be dumb.  Bossman Top 25 right here:

#1	Alabama
#2	Ohio State
#3	Georgia
#4	Clemson
#5	LSU
#6	Oklahoma
#7	Notre Dame
#8	Washington
#9	Stanford
#10	Penn State
#11	Virginia Tech
#12	Auburn
#13	Mississippi State
#14	West Virginia
#15	Wisconsin
#16	Oklahoma State
#17	Michigan
#18	Miami
#19	UCF
#20	TCU
#21	Oregon
#22	Michigan State
#23	Iowa
#24	Boise State
#25	Texas A&M

Yes there are some differences from the AP Poll.  That’s fine.  I, at this point, believe Ohio State and Georgia are better than Clemson.  That might change later on in the season.  Who knows?  No I don’t have BYU in the poll (I have them #28 so just outside).  Same with Boston College (#27).  They continue to play like they’re playing, they will be in next week for sure.  I also didn’t penalize Boise State as much as many did.  They lost to a good Oklahoma State team who is now #16 (in my poll).  That has to count, right?

As for the actual rankings, Joel Klatt went off on a rant about the AP Poll.  And a lot of points were interesting and actually good.  Let’s be honest: the fact someone had Florida State in the Top 25 last week is all you need to know about the AP Poll.  But, as many pointed out, it is, for the most part, entertainment.  The only thing that matters it the College Football Playoff rankings done by The Committee.  However, as Joel pointed out, these AP rankings affect how The Committee thinks.  And that would be true except for the first year we had the CFP and Ohio State leapfrogged TCU and Baylor to get into the Top 4 after coming into the day #6 in the rankings.  If The Committee really relied on these rankings, tOSU may have got to #5 but I don’t see a way they move past TCU into #4.  So yeah, good stuff.

Same schedule for later in the week.  College football schedule Thursday.  NFL schedule Friday.  Have a good week everyone.