Four teams in the Top 10 were defeated this week with 3 others at the top (including Notre Dame) nearly succumbing to the loss column. Everyone is still chasing Alabama who shrugs off a knee sprain from T-Town Tua and still cruises to an easy victory in a cross-divisional game.
Mid-October is here and ready to shake up the polls.
18 Stripes Top 20 Poll
| RANK | TEAM | RECORD | LAST WEEK |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alabama | 7-0 | 39-10 W vs. Missouri |
| 2 | Clemson | 6-0 | BYE |
| 3 | Ohio State | 7-0 | 30-14 W vs. Minnesota |
| 4 | Notre Dame (+1) | 7-0 | 19-14 W vs. Pittsburgh |
| 5 | LSU (+5) | 6-1 | 36-16 W vs. Georgia |
| 6 | Michigan (+5) | 6-1 | 38-13 W vs. Wisconsin |
| 7 | Georgia (-3) | 6-1 | 36-16 L vs. LSU |
| 8 | Florida (+7) | 6-1 | 37-27 W vs. Vanderbilt |
| 9 | UCF (-2) | 6-0 | 31-30 W vs. Memphis |
| 10 | Oklahoma (+2) | 5-1 | BYE |
| 11 | Texas (+3) | 6-1 | 23-17 W vs. Baylor |
| 12 | Oregon (NR) | 5-1 | 30-27 W vs. Washington |
| 13 | West Virginia (-7) | 5-1 | 30-14 L vs. Iowa State |
| 14 | Washington State (+4) | 5-1 | BYE |
| 15 | Appalachian State (+5) | 4-1 | 35-9 W vs. Arkansas St. |
| 16 | Kentucky (NR) | 5-1 | BYE |
| 17 | Iowa (NR) | 5-1 | 42-16 W vs. Indiana |
| 18 | Washington (-10) | 5-2 | 30-27 L vs. Oregon |
| 19 | Penn State (-10) | 4-2 | 21-17 L vs. Michigan State |
| 20 | Cincinnati (NR) | 6-0 | BYE |
Out: Wisconsin, Miami, Colorado, Auburn
In: Oregon, Kentucky, Iowa, Cincinnati
It’s about time I bring up where I diverge from the AP Poll.
One, I’ve got Clemson ahead of Ohio State.
Two, Georgia only falling to 7th and not 8th.
Three, Texas is lingering at 11th (they lost to Maryland!) and not 7th, still behind Oklahoma whom they beat. Don’t lose to the Terps.
Four, I have the Gators at 8th and not 11th. They lost to a currently ranked team and have a better best-win than Texas. Why aren’t they above the Horns?
Five, I moved UCF back a couple spots although they’re still one spot higher than the AP Poll.
Six, Oklahoma is one spot lower.
Seven, I zoomed Washington State way up the rankings (following a bye) but probably should’ve switched spots with Kentucky.
Eight, the AP has App State at 28th receiving votes. I have them 13 spots higher–did you know they are 11th in S&P+ right now!??
Nine, I felt like Washington and Penn State still deserved to be in the Top 20 but barely. I have UW 3 spots lower and Penn State one spot lower.
Ten, Iowa demolished Indiana and is getting enough advanced state love. I have them zooming up my rankings and 2 spots higher than the AP Poll.
Week 8 Games to Watch
Oklahoma (-7.5) at TCU – I thought this would be a humbling year for TCU football. Their offense just isn’t there this year and it’s killing their defense. I like the Sooners big coming off a bye with the Frogs dropping to 3-4 on the season. Sooners win 38-13.
*Game of the Week* Michigan (-7) at Michigan State – This is an interesting spot with both teams coming off huge victories. A win by Michigan almost guarantees a showdown with Ohio State for the Big Ten crown, giving what we saw from Wisconsin last weekend. A win by Sparty and things get super interesting with the Buckeyes still to play both these programs. I was a believer in Michigan State being pretty good this year. Maybe they showed it last week and prove it again? Spartans win 24-21.
Cincinnati (+3.5) at Temple – No respect for the undefeated and ranked Bearcats. I don’t know, Temple has done some good things this year but has 3 losses including one to Villanova. I’ll ride with Cincinnati’s stingy defense. Bearcats win 29-20.
Buffalo (+1.5) at Toledo – A bit of a shocker last week as Toledo–the best team in the MAC in recent years–lost to Eastern Michigan. This is a cross-divisional game but the Rockets don’t want to fall to 1-2 in league play. UB has been one of the surprise teams in the country but should be a little out-classed here. Rockets win 41-28.
NC State (+16.5) at Clemson – I’m sure Clemson knows that NC State can be pesky and that this could be their biggest test for the remainder of the regular season–although tiny look ahead spot to Florida State. I’m expecting a game that is not close. Tigers win 50-17.
Oregon (PK) at Washington State – ESPN GameDay is headed to Pullman for the first time ever. The crowd should be super drunk. Oregon is coming off a draining emotional victory. Easy win for the home team. Cougars win 32-30.
Last Week:
4-2 SU, 4-2 ATS
Season:
36-17 SU, 26-27 ATS
Where does S&P have UCF? Sagarin has them 31 I believe. I have no idea how Wisconsin won at Iowa. College football will College Football
S&P+ has UCF 8th.
No love for NC State? They’re in both the S&P and AP top 20s. Granted they’ll lose a lot of that love after they lose to Clemson this weekend, but they have two quality wins against 4-2 Virginia and 5-2 Boston College.
Closer this week, 34-14. Mark it. Bye has looked decent in recent weeks, ND is still working some stuff out.
There have been some quality BYEs this year. Just last week Cincinnati picked up 5 spots and Kentucky and NC State picked up 4 each in the AP following solid BYE weeks.
I have full confidence ND will jump at least 6 after a solid win at BYE
You know how I always say the next game is the most important, so BYE has me really worried. They’ve got some playmakers on defense, and the O Line is stout. It’s their skill position players that are their soft spot.
Tier one wins – over teams in either the AP or S&P+ top 25. Tier 2 wins – over teams at least .500 and in the S&P+ top 60.
1. Alabama – One tier one win (Texas A&M), two tier two wins (Ole Miss and Missouri)
2. Notre Dame – One tier one win (Michigan), two tier two wins (Stanford and Virginia Tech)
3. Ohio State – One tier one win (Penn State), two tier two wins (TCU and Minnesota)
4. Clemson – One tier one win (Texas A&M), one tier two win (Syracuse)
5. LSU – Lost at Florida, three tier one wins (Miami, Auburn, and Georgia), one tier two win (Ole Miss)
6. NC State – Zero tier one wins, two tier two wins (Virginia and Boston College)
7. Kentucky – Lost at Texas A&M, two tier one wins (Florida and Mississippi State), one tier two win (South Carolina)
8. Florida – Lost at Kentucky, two tier one wins (Mississippi State and LSU), zero tier two wins
9. Michigan – Lost at Notre Dame, one tier one win (Wisconsin), one tier two win (Maryland)
10. Texas – Lost at Maryland, one tier one win (Oklahoma), two tier two wins (TCU and USC)
Missing the cut – Undefeateds: UCF 0/1 picked up their first quality win of the year against Memphis while South Florida and Cincinnati are both 0/0, Cincinnati has a shot at top 60 Temple this week while South Florida has to wait two weeks to get a shot at top 60 Houston. Georgia 0/2, Oklahoma 0/2, Iowa 0/2 are your next three one loss teams knocking on the door of the top 10. One loss teams Oregon 1/0, West Virginia 0/1, and Washington State 0/1 all need to beat some good teams to move up.
One of my favorite comments of the week, glad you keep putting this together.
Now, someone forward this to Playa Hater of the Year, Tim Tebow.
Someone would have to read it to him as well.
Not if they use one syllable words, and use a lot of pictures.
Sorry, Mrs. Tebow.
I enjoy these every week. A Clemson vs. LSU ranking with focusing on these criteria is interesting – I could see the argument for putting LSU over Clemson at the moment.
And, frankly, ND over Bama.
(Using these criteria only, at this particular moment in time.)
You’re getting carried away, I think.
I need to screenshot this and frame it, just so I can remind you whenever of the time you said ND is better than Bama. 😀
Hey, who loves ya, buddy?
Again, this very limited criteria only 🙂
ESPN has us #2 in Strength of Record… ahead of Bama (behind Ohio State).
There have been some vocal ND fans hoping Michigan wins out so we have a win over the B1G conference champs. I’ll never root for Michigan, and Harbaugh sucks so this won’t happen anyway. Why not root for something even better; a victory over B1G Champion Northwestern Wildcats (currently leading the B1G West)!
Add that to our win over future ACC Coastal Champion VT (currently leading) and Pac-12 North/South champs Stanford (2nd)/USC (1st) and we’re basically champions of the East, Midwest, and West without ever having to root for Michigan!
Root for Michigan anyway–very best outcome for us is they beat OSU and we’re undefeated.
As mentioned in the Rakes Report, please don’t lose for Michigan. We could lose to USC and Michigan could get into the playoff, and then your immortal soul is doomed.
My hot take is I think Michigan is in if they win out. They’ll have a really good resume and a great loss. They probably need Clemson to lose just to be sure, but there’s always a lot of chaos and not going to be that many unbeatens. PAC12 playoff chances look cooked and BIg12 is well on their way to cannibalizing each other too. ACC outside of Clemson has no one strong this year. A one-loss Big10 champ should get in.
That said, I don’t see how Michigan and Harbaugh beat Ohio State. Even though they’ll be at home, Haskins is such a great QB I think he’ll find a way on that defense.
1 loss Big10 champ in playoff is the hottest of hot takes.
Or, better yet, Michigan can eat my butt and lose every game for the rest of their miserable existence.
ND goes 12-0, we’re in the playoff. ND goes 11-1, we’re out. Michigan doesn’t matter at all.
I think there is one (and I think only one) scenario where we’d be happy Michigan does well: if Bama, Clemson, Oklahoma or Texas, and Michigan win out, and we drop a game. While I don’t have any evidence for this, I suspect that the committee would not be able to get past the head-to-head, unless we got absolutely annihilated by USC to close out the year or something. So, in that case, I suspect we’d get in even with a lighter overall schedule than both Michigan and Oklahoma/Texas.
The odds of that are very low, though, so it’s not worth cheering for Michigan for that. Also, that scenario would probably still require Oregon to lose a game too, because I’m sure the committee would love to duck the issue by putting neither 12-1 Michigan nor 11-1 ND in if that situation arose.
There’s no set formula for 8 up votes, but beginning a comment with “Michigan can eat my butt” should do it 7 days a week and twice on Sunday. Because Gods upvoting that one on his day.
Now, why can’t they make a billboard out of this post????
We don’t need to root for Michigan. I won’t root for Michigan. I don’t like Michigan. You know why? Because they suck. Q.E.D.
You know what would happen if I were to root for Michigan? (because I have certain powers) Michigan would win out and be 11-1, ND would lose a game and also be 11-1, and the nimrods on the playoff committee would put Michigan in ahead of ND.
How about Michigan loses to MSU, but beats OSU; ND wins out, and moves up to 2 or 3, leaving the entire Big 10 out of the CFP. Now, THAT’S worth rooting for.
OSU could just lose to MSU instead. No need to root for Michigan in any circumstance.
“Here are the SOS rankings for each of the remaining unbeaten teams, by the way:
47. Notre Dame
54. Ohio State
56. Alabama
74. Clemson
89. NC State
115. UCF
125. Cincinnati
127. USF”
https://www.sbnation.com/college-football/2018/8/29/17795292/college-football-2018-strength-of-schedule-week-8-rankings
BTW, this is a really interesting article by Bill Connelly. Also, we are ranked 18th in resume S&P+
It depends how you think about margin of victory vs winning. The S&P+’s problem has always been that it cares a lot about running up the score on bad teams, so you get the “Resume S&P+” that says beating the Arkansas State by 50 is better than beating Michigan by 7.
Does anyone take the argument seriously that Fresno State’s resume is materially better than Notre Dame’s because their best win is by 66 over the Idaho University Vandals seriously? How about Appalachian State being twice the team ND is because they beat Gardner-Webb by 65? Because I’m having a tough time with it.
“To those who want to moan about incentivizing running up the score in this measure, suck it up.”
The problem isn’t incentivizing running up the score. The problem is that Bill failed to identify which teams are good because he’s insisting every game must have relatively equal meaning as a way to “overcome” small sample sizes when that clearly isn’t true.
Two things notable either on here or just by looking at the S&P+ rankings at https://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/ncaa
1. Beating Pitt close was headache inducing by both the eye test and advance stats. Despite only having five games remaining instead of the six going into the weekend our chances to win out dropped.
2. USC is good and getting better. Up to 30 in S&P+ from 37 last week. They have their toughest remaining pre-Thanksgiving test this weekend at Utah, depending on the outcome of that game we’re all but guaranteed to be facing a ranked opponent when we get out to Los Angeles.
Which is great, because their offensive line is poor. Every game I’ve seen on them (to be fair, I’ve only watched three halves of them play) makes me feel good about the matchup.
Another thing worth noting is that USC just lost their best defender for the season – pass rusher/head hunter extraordinaire Porter Gustin broke his foot late in the Colorado game. He was pretty much the only truly scary player on that defense, so we’ll see how they react to his loss.
Alright, alright! You don’t have to say it three times! 🙂
Yes! Was waiting for this.
Tillery made The Athletic’s 1st team midseason All American, Love got 2nd team.
Maybe Tillery deserves it based on the strength of the gaudy 4 sack night but I feel like Okwara or Kareem deserve more limelight. Especially Okwara – if he starts getting home more, look out. Also I was a bit bummed not to see Coney on there. Pretty cool to have 4-5 really good candidates at it on defense.
AP midseason AA out a little later today.
Also note that running up the middle against ND has been nearly impossible in every game but 1. Tillery is responsible for a ton of that too.
Yep. Also, it’s not as exciting as Tillery, but Bonner has basically held the point of attack all season. Tillery being disruptive, Bonner not being pushed around at all, and Coney behind them running free is basically a perfect recipe for not giving up much inside running.
Tillery is a DT, so he has different competition for AA status than Kareem and Okwara. I think right now, Tillery would be the highest draft pick, so while I agree Okwara and Kareem should get more national hype than they are, I think Tillery should be an AA pick over them.
Overall, these voters don’t watch every game, they see a few, read some articles, watch highlights, and look at stats. Pressures still aren’t a super appreciated stat, so until Okwara/Kareem start stat-ing, it will be tough to make any AA team.
Yeah, I get the difference in DT and DE. But with 3 FF I might have been harsh on Jerry, he’s definitely worthy of the consideration (especially given his position in the interior) it’s just a bit odd that there are arguably 2 better linemen then him and he could end up the lone AA.
That’s the thing, they aren’t better lineman. They are better pass rushers. They are not as good at their positions as Tillery is at his.
No offense to those guys, but I highly doubt either is a top 5 DE (or they would be getting serious NFL love). Tillery seems pretty easily to be a top 5 DT (hence all the NFL love).
AP flipped it, put Love on the first team and Tillery on the second team.
PFF had Coney on it’s all-american team which I probably take as a better guide because they follow their own advanced grading of players.
So, what does everyone make of the fact that our 3 worst games – by score, advanced stats, and eye test – have come against 3 of the worst opponents on the schedule? I’m willing to put the Vandy and ball St games in parentheses due to the Wimbush to Book change, but the offense underperformed in those games in ways besides QB play. I’m honestly not sure what to make of these inconsistencies in level of performance.
I think you can just throw Ball State out the window. I don’t care what the coaches say, they very clearly approached that game as a glorified scrimmage where they could experiment with things, and that attitude filtered down.
Vandy isn’t awful; they gave Florida all they could handle for the first 45 minutes of that game. We should’ve beaten them more easily, certainly, but they’re a better team than Ball State. With a more efficient offense I think we would’ve handled them just fine, but the defense was on the field too much and Shurmur started to pick them apart a bit.
I think Pitt just threw some new things at us and it put us off our offensive game for the first half. I think there are things the coaching staff should’ve done in the first half to help with that, but even at that, minus two really big special teams gaffes this would’ve been a 20-0 win. Their offense couldn’t do jack against us. I’m more concerned about kick coverage probably than anything else – we’re lucky that the two kick return TDs this year haven’t been bigger factors in the game result. I want them to fix Doerer or switch to Yoon over the bye. It’s not worth trying to make it work.
I’d say that the thing I’m most worried about going forward is the offensive line. We’ve seen bad games from them both run and pass blocking both with and without Bars, as well as some decent games. The fact that we’re not really sure what we have up front 7 games in is concerning against CFP-level competition, if not sooner.
I don’t know if it was play calling or execution (probably a combination of both) but the inability to run for 100yds against a team that had been giving up 200 on average doesn’t bode well. And yet, we ran all over Stanford, for almost 300 yards.
I think offensive line/running game concerns will bite us before special teams will. Or perhaps put us in a position where a special teams gaffe can be the difference between a win and loss.
I think the coaching has been mostly quite good this year (really!), but continuing to go with Doerer after the Michigan game alone was baffling and has been the most consistently weird coaching decision. They could have at least kept a year of eligibility for Doerer, too.
Yes, I get that doing kickoffs increases the chance that Yoon hurts himself – it looked like he came up gimpy after kicking off against Pitt, even – but, come on, placekickers kick off all the time. It’s weird that he isn’t doing it, and it can’t be good for his NFL prospects that he’s mostly not kicking off. So put Yoon out there – it’s a win-win-win!
Was there not an issue last year or the year before about Yoon getting a tired leg from overkicking? Plus they recruited Doerer, and want to get some value out of the scholarship, IMO.
So I think those might be the influencers on the coaches’ minds — but hey, you are all correct — these TD returns have gotta stop!