What a fascinating day in college football.
No. 1 Ohio State lost.
No. 2* South Carolina lost.
Nebraska lost.
Auburn won, but gave up 43 points.
Air Force** lost.
And a kind of double-whammy for Boise State: Oregon State -- one of those "signature" wins for Boise -- lost to Washington. And Nevada -- which Boise REALLY needed to be undefeated when they play in late November -- lost at Hawaii. (Offset some by VA Tech continuing to roll.)
That doesn't even count now-woeful Florida losing at home to Mississippi State -- Urban Meyer's worst loss at Florida -- and Florida's worst loss since Ron Zook lost to Mississippi State (in Starkville, not even in Gainesville), a loss that cost him his job.
If you enjoy BCS chaos, we're here. It even struck me yesterday that if you hate the BCS, Boise making this year's title game is kind of a worst-case scenario, because the BCS can point to Boise's inclusion and say "See? The system is FINE." (Which it's clearly not. The BCS being broken is only partially about keeping out worthy teams like Boise or TCU.)
And so, on this week's BlogPoll ballot, we are left with what we started with:
Boise State is No. 1.
And I would/will rank TCU at No. 2.
And, frankly, I think Utah is probably the 3rd-best team in the country right now. (Thank goodness that TCU and Utah play each other head-to-head in a few weeks. If only Boise State had that kind of true challenge.)
What about Oregon? What about Auburn? They would have a wonderful bowl game against each other, given that both have awesome offenses -- and no defense. National champs profile not just with OK defenses, but great ones. (Translation: Alabama is going to throttle Auburn, then roll the SEC East champ, and we're going to be left wondering if 1-loss Bama is better than several unbeaten teams that are out there.)
Meanwhile, if I wasn't so sure that next week Michigan State is going to become the latest top team to fold -- against Northwestern -- I would give the Spartans a puncher's chance at running the table and making their own case for being in the national-title game.
1. Boise State
2. TCU
3. Utah
4. Oregon
5. Auburn
6. Alabama
7. Oklahoma
8. Michigan State
9, 10 and Beyond: Baffling.
-- D.S.
* - DanShanoff.com BlogPoll ballot
** - No. 11 on DS BlogPoll ballot
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2 comments:
Just because Florida sucks doesn't mean you can jump bcak on with Northwestern. You turned on them. Sparty will beat them down next week.
You seemed to forget Mizzou and their, now, taut defense.
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