Iggy's college football rankings are back!

[iggymcfly 0]

OK, so as I said before, I don't make any official rankings until everyone in the country has at least had a chance to play. I did screw around with some preseason rankings just for fun this year, but these are Iggy's first official rankings since after the Orange Bowl last year. I'm still trying to lean these rankings toward actual accomplishments, but I'm also taking the general talent of the team into account a little more than before.

 

 

 

1. USC 1-0

2. Texas 2-0

3. LSU 1-0

4. Florida 2-0

5. Virginia Tech 2-0

6. Georgia 2-0

7. Florida State 2-0

8. Notre Dame 2-0

9. Tennessee 1-0

10. Georgia Tech 2-0

11. Ohio State 1-1

12. Wisconsin 2-0

13. California 2-0

14. Miami 0-1

15. Michigan 1-1

16. Iowa State 2-0

17. Louisville 1-0

18. Arizona State 1-1

19. Purdue 1-0

20. Utah 2-0

21. Clemson 2-0

22. Minnesota 2-0

23. UTEP 1-0

24. Texas Tech 1-0

25. Auburn 1-1

 

Comments, compliments, even criticisms are welcome.

[CanadianChris 0]

14. Miami 0-1

One of these things is not like the others.

One of these things just doesn't belong.

[Damaramu 0]

I'm not positive Notre Dame is a Top 10 team......aren't we jumping the gun just a bit on them?

[razazteca 0]

Norte Dame will be in the national title game in January! With Oklahoma and Nebraska losing their mojo the media has no other bandwagon to jump on so the Irish will at least be in the Rose Bowl this year.

[AboveAverage484 0]

I never saw the reason why teams ranked in the top 5 who lost to the number 1 or 2 team dropped 5 spots or more in the rankings. I mean Ohio State lost a close game to Texas, I see no reason for them to drop at all, especially behind Georgia Tech who lost a "closer than it should have been" game against UNC.

[Edwin MacPhisto 0]

14. Miami 0-1

One of these things is not like the others.

One of these things just doesn't belong.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Miami deserves a rank simply based on Kyle Wright's play in the 4th quarter. He'll be a good quarterback this year and the rest of the talent will get in shape within a few games. If they beat a fairly impressive Clemson team next weekend, I'd be comfortable sitting them in the top 20. Actually, the team I think is too high in Iggy's rankings is FSU. Though they beat Miami, they did so in truly ugly fashion. The front seven played ridiculously well, but more experienced ACC QBs will chew that secondary up. Top 10 they're not, not until one of the two new quarterbacks gets a little more experience under his belt first.

 

Georgia Tech I'll buy for now, though I'm expecting a few traditional Reggie Ball meltdowns as the season goes along. They did look great in the Auburn win, though.

[Damaramu 0]

In the past I'd defend OU as belonging in the Top 25......can't do it this time.

[iggymcfly 0]

I never saw the reason why teams ranked in the top 5 who lost to the number 1 or 2 team dropped 5 spots or more in the rankings.  I mean Ohio State lost a close game to Texas, I see no reason for them to drop at all, especially behind Georgia Tech who lost a "closer than it should have been" game against UNC.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Maybe the AP shouldn't drop the Buckeyes out of the Top Ten since they were so sold on OSU and Texas to begin with, but to be honest, I wasn't. I was thinking that OSU was probably only about 7 or 8 last week, and then they lost to Texas at home. The fact that they didn't defend their home turf made me look at them a lot more critically than if they'd lost on the road.

 

The fact is that at this point in the season, all we have to go on is one or two games, and if one of those is a home loss, I can't really justify putting said team in the Top Ten. Likewise, Notre Dame's two games consisted of a dominating road win against Pitt and then another road win over what was universaly considered a Top 5 football team. If you're going on performance, it's pretty hard not to put the Irish in the Top Ten right now.

 

As for Miami, I know they've lost their only game right now, and I put them a slot lower than the AP and coaches ended up doing, but do you really think that someone like Clemson should be favored over them right now? I mean the fact is that they're still one of the better teams in the ACC even if they did have a close loss at FSU. It seems like every year the Noles and the Hurricanes always play ugly, and then by the end of the year, at least one of them's in a BCS bowl.

 

Also, if FSU just beat Miami for the first time in 7 tries, I'm thinking they've got a little better squad then usual. More to the point, who would you put ahead of them? They may have struggled with Miami, but that's better than struggling with UAB (Tennessee) or North Carolina (Georgia Tech). I maybe could have swapped them with Irish, putting ND at seven and FSU at eight, but to be honest, the ND/Michigan game was just as ugly as the FSU/Miami game. At this point, I think the rankings are pretty solid.

[CanadianChris 0]

Clemson beat a ranked team at home, and a conference foe on the road. I absolutely think they should be ahead of Miami right now. Doesn't mean I think they should be there in two weeks, but if you're going to do early-season polls, then RIGHT NOW, they deserve to be ranked ahead of Miami.

[Damaramu 0]

The way you say they lost to Texas it's like you're saying they got beat by a bad team at home. They lost to the #2 team in the country!

[lomasmoney 0]

Notre Dame still doesn't look to me like a top 10 team. Sure, they beat Michigan at home, (with a ton of help from Chad Henne, Lloyd Carr and his team of trained monkeys masquerading as a coaching staff), and they beat a flat-out bad Pitt team. I don't think that beating a team that lost to Ohio University and then beating a team who dominated them in the second half and would have one had they could have even scored on 50% of their redzone chances constitutes them being a top 10 team. They are very good, probably right now a top 16-20 team but they can easily lose 2 or 3 of their next 4 games. As for Ohio State, they looked like a top 5 team last night even in losing. They are way better than Georgia Tech, Tennessee, and Georgia right now. Wisconsin hasnt shown they are going to be a top 15 team yet. Sure they have hung up a lot of points, but Bowling Green shredded their defense and if they play like that against Iowa(who didnt have Tate for most of the game),Michigan State, Ohio State, or Purdue they will get beat because those teams are just a little bit more talented on the defensive side. Also, Miami shouldnt be ranked ahead of Michigan simply based on the logic, they havent won a game yet, while Michigan has and they both lost to comparable teams based on your rankings

[iggymcfly 0]

Also, Miami shouldnt be ranked ahead of Michigan simply based on the logic, they havent won a game yet, while Michigan has and they both lost to comparable teams based on your rankings.

 

Michigan lost at home. Simple as that. I'd count that little factor as being more important than whether Michigan eked out a win over NIU along the way. And I certainly didn't mean to imply that Texas was a bad loss for OSU, I was just saying that I don't really feel good about putting a team with a home loss in the Top Ten in the second week of the season. In a way, rankings are almost like a ladder structure to determine who plays for the national title, and a team that blew their big opportunity at home shouldn't be ahead of a team that's already accomplished something like Georgia Tech or Georgia.

 

As for the argument that Clemson shouldn't be ranked ahead of Miami right now, I can buy it, and if I was still doing rankings completely on this year's performance, I might have Miami down that low. However, the fact is that it's still about a week or two too early to be completely objective right now, and that's why I brought up that I was including the talent of the teams in the ranking at least somewhat. I just really don't believe that Clemson will beat Florida State or Miami this year, and at least at this point, I think Miami should keep their spot. If Clemson wants to move up, all they have to do is pick up the home win against Miami next Saturday.

 

And while we're at it, are two and three point wins over Texas A&M and Maryland really any better than a three point road loss to Florida State? I'm not sure that they are.

[ANKLELOCK 0]

Why does Iggy dislike the Vols so much? Notre Dame, FSU ahead of them?

[iggymcfly 0]

I kind of suspected that they were overrated to begin with, and then they almost lost to UAB in their only game this year. I'd say putting them at #9 is a gift at this point.

[Secret Agent 0]

Much better than last years. I can look at this list and actually see it making sense instead of last years god-like status for Auburn in your polls.

[AlwaysPissedOff 0]

Auburn being ranked puzzles me.

[Vern Gagne 0]

I'd wait until October. Let teams get 3-4 games under their belt, and get a better idea of who the contenders and who the pretenders are.

[ANKLELOCK 0]

Mel Kiper says Tennessee has more NFL prospects on their team than anyone including USC in Athlon Magazine(which has Tenn at #2).

 

Don't underrate talent. Tennessee always plays down to their opponent.

They beat Memphis by one in 1999 before routing Auburn by 24, Georgia by 21, a top ten Alabama team by 14, and Notre Dame by 24.

In 2001, they beat 2-9 Kentucky by THREE before physically dominating #2 Florida in the Swamp to win the SEC East Championship. Pointing to the UAB game is not fair. Look at the talent. Look at the talent.

[AlwaysPissedOff 0]

Mel Kiper also said Indy should have drafted Ryan Leaf over Peyton, so I wouldn't exactly trust his judgment of talent.

[cabbageboy 0]

You gotta squash the jobber. Period. If teams like Tennessee don't get psyched to squash UAB it's their own fault.

 

Ah, Iggy doing his same strategy from the basketball polls: ludicrously overhyping Georgia Tech and underrating Louisville. That said, I can't rail against it too much at this point given U of L's iffy outing against UK in the opener.

[Guest]

It's more like this:

 

1. USC

2. Texas

3. LSU

4. Tennessee

5. Va. Tech

6. Florida

7. Ohio State

8. Georgia

9. Florida State

10. Notre Dame

11. Louisville

12. California

13. Purdue

14. Michigan

15. Miami

16. Georgia Tech

17. Iowa State

18. Arizona State

19. Boston College

20. Texas Tech

21. Iowa

22. Wisconsin

23. Clemson

24. Texas Tech

25. Minnesota

 

26. Virginia

27. UCLA

28. Fresno State

29. Oregon

30. Utah

[Art Sandusky 0]

Iggy's right about Tennessee, but forgets they always play at the level of their opponents. A perfect schedule would be top 10 teams all year.

[iggymcfly 0]

Auburn being ranked puzzles me.

 

After they got screwed out of their title shot last year after going 12-0, I think it's only fair to keep them in the Top 25 after one loss. They still do have plenty of talent on defense and in the passing game, and I see them probably ending up somewhere around 7-4 or 8-3 and getting a decent bowl bid.

 

And as for Tennessee, I'm not about to give them extra credit because they "historically play bad against shitty teams". If they want to be ranked ahead of an Irish team that went into Michigan Stadium and won or a Georgia team that absolutely dominated Boise State, and then beat South Carolina in the SEC opener, they better do something to earn it. I mean if they go into the Swamp and beat Florida, I'd be glad to move them up to #3 or #4, but for now, I just don't see them as deserving of that high of a rank.

[SilverPhoenix 0]

Auburn being ranked puzzles me.

 

After they got screwed out of their title shot last year after going 12-0, I think it's only fair to keep them in the Top 25 after one loss. They still do have plenty of talent on defense and in the passing game, and I see them probably ending up somewhere around 7-4 or 8-3 and getting a decent bowl bid.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

You know what I'm going to say this now.

 

What happened to Auburn in 2004 sucked, but this is 2005, quit crying for them. (In Other Words: Get off of Auburn's nuts.) (Or if you prefer trendy net speak: Plz 2 Be refraing from sucking Auburn's Dick.)

 

They lost to a team that they probably should've beaten. Escpecially, in their own house. It's the nature of the Beast when you're ranked 17 to begin with. You lose, against an unranked opponent, you usually take a back seat in the rankings. SEC or not.

[Art Sandusky 0]

And as for Tennessee, I'm not about to give them extra credit because they "historically play bad against shitty teams". If they want to be ranked ahead of an Irish team that went into Michigan Stadium and won or a Georgia team that absolutely dominated Boise State, and then beat South Carolina in the SEC opener, they better do something to earn it. I mean if they go into the Swamp and beat Florida, I'd be glad to move them up to #3 or #4, but for now, I just don't see them as deserving of that high of a rank.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Oh, you're right. I'd have them #12 or #13 myself. If we played uniformly then I'd totally give more credit.