1. Texas aTm - no team looked more impressive this weekend than Texas aTm. They freaking curb stomped USCe at their own place and Kenny Hill looks like a world beater that will make everyone forget about Johnny Football.
2. FSU - Defending National Champs still get some respect for being the defending Champs. I found out this weekend Jameis is actually a pretty decent runner. (insert crab stealing joke here)
3. UGA - Gurley makes this team where they are ranked. As someone said in the weekly thread, this guy is like a cheat code in a video game that you just gotta use to win.
4. Auburn - Auburn looks strong again. Gus Malzahn can coach, man. I'm telling you last year was not a fluke. Some excellent halftime adjustments as well, not just switching QBs, but on defense they looked stellar in the 2nd half.
5. Bama - looked kinda flat in my opinion but they are still Bama and they have a coach named Nick Saban. Lane Kiffin is still a mystery though.
6. Michigan St. - looked solid but they didn't play anyone.
7. Oregon - typical Oregon stuff here man. They will run up the score on small schools, but can they play with the big boys? Same questions we have every year about Oregon.
8. Oklahoma -lots of returning starters. Did not see them play though. Did they play this weekend?
9. UCLA - Their defense looks stellar. Their offense? Not so much.
10. Notre Dame - Golson is back and they look like they could be contenders again. Golson is fun to watch.

Ohio State? A win against a quirky bowl team on the road with a new quarterback deserves some love, more than UCLA or ND

Michigan State ranked ahead of Oregon is just asinine

If he dropped Oregon to 9th and Michigan St to 10th would you be happy then?

Rankings coming shortly. I'm also going to do a weekly top-4 teams with most impressive resumes to date, which will obviously be LOL worthy for a few weeks but is pretty easy to do this week:

1. Texas A&M (The stats in the game were actually remarkably close, but they're the only team in the country that went out and scored a road win over a definite top-25 team in week 1, and they did it by a big margin)
2. Georgia (Probably would have won by 60 if they let Gurley touch the ball a bunch of times)
3. LSU (This isn't a power ranking, and I don't actually think LSU is that good, but quality wins (even ugly ones) were pretty scarce in Week 1.
4. Tennessee (I think the top-3 are pretty obvious, but #4 is tough. Penn State and FSU pulled out narrow wins over solid opponents, while Cal, Colorado State and Rutgers won true road games against mediocre opponents, and Auburn, USC, Tennessee and Baylor beat the crap out of middling teams at home. I'll give the slight edge to Tennessee here.)

Now, go check outside and see if the four horsemen of the apocalypse are approaching, because yep I have all four as SEC teams right now. Doubt it will last though, as the MSU/Oregon winner and USC/Stanford winner will almost assuredly have spots next week.

I mean if it's a power ranking, then having Oregon outside the top 3 is ridiculous. And if it's an accomplishment ranking (which it looks like with ATM at one), then having either MSU or Oregon in the top 10 is equally ridiculous.

Yeh, this is more accomplishment ranking than anything and how I think teams look from an eye ball test. Oregon swapping with mich st is fine.

In regards to post 2, ohio st looked bad from what I saw. I realize they are breaking in a new qb but they weren't impressive enough to warrant a top ten spot. 11 or 12 possibly.

Without crunching the numbers, here's my best guess at Vegas power rankings. Pretty sure Washington drops despite winning and Oklahoma State jumps up despite losing. Vegas had Oregon and Bama rated nearly the same coming in to the week, have to think Alabama probably lost ground. I think the gap narrowed but FSU is definitely still 1. Auburn and UGA were very close, super curious as to who would be favored on a neutral field tomorrow. Ditto Baylor and Oklahoma

I suspect Vegas will react much less to the ATM/USCe game than the public will, the stats were really close.


1 FSU (1)
2 Oregon (2)
3 Alabama (2)
4 Auburn (6)
5 Georgia (7)
6 Oklahoma (4)
7 Baylor (7)
8 Ohio State (5)
9 UCLA (7)
10 LSU (10)
11 USC (15)
12 Stanford (11)
13 Ole Miss (15)
14 Texas A&M (24)
15 Michigan State (17)
16 Wisconsin (12)
17 Notre Dame (22)
18 Arizona State (20)
19 Clemson (13)
20 Oklahoma State (24)
21 South Carolina (13)
22 Arizona (24)
23 Florida (19)
24 TCU (23)
25 Washington (17)

Close: Tennessee, BYU, Nebraska

Glancing at your list I immediately thought #8-13 all needed to get bumped down but then looking at who's behind them I'm stuck with leaving them around where you've got them.

A&M is gonna be really good on offense but their defense looks terrible as ever. I think they could beat anyone if they play well and lose to dozens of teams if they are just slightly off offensively on a given night.

Also saw that by midway through the first quarter Tennessee had supposedly played 16 true freshman already. That is pretty remarkable unless it was like 10 guys on a kickoff return or something.

Louisville and Miami haven't played yet!

Both were somewhat surprisingly far outside the Vegas top-25, although if somebody wins by 40 tomorrow then they'd probably jump in both sets of my rankings

Yeah 8-13 all either played nobody or looked like garbage against decent teams but won anyway.

I watched the Tennessee game, and wouldn't be surprised if they end up being somebody big. They are too young / inconsistent to have a great season, but I wouldn't be surprised if they knock off Oklahoma, Georgia or Alabama. I also wouldn't be terribly surprised if they run bad and lose to Arkansas State next week.

If we're doing accomplishment rankings, I'd also have tOSU up there as much as I don't really like them. Navy looks to me like they'll hit that 8-4/9-3 zone this year and could end up being a very solid team. And tOSU struggled for a bit but did win by 17 points against a potentially very good team.

Over who? I probably should have given them a mention in my considerations for #4, but I don't see who they're ahead of.

Georgia and A&M both won by more points against better teams, and A&M was on the road too.

LSU won by less, but Wisconsin would be favored over Navy by a good bit on a neutral field I think.

Tennessee is close. Navy and Utah State are probably in the same ballpark, with a slight edge to Navy. Tennessee won by more and was more dominant, but was also at home.

if Ohio State wins next week, I'd bet they grab the #4 spot

1. Gurley
2. Who cares or just let GB have this be some non-SEC team to help pass the time and make pvn whine more

yes, for consideration at #4. Obviously this is a little silly to do in the first week, but I'd have probably chosen between them and PSU for my #4. No arguments about the other three.

yeah #4 is a tossup. Although it's worth asking these questions in isolation now, because when we compare full resumes at the end of the season, it'll just be the same questions, but more of them.

Like, is beating Navy by 17 on a neutral field in a short game more impressive or less impressive than beating UCF by 2? Or beating Northwestern by 7 in a true road game?

I mean we can look at Sagarin and compensate for HFA, but somehow it doesn't feel right, especailly when you have scores where somebody beats a ****box team they should beat by 25 by 40 instead, and that's worth as much as beating a team you're even with on the road by 12

ohio state didn't look like a top 20 team, let alone a top 10 team

they only outgained navy by 30 yards, 420 to 390

accomplishment rankings tho

zzzzz

7.6 ypp to 4.7pp

zzzzz 1 week 50 or whatever possessions

Rankings are pointless until like week 4/5

It's hard to put a lot of teams ahead of A&M but the depth on D is just so shallow. When Wisconsin had those two interior DL go out and LSU ran right through them, exactly what could happen to the Aggies front four with a couple injuries. Hell already lost their starting SAM in game one for the year.

Beating Utah State is not exactly what I'd call "an accomplishment" unless you're going purely on the perception of them coming in. It was pretty obvious they're not the same team they've been. Tennessee executed well enough, and I think they'll pull an upset or two as well but I don't think they're near a top 25 power ranking.

Definitely too early for this as I have no clue on a lot of these teams.

1 FSU
2 Auburn
3 Oregon
4 Georgia
5 Oklahoma
6 Baylor
7 Michigan State
8 UCLA
9 Stanford
10 A&M
11 Bama
12 USC
13 LSU
14 Ohio State
15 Kansas State
16 Oklahoma State
17 Arizona State
18 Mississippi State
19 Ole Miss
20 South Carolina
21 Notre Dame
22 Nebraska
23 Wisconsin
24 Penn State
25 BYU

Close:
Louisville
Texas
Clemson

Accomplishments would be something like:
1 A&M
2 FSU
3 LSU
4 UGA
5 Penn State
6 Auburn

with Oklahoma State somewhere in there if losing close to FSU is considered an accomplishment.