College football conference power rankings: Week 4

Another Saturday in the 2018 college football season is in the books, but how do each of the Power 5 conferences stack up after three weeks?

Calling the third week of the 2018 college football season a strange affair would be an accurate if not generalized assessment. From games in the Carolinas and Virginia being cancelled or moved due to the impact of Hurricane Florence to seeing a top-10 team get upset out of nowhere to the Kansas Jayhawks beating a Power 5 opponent, things got a little weird in the sport throughout the Week 3 action.

Some of the highly touted matchups of the week turned out to be surprisingly lopsided affairs. Among those are certainly the Alabama Crimson Tide dropping 62 points on the Ole Miss Rebels while allowing just one game-opening score on the night. Also in the mix is the Texas Longhorns rebounding from a 14-3 first-quarter deficit to score 34-straight points and not allow another point to lead to a definitive win.

In regards to the aforementioned upset, no one saw the BYU Cougars going on the road and knocking off the then-sixth-ranked Wisconsin Badgers, especially in a game where running back Jonathan Taylor continued to churn out 100-yard games. Yet, that’s how things transpired and a Big Ten heavy-hitter now looks much worse than previously thought.

All of this is to say is that Week 3 of the 2018 college football season opened a lot of eyes about how things will shake out this season. To get a picture of that, we’ll look again at the Power 5 conferences and see how they currently stack up against one another heading into Week 4. And with that, let’s look at the college football conference power rankings, starting at the bottom.

The slate of ACC action in college football was much lighter than it would’ve otherwise been due to the impact of Hurricance Florence making landfall. Games for the North Carolina Tarheels, NC State Wolfpack and Virginia Tech Hokies were all canceled in Week 3. In truth, that’s probably to the benefit of the conference as a whole as the Tar Heels and Wolfpack likely would’ve suffered bad losses to UCF and West Virginia, respectively.

Having said that, the ACC still brings up the rear in our power rankings of the conferences entering Week 4 and rightfully so. At this point, they have just three teams ranked inside the top 25 and, while one of those teams is the second-ranked Clemson Tigers, the rest of the conference leaves quite a bit to be desired.

Perhaps the biggest letdown for the ACC this season is the Florida State Seminoles under Willie Taggart. After last season, there was always a chance that a new offense and coach might not immediately change things, but that’s an understatement to this point. Their latest feat of futility came this past week with a dominant loss to the Syracuse Orange.

While the Duke Blue Devils may have toppled Baylor, no other team in the conference beat a Power 5 school in Week 3. And really, you probably won’t see much of that throughout this season. This conference is exceptionally top-heavy, and there are still concerns about the Miami Hurricanes. As such, they’ll be at No. 5 in the power rankings until further notice.