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College football conference power rankings, Week 8: Big Ten up and down

By Patrick Schmidt

EAST LANSING, MI - OCTOBER 20: Michigan Wolverines linebacker Chase Winovich (15) and safety Tyree Kinnel (23) race around the field with the Paul Bunyan trophy following a Big Ten Conference college football game between Michigan State and Michigan on October 20, 2018, at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing, MI. (Photo by Adam Ruff/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
EAST LANSING, MI - OCTOBER 20: Michigan Wolverines linebacker Chase Winovich (15) and safety Tyree Kinnel (23) race around the field with the Paul Bunyan trophy following a Big Ten Conference college football game between Michigan State and Michigan on October 20, 2018, at Spartan Stadium in East Lansing, MI. (Photo by Adam Ruff/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) /
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The Big Ten had a great week but also a bad week as their top team suffered a massive blowout.

Week 8 didn’t have the same volume of upsets and near-upsets as the previous week did, but it did see the nation’s No. 2 team fall for the second week in a row. Last week, it was Georgia who fell to LSU. This week, it’s Ohio State who fell to Purdue in one of the biggest upsets of the year.

The loss from the the then-top team in the conference has big ramifications when determining how to place the Big Ten in this week’s conference power rankings. On one hand, it’s never good when the top team loses, but on the other hand, the win from Purdue shows how strong the middle class of the conference can be. Helping the case for the Big Ten is the dominating performance by the Michigan Wolverines in their road win vs. Michigan State. Michigan might be the new favorite to win the conference after Purdue exposed Ohio State’s weaknesses and vulnerabilities.

The ACC saw Clemson assert themselves even further as they thoroughly dominated then-undefeated NC State. A similar marquee game was in the Pac-12 where Washington State defeated Oregon on their home turf to take control of the North. Meanwhile, it was business as usual in the SEC where Alabama and LSU won again to make their Nov. 3 showdown one of the best games of the year.

And then there’s the Big 12 where six of the 10 teams were off but Oklahoma was back in action for the first time since losing to Texas and looked extremely prolific on offense.

All of that said, let’s take a look at this week’s conference power rankings.

  • SEC – The top conference in the land for a decade remains on top based on the strength of Alabama, far and away, the nation’s top team, and bolstered by LSU, Georgia, Florida and Kentucky, arguably the biggest surprise in the nation.
  • Big Ten – Michigan and Ohio State are a notch below the SEC when it comes to evaluating the top two teams in the league. It’ll be interesting to see how the Buckeyes bounce back after the loss at Purdue and how the Boilermakers can build on this the rest of the way. There’s a good chance they could win the East with games against Iowa and Wisconsin remaining.
  • Big 12 – 60 percent of the league was off last week so there’s not much to move them up or down this week. Oklahoma got back on track with a dominating win vs. Kansas State and could be headed for a rematch with Texas in the Big 12 Championship Game.
  • Pac-12 – Washington State and Washington got big wins that put them in position for a collision course to determine the North. Stanford is still alive though and will host the Cougars this weekend. The South is a big of a mess after Colorado lost a second week in a row and USC lost to Utah. The Utes might find a way to take the South afterall.

    • ACC

    – It’s really Clemson and everyone else. It is a basketball conference after all, but Virginia has been a nice surprise and could be the second best team in the league after NC State was ravaged by Clemson.

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