The SEC didn’t have the best Week 1 but the conference still rules our college football conference power rankings.
One of the most interesting things about the first few weeks of the college football season is the fight for bragging rights between conferences.
And that was one of the key things to watch as college football got into full swing last week. Over the course of Thursday, Friday and Saturday, we got just about everything we could have asked for.
We saw some exciting finishes, some upsets and we saw the domination we have come to expect out of programs like Clemson, Alabama, Oklahoma and Ohio State.
Last week, the Pac-12 was the bottom league in our conference power rankings, the league did a couple of favors with wins and did enough to jump over the ACC. Here is the list, ranking the power five leagues from five to one.
The ACC didn’t have a terrible week but it wasn’t overly impressive either. Clemson looked good in a win over Georgia Tech but that was to be expected and it’s hard to give much credit for that.
Duke didn’t even compete with Alabama and Florida State lost to Boise State. Louisville also failed to pull a big upset for the league against Notre Dame.
North Carolina did its part by beating South Carolina and Syracuse did beat Liberty, but only 24-0, which caused it to drop a couple of spots in the polls. The league is strong and with Trevor Lawrence leading Clemson, no matter where the ACC stands in the conference power rankings, the Tigers are going to be the favorites to win the national title.
It was close between the Pac-12 and the ACC for the final spot but the Pac-12 did score a couple of nice non-conference wins, which put it over the top.
One of the key arguments against the league is the fact that Oregon fell to Auburn in the first week, however, the Ducks didn’t embarrass themselves and could have easily won the game.
Stanford also beat Northwestern in a non-conference game in Palo Alto, while Utah also won the Holy War against BYU. In all the league went 10-4 and now has five teams ranked. When you figure that Colorado also won impressively against Colorado State, it adds even more weight.
The Pac-12 still is probably the least likely of any of the Power 5 conferences to send a team to the playoff of even win it. But from top to bottom, the league simply looks better right now than the ACC.
The conference doesn’t have a ton of marquee matchups this week, but one game that can help the league move up in next week’s conference power rankings is Nebraska and Colorado. That’s an old-school rivalry, which will be even more fun with Big Ten vs Pac-12 bragging rights at stake.
After a perfect 10-0 week, it might seem valid to ask why the Big 12 isn’t ranked higher in the Week 2 version of the conference power rankings. But the reason is simple, it’s because the Big 12 didn’t really test itself.
Oklahoma taking on Houston was probably the biggest game of the week and the Sooners won by 18. It was a fine showing but it didn’t tell us anything new about Oklahoma. Texas also did just what it was supposed to do.
Oklahoma State did notch a road win at Oregon State, which is worth something, even if the Beavers have been struggling. Close wins by West Virginia, Iowa State and Kansas against FCS teams also didn’t help.
Much like the ACC, the top of the conference is solid. After that, it’s a crapshoot and that’s why for now, the Big 12 is stuck in the three spot of the conference power rankings.
The Big Ten was sort of like the Big 12 in the sense that the conference didn’t have any game-changing victories during the first full week of the college football season. Yet, after putting together a 12-2 record with both losses coming on the road, it had to stick at No. 2.
Maybe the most impressive team in the conference was Ohio State, which got a stellar effort from Justin Fields in an easy win over Florida Atlantic. The first-time starter for the Buckeyes tossed four touchdown passes and looked lethal.
Michigan also wasn’t as strong as some might have expected. The Wolverines won 40-21 but there were question marks, including the health of starters such as Donovan Peoples-Jones and Jon Runyan Jr.
Northwestern couldn’t knock off Stanford and Purdue fell to TCU. This week, Nebraska travels to Colorado in a key game. Ohio State plays Cincinnati, Michigan takes on Army and Maryland has a chance at an upset against Syracuse.
As long as everyone takes care of business, the Big Ten’s ranking should hold steady.
The SEC didn’t have the best week of the Power-5 conferences but the league flexed its muscle enough to maintain the No. 1 spot in week two of the conference power rankings.
Alabama always seems to blow the doors off whoever it plays in the first week and this year, Duke was the victim. The Blue Devils have been decent under David Cutcliffe but they stood no chance against the Crimson Tide and got rocked 42-3.
Auburn also won one of the biggest games in the first week and moved into the top 10, which gives the SEC six of the top-16 teams in the country. One of those teams, Texas A&M will travel to Clemson Saturday afternoon, while sixth-ranked LSU will pay a visit to Texas.
Seeing as how Clemson and Texas are each vital to the overall strength of their conference, a win by either team, on the road would just be a further sign of the separation from everyone else.
It should be a fun week but I’ve got a feeling that when it’s all said and done, the SEC will be sitting atop the conference power rankings once again.