College football conference power rankings, Week 2: ACC exposed as frauds

After the first official week of college football, a lot became obvious. One is that the SEC is by far the best conference from top to bottom. 

What a first week in college football. It had everything in Week 1. What has historically been one of the more boring weeks of the season was a complete and utter heart-stopper. There were five Top 25 matchups, including a thrilling top-five matchup between Clemson and Georgia. There were major upsets that will knock teams out of the Top 25 and make their conference as a whole look much, much worse.

Across college football, everyone outside the SEC looks kind of bad. The Big Ten mostly played a schedule against each other, but some of the top teams in the conference didn’t really show up. Will that knock them out of the second spot? Did the Pac 12 show anything to get out of the bottom spot in the conference rankings? There were a lot of headline-grabbing losses in the standings this week, but it is the wins that will propel certain conferences above others.

Conference power rankings, Week 2: No one can touch the SEC

5. Pac-12

It’s hard to rank the Pac-12 this low when UCLA had one of the biggest wins of the weekend over LSU, but the rest of the conference no-showed in the biggest way possible. Oregon almost lost to Fresno State. Washington did lose to Montana. Those two were considered the top two teams in the conference along with USC, who handled San Jose State. Utah and Arizona State should move up in the Top 25 after easy wins against less-talented teams. However, Stanford, Oregon State, Washington State, California and Arizona all lost non-conference games. There are only a few good teams in this conference, and it might be yet another year without a Pac-12 team in the College Football Playoff.

4. ACC

It was not a good week for the ACC. Their best team, Clemson, lost against Georgia when the offense was non-existent against the Bulldogs. It was only the fourth time Clemson has lost in its last 44 contests. The offensive line could not protect D.J. Uiagalelei and they had 1 rushing yard at halftime in the first game post-Travis Etienne. North Carolina losing to Virginia Tech is another huge blow to the conference. Sam Howell’s Heisman chances are done before they even got started. Duke losing to Charlotte is another major blow to the conference. Then, of course, there was the destruction that was the Miami-Alabama matchup. Georgia Tech losing to Northern Illinois turns the heat up on Geoff Collins’ seat. Although it came in a loss, Florida State looks like they’ll be much improved in Year 2 under Mike Norvell.