College football rankings: Conference power rankings entering Week 9
By Nick Villano
The SEC is back in the headlines for all the right reasons while the Big Ten’s flaws are starting to show. Can one team make a move with the College Football Playoff rankings around the corner?
Penn State and Illinois made college football history with a nine overtime game on Saturday. On paper, it sounds like a historic matchup between one team desperate to keep its top-ten ranking and another looking for a marquee win under a legendary coach in his first year with the university. In reality, it was very boring and showed the flaws with the new overtime rules, where teams are trading two-point conversions. The Nittany Lions lost, and now they are tumbling down the Top 25 rankings.
This really hurts the Big Ten’s place on the conference rankings. The Big Ten currently has zero teams in the top four after losses in back-to-back weeks by the Iowa Hawkeyes and Penn State. Now, their biggest hopes come down to Ohio State and *gulp* the Michigan Wolverines. The Buckeyes have stepped up to make the College Football Playoff in the past, but Michigan has been here before and never finished the season in a position to win a title.
College football conference rankings entering Week 9: SEC makes a comeback
5. College football conference rankings: ACC
Clemson’s season went from bad to worse on Saturday with a loss on the road to the Pitt Panthers. It shows that the Tigers are no longer the kings of the conference, and it takes any miracle run to the conference championship off the table. That means there will be a new ACC champion for the first time in seven years. Wake Forest stayed undefeated by scoring 70 points on Army. However, NC State could not keep its ranking after a disappointing showing against Miami. Florida State quietly has three wins and could inexplicably get to bowl eligibility if everything falls right, but none of the positive outweighs the negative for this conference this season.
4. College football conference rankings: Pac-12
The conference avoided disaster after Oregon beat UCLA on the road. The Bruins came out to a big lead in the first half, but the teams traded interceptions deep in the zone in the fourth quarter, and the Ducks lucked out to stay in the top ten. USC had a chance for a major win over Notre Dame, but they were never really in the game. It just adds to the devastation that is this season for the Trojans. Is there any other team worth mentioning? The American Athletic Conference has more ranked teams than the Pac-12. Both these conferences are hanging by a thread.