Never underestimate the chaotic powers of college football. Coming off a blockbuster Saturday, everybody tried to overlook Week 6, largely thanks to a dearth of ranked-on-ranked matchups. And while there may not have been a ton of titanic clashes or nail-biting finishes, we still had plenty to chew on — from Billy Napier saving his job with a win over Texas to Penn State suffering the most shocking loss in recent memory at UCLA.
All of which has, once again, thrown the AP Top 25 into turmoil. The new rankings were released on Sunday afternoon, and it's hard to remember a season as wide open as this one, with eight 5-0 teams currently in the top 10 and reasons to doubt just about all of them. Which programs should feel slighted by this week's rankings, and who's a bit overrated right now? Let's dive in.
AP Top 25 college football rankings for Week 7
- Ohio State Buckeyes (5-0)
- Miami Hurricanes (5-0)
- Oregon Ducks (5-0)
- Ole Miss Rebels (5-0)
- Texas A&M Aggies (5-0)
- Oklahoma Sooners (5-0)
- Indiana Hoosiers (5-0)
- Alabama Crimson Tide (4-1)
- Texas Tech Red Raiders (5-0)
- Georgia Bulldogs (4-1)
- LSU Tigers (4-1)
- Tennessee Volunteers (4-1)
- Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets (5-0)
- Missouri Tigers (5-0)
- Michigan Wolverines (4-1)
- Notre Dame Fighting Irish (3-2)
- Illinois Fighting Illini (5-1)
- BYU Cougars (6-0)
- Virginia Cavaliers (5-1)
- Vanderbilt Commodores (5-1)
- Arizona State Sun Devils (4-1)
- Iowa State Cyclones (5-1)
- Memphis Tigers (6-0)
- South Florida Bulls (4-1)
- Florida State Seminoles (3-2)
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Teams ranked way too high in Week 7 AP Top 25 poll
BYU needs to play somebody before we consider them a top-20 team
On its face, BYU's 6-0 record seems awfully impressive. And maybe the Cougars are worthy of being ranked at the back end of the top 25, especially considering just how topsy-turvy this season has been so far.
But No. 18? Based on what, exactly? Here's a complete list of the Power 4 opponents BYU has beaten so far this season: Stanford, West Virginia and Colorado. That's two teams in the running for worst P4 team in the country, and a Buffaloes squad that fell to 2-4 this weekend (and that still had ample opportunities to beat the Cougars in the fourth quarter, only for QB Kaidon Salter to fritter tham all away).
BYU's defense is sturdy as ever, and Bear Bachmeier has done an admirable job adapting to QB1 responsibilities as a true freshman. But we're a bit out over our skis here; let's see how this team does over the next few weeks — at Arizona, vs. Utah, at Iowa State, at Texas Tech, vs. TCU, at Cincinnati — and we'll find out all we need to know.
LSU is still coasting too much on preseason expectations
Sure, LSU is a one-loss SEC team, and there's only so far those can fall — especially when that loss came on the road by one possession against unbeaten Ole Miss. But the scoreboard in that game was wildly misleading; anybody who watched all four quarters could tell you that the Rebels were clearly the better team last Saturday, outgaining the Tigers 480 to 254. And beyond that nominally competitive loss, what exactly does Brian Kelly's team have to justify a No. 11 ranking?
The win at Clemson to open the year seems substantially less impressive now. Heck, if anything, LSU was less impressive winning in Death Valley than the likes of Syracuse a couple of weeks ago. And the other items on the resume are slogs against Louisiana Tech and Florida and an FCS win. The Tigers' defense is certainly legit, but Garrett Nussmeier and this offense are broken. Until that changes, I have a hard time considering them a true College Football Playoff team, which is what this ranking suggests.
How is Penn State still receiving any votes at all?
Sure, the Nittany Lions did in fact fall out of this week's poll after that shocking loss at UCLA on Saturday, as they should have. But Penn State still received a whopping 97 votes, third-highest among teams that didn't crack the top 25.
To put it bluntly: Why? Forget the blind resume test: If you simply watched this team play football over the first six weeks with no knowledge of how they performed last season, there's absolutely no way you'd argue that they were one of the 25-30 best teams in the country. They were thoroughly outplayed at home in a White Out by Oregon, late rally notwithstanding, and then they got physically punked by a UCLA team that entered this weekend 0-4 with losses to Northwestern, New Mexico and UNLV.
Oh, and it's not like they were particularly inspiring in wins over Nevada, Villanova and FIU — the latter of whom got beaten more convincingly by UConn this weekend than they did by the Nittany Lions. Penn State can play their way back into the top 25 if they want, but this isn't a charity, and it's not about the color of your helmet or what you did in seasons past.
Teams ranked way too low in Week 7 AP Top 25 poll
Miami deserves to be the new No. 1
This isn't so much a slight against Ohio State, which has done nothing but handle its business since that Week 1 win over Texas. But the Longhorns' performance since then hasn't helped the resume very much, and while the Buckeyes have been great, Miami has simply done more to earn the top spot in this week's rankings.
While Ohio State owns zero wins over teams currently ranked in the top 25, the Hurricanes own three after squashing Florida State at Doak Campbell on Saturday night. They did much the same to South Florida a couple of weeks ago, and they had a far easier time with Florida than Arch Manning and Co. did this weekend. The only team that's been able to hang with the Canes physically was Notre Dame, and while it feels strange to refer to anything related to Mario Cristobal as "stable," it's hard not to trust a team that's this good along both lines of scrimmage.
I'm not sure whether I'd pick Miami or Ohio State if the two teams met on a neutral field. But I do know that the Hurricanes have the substantially more impressive resume right now, and that's what matters here.
It's time to put some respect on Texas Tech
I understand the skepticism here, I really do. The Red Raiders have not been a program to take seriously for a while now, even when Patrick Mahomes was playing quarterback. But if you refuse to take them seriously because they couldn't play defense a decade ago, or because you don't have much respect for the Big 12, it may be time to think again.
Texas Tech may be the most physically impressive team so far this season not named Miami. It's not just that the Red Raiders have breezed through their first five games; it's that they've done so by mauling their opponents up front on both sides of the ball — including, most impressively, at Utah a couple of weeks ago. Behren Morton and the offense can still wing it, but they have a running game to be taken seriously, and more importantly they have a pass rush that no one's been able to deal with so far.
This team manhandled a respectable Houston squad on Saturday night, just like they've manhandled Utah and everyone else on their schedule so far. In a season in which there are so few known quantities at the top, having them at No. 9 (and so far below the likes of Texas A&M and Oklahoma) feels outdated.
Vanderbilt fell too far after loss to Alabama
I understand that the strictures and conventions of college football rankings compel us to always move teams down after suffering a loss. But what this blurb presupposes is ... maybe they shouldn't?
Yes, Vanderbilt got outplayed against the Crimson Tide on Saturday afternoon. But they also put up more of a fight than the final score of 30-14 makes it look; if Diego Pavia doesn't turn the ball over in the red zone not once but twice, who knows what that fourth quarter looks like? The Commodores still averaged over six yards per play against Bama, and they still haven't been given much trouble by anybody who isn't currently ranked in the top 10.
Having them all the way back at No. 20, behind teams that have proven less like Virginia, BYU and even Michigan and Illinois, is doing this team a disservice. I know it's hard to process, but this is just a genuinely sturdy football team.