Photo: AP
Every week Brett Harmon will bring you his NCAA Fottball Top 25. Harmon is one of the 324 voters for the reddit.com College Football Top 25 poll. You can find the rankings here.
Rank (Last Week)
1 (1) Alabama
I have seen the show that happened in Missouri last week before. Alabama goes on the road, Alabama walks onto the field. Alabama blows out opponent. I honestly have no doubt that will happen again this weekend in Knoxville.
2 (2) Oregon
A week of rest for the Ducks, and one somewhat humourous video exchange with Sparky, and the Ducks are ready to come into Tempe for their first real road test of the season.
3 (5) Florida
With a significant win over Vandy, and a South Carolina loss means that Florida now controls it’s own destiny in the SEC East. A place they can cement this week with a win at home over a South Carolina team taken down a few pegs by LSU last week.
4 (7) Kansas State
Iowa State gave the Wildcats everything they could handle, and nearly pulled the upset. However K-State had surperior talent that led them to victory. They go on the road now to West Virgina, a team desperate to bounce back from getting smacked in the mouth by Texas Tech last week.
5 (6) Notre Dame
The question of if Stepfan Taylor scored in overtime is now a moot point. It is in the past, and when you look at the record books, the Fighting Irish have the win, and their undefeated record intact, plus now have a shiny new top five rankings because of it.
6 (10) LSU
How do you respond to a hard loss from another SEC rival? Easy just go and beat the number three team in the nation, that’ll do it. LSU needed to respond big after losing to Florida otherwise the Tigers could have gone into a tail spin with Texas A&M and Alabama coming up.
7 (8) THE Ohio State
A close game with Indiana last week, if this was basketball that would be something, but this is football where the Hoosiers barely deserive to grace the same field as the Buckeyes, much less nearly upset them.
8 (9) Oregon State
The Beavers have responded well to becoming the hunter rather than the hunted holding off upset bids from both Arizona and BYU in the past couple of weeks. The game OSU will have to watch out for though is going to be at Washington in two weeks.
9 (3) South Carolina
There is no shame in losing to LSU, they are a tough team that is very talented. But it is a blow to the Gamecocks’ SEC bid, with Florida’s win over the Tigers Carolina will now need to take down the Gators to regain control of the SEC East.
10 (13) Oklahoma
There are few things as satisifying as running your biggest rival off the field, in the first half. With just an utter bulldozing of Texas in the Red River Shootout, some of the people claiming the Sooners to be overrated a few weeks ago are now looking to the Notre Dame game with great anticipation.
11 (11) USC
The Trojans have ramined constant ever since their loss to Stanford weeks ago. Problem is that they are not standing out enough to make any movement in the rankings, that and there are still serious questions about their depth as they play tougher competition.
12 (12) Florida State
The Seminonles are back to scoring 50+ points a game, this time running the score on poor Boston College. This week though FSU goes to South Beach and takes on Miami, a team that from one week to the next seems completely different.
13 (15) Clemson
After their last minute loss to Florida State, the Tigers have remained constant the past two weeks winning both easily. Problem for Clemson is though that they still need at least one more Seminole loss for them to go past them for the ACC title game.
14 (16) Georgia
The Bulldogs have had a week to sit around and think about being run by South Carolina, woe be to Kentucky this week. However do not be surprised if the score is closer than you may think, The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party is two weeks away.
15 (19) Mississippi State
A ten point win over Tennessee is going as business as usual for Mississippi St right now. Effectively a bye this week with Middle Tennessee St on the schedule before Alabama.
16 (4) West Virginia
What happens when you live and die by a prolific offense and a bad defense, is that if that offense doesn’t show up or is stopped you will lose. That is what happened last week versus Texas Tech, the offense couldn’t get going, and the Mountaineers got beat.
17 (18) Louisville
Louisville continutes to take advantage of their Big East schedule, racking up an impressive (or not so impressive) 6-0 record.
18 (20) Rutgers
What makes Rutgers 6-0 impressive is that it includes a win over an SEC team, yes it is Arkansas, but it is still an SEC team so that is something to hang their hat on.
19 (21) Texas A&M
A rescheduled game agninist Louisania Tech proved to be a tougher game than they were expecting, with La Tech having been ranked 23rd by the AP at the time. A&M seem to be fitting in just fine in the SEC so far, let’s see how they handle the tough part of their schedule after their bye.
20 (UR) Texas Tech
A 5-1 record with a dominating win over a top five team will get a team into the rankings. An interesting game this week for the Red Raiders on the road at TCU, we will find out a lot about both teams in this game.
21 (27) Stanford
Stanford played Notre Dame tough the entire game, and could, some say should, have beat the Irish. The Cardinal are going to have to shrug it off though, they are in Berkley this week to take on Cal.
22 (22) Arizona State
The Sun Devils’ biggest game since 2005 is this week. A home game aginist number two Oregon. This game will really show where the Sun Devils are in their development, and how far they can truly go.
23 (24) Ohio
If Ohio loses again this year it will be because they are a mid-major team that overachieved in the first couple of weeks.
24 (UR) Michigan
When Michigan is not playing teams in the top ten they seem to do well coming back to a 4-2 record. Michigan State is at the Big House this week, it would be the first truly tough team that Michigan will have beat if they win.
25 (14) Texas
A blowout loss to Oklahoma is not how Texas wanted to follow up a tough loss to West Virginia. Now Baylor is coming up followed by Kansas and then four teams all currently ranked, the Longhorns had better get things in order or this could be a horrific end to the season.
Dropped From Rankings: Boise State (23), TCU (25)
Others Reciving Consideration: Iowa State, Boise State, TCU
Biggest Rise: LSU (10) – (6)
Biggest Fall: West Virginia (4) – (16)
Games in the Top 25 this week:
(2) Oregon @ (22) Arizona State
(9) South Carolina @ (3) Florida
(4) Kansas State @ (16) West Virginia
(6) LSU @ (19) Texas A&M
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