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NCAA College Football 2006 Week 9 Top 25
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DTMagazine Home NCAA Top 25 Pre-season Rankings
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NCAA College Football Top 25 - Week 9
Rick Gagliano | 10/30/06
Through games of October 29
--- Week 9 Notes below ---
Crowded in the Middle
With USC and Clemson both losing unexpectedly - are losses of top 10 teams ever expected? - to Oregon State and Virginia Tech, respectively, the Top 10 got shuffled a little, with the 7-12 teams (all winners this week) moving up to occupy the #5-10 spots.
The first ten teams now are comprised of 2 teams each from the Big 10 and Big East, three from the SEC, and one each from the PAC-10, Big 12 and the WAC (Boise St.). It is also the first time this season that Boise St. has reached the upper echelon of the Top 10, though the national polls and BCS have them at 14 or 15. Our experimental rankings have them at #8.
The Case for Boise State
The Broncos, usually unbeatable at home (and they are), have two tough games remaining on the road. They play at San Jose St. (5-2) on November 11, and end the WAC regular season at Nevada (5-3) on Nov. 25. Should the Broncos complete the season undefeated, they should receive a BCS bid, considering that, with all the conference championship games in early December, there's a likelihood that one of the top 8 ranked teams will have 2 losses.
Further bolstering the case for Boise is that sole USC loss to Oregon State, a team that Boise defeated and decleated on Sept. 2nd, 42-14.
Best Conference?
With the jumble in the middle of the pack, the annual argument over which conference boasts the best top to bottom teams is heating up once again. Naturally, the Big 10, with Michigan and Ohio State at the top of the rankings and Wisconsin with a sole loss to Michigan, can make a claim, but they also field some teams - Minnesota, Illinois, Northwestern and Michigan State - which have overall losing records.
The Big East currently boasts three undefeated teams - Rutgers, West Virginia and Louisville - though only one has a chance of ending the season that way. After them are pretty good teams in Pitt, Cincinnati and South Florida, but the drop-off after that is pretty steep, down to Syracuse and UConn. Still, the conference is quite often overlooked at bowl time, though the Mountaineers' win over Georgia in the Sugar Bowl last year served notice that this conference's football programs are alive and well.
The Big 12 and ACC are pretty well stocked top to bottom, but the best of them all seems to be the SEC. Auburn, Arkansas, Tennessee, Florida and LSU all seem capable of beating anybody at any time, while Georgia, Alabama and South Carolina play hard every week. Even the bottom feeders Mississippi St., Mississippi, Vanderbilt and Kentucky have teams that can and will compete at a high level.
If the rigors of the college football schedule and the rough way through the SEC keeps SEC teams out of the BCS National Championship, it will be a shame and a sham.
Once again, the NCAA needs to find a way to incorporate the traditional bowl games into a playoff format and produce a reliable system for choosing a national champion.
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