Top 25 Update

How this weekend played out
(teams that won crossed out, teams with impressive wins in green, teams with less than impressive wins in red)
update: actual rankings in parentheses.  I did pretty well on the top 17 (15/17 within one spot), but horribly after that (4/16 within one spot).
  

Previous			Projected			My Rankings
1.	Florida		1.	Florida (1)		1.	Alabama
2.	Alabama		2.	Alabama (3)		2.	Florida
3.	Texas		3.	Texas (2)		3.	Texas
4.	USC		4.	Cincy (4)		4.	Cincy
5.	Cincy		5.	Boise St. (5)		5.	Iowa
6.	Boise St.		6.	Oregon (7)		6.	TCU
7.	Iowa		7.	Iowa (8)		7.	Penn St.
8.	TCU		8.	TCU (6)		8.	Boise St.
9.	LSU		9.	LSU (9)		9.	Oregon
10.	Oregon		10.	GA Tech (10)		10.	GA Tech
11.	GA Tech		11.	Penn St. (11)		11.	LSU
12.	Penn St.		12.	USC (12)		12.	USC
13.	Okla St.		13.	Pitt (14)		13.	Pitt
14.	VaTech		14.	Ohio St. (15)		14.	Ohio St.
15.	Houston		15.	Houston (13)		15.	Oklahoma
16.	Pitt		16.	Miami (16)		16.	VaTech
17.	Ohio St.		17.	Utah (17)		17.	Wisconsin
18.	Miami		18.	Oklahoma (20)		18.	Miami
19.	Utah		19.	Arizona (21)		19.	Arizona
20.	W. Virginia		20.	Okla St. (18)		20.	Houston
21.	S. Carolina		21.	Notre Dame (19)		21.	Notre Dame
22.	Oklahoma		22.	BYU (25)		22.	S. Florida
23.	Arizona		23.	VaTech (22)		23.	W. Virginia
24.	Ole Miss		24.	Cal (24)		24.	Okla St.
25.	Notre Dame		25.	Texas Tech (29)		25.	Cal
26.	BYU		26.	Wisconsin (24)		26.	Rutgers
27.	C. Michigan		27.	Clemson (27)
28.	Cal		28.	UNC (NR)
29.	Texas Tech		29.	S. Florida (26)
30.	Wisconsin		30.	W. Virginia (30)
31.	Navy		31.	Auburn (28)
32.	Kansas		32.	S. Carolina (37)
33.	Clemson		33.	Rutgers (31)

games between top 25 teams next week:

LSU at 'bama
Ohio St. at Penn St.


other losable games for top 25 teams:

UConn at Cincy
Wake Forest at GA Tech
Navy at Notre Dame
Oregon St. at Cal
Oklahoma at Nebraska


other random thoughts:

-Oregon has played too well the last few weeks to keep them out of the top ten, and maybe even the top five.  But when Brent Musberger asked when we might start thinking about them as a possible BCS title game contender, there's an easy answer: when Boise State loses.  They're playing as well as anybody in the country right now, but they were less than stellar the first three weeks of the season.  If you look at their schedule, you'll see these results:

week 1: lost to Boise St. while looking out of sorts all game and going the entire first half without a first down
week 2: barely scraped by Purdue -- a team that lost to Northern Illinois the following week -- at home, a game in which they were outgained by over 100 yards
week 3: narrowly beat Utah at home in a game in which Masoli was 4-16 for 95 yards passing

Since then, they've been a different team (though Masoli's still not a great passer).  So the question becomes: do we base Oregon's ranking on their play in October, or their play for the entire season?  I think the answer is the latter -- which means that, at the very least, we cannot rank them ahead of Boise St. right now, regardless of what Kirk Herbstreit says.  update: Last week, two people (one of them being Herbstreit) ranked Oregon above Boise St.  This week, eight people did (not including Herbstreit, who apparently didn't vote this week).

-With VaTech losing and Miami and GA Tech both trailing during the second half, it was almost a nightmare week for ACC boosters.  I think it's pretty unanimous that the Big East is the weakest BCS conference, but they'll have more top 15 teams when the next poll is released than will the ACC (2- Cincy and Pitt vs. 1-GA Tech).  5 out of 8 Big East teams have 2 losses or fewer, while that's only true of 2 out of 12 ACC teams.  That doesn't mean that the former is stronger than the latter (it doesn't take schedule strength, for one, into account), but it sure is interesting.

-The bottom of the top 25 is once again complete chaos.  I see about 16 teams that look pretty good, and then every team after that has significant weaknesses and/or lacks wins over good teams.  I don't know who's best, for example, between Arizona, Notre Dame, and Utah -- but I do know they've given me little reason to think that they're elite teams.

-update:  now that the standings are out, I'm picking Houston as the most overrated team (now that their wins against OK St. and Texas Tech look less impressive, their loss against UTEP even worse, and they're barely squeaking by teams like Southern Miss) and UNC as the most underrated team (how they failed to get a vote after beating VaTech on the road is beyond me).  I'd pick Oklahoma State as the most likely to finish the season ranked lower than they are right now and Wisonsin, VaTech, and Oklahoma as the most likely to finish higher (not very adventurous on the latter two, I know).