Top 25 Update

After 5 weeks of football, we now have enough info to start making some educated guesses as to which are the best teams in college football.  Here's how I'd rank the top 25, with the most impressive and least impressive thing that each team has done:

teams that are probably really good

1.) Alabama
most impressive: crushing Florida
least impressive: getting down early vs. Arkansas

2.) Oregon
most impressive: outscoring Stanford 49-10 the last three quarters
least impressive: being outscored in the first half by Arizona St.

3.) Ohio St.
most impressive: handling Miami
least impressive: escaping Illinois

4.) Boise St.
most impressive: handling Oregon St.
least impressive: escaping VaTech

teams that might be really good

5.) TCU
most impressive: crushing Baylor?
least impressive: being up 6-0 at halftime vs. Colorado St.

6.) Oklahoma
most impressive: destroying Florida St.
least impressive: barely escaping Cincy

7.) Nebraska
most impressive: destroying Washington
least impressive: beating South Dakota St. 17-3

8.) Arkansas
most impressive: almost beating Alabama
least impressive: almost losing to Georgia

9.) Arizona
most impressive: soundly beating Iowa
least impressive: barely beating Cal

10.) Iowa
most impressive: soundly beating Penn St.
being soundly beaten by Arizona

teams that are probably pretty good

11.) Florida
most impressive: not losing its first 4 games despite trying pretty hard to do so
least impressive: being crushed by Alabama

12.) Stanford
most impressive: destroying UCLA
least impressive: being outscored 49-10 by Oregon the last three quarters

13.) Auburn
most impressive: beating South Carolina
least impressive: almost losing to Mississippi

14.) Utah
most impressive: beating Pitt
least impressive: only beating Pitt by 3 in OT

teams that might be pretty good

15.) Michigan St.
most impressive: beating Wisconsin
least impressive: needing a trick play in OT to beat Notre Dame

16.) Michigan
most impressive: its offense in every game
least impressive: its defense in every game

17.) Miami
most impressive: destroying Pitt
least impressive: every ball Jacory Harris floats up in the air hoping it gets caught by his team

18.) Nevada
most impressive: destroying Cal
least impressive: struggling to put away BYU

19.) LSU
most impressive: somehow winning every game they've played
least impressive: the offense, almost blowing a huge lead against a depleted UNC team, almost losing to Tennessee at home, almost losing to W. Virginia at home, taking a 10-3 lead against Vandy into the 4th quarter, and being far more talented than every team they've played but still routinely being outplayed . . . also, why wasn't LSU flagged on the penultimate play against UT when the player removed his helmet and threw it to the ground?  I'd have to surmise it was b/c the refs thought the game was over.  Oops.

20.) Air Force
most impressive: almost beating Oklahoma on the road
least impressive: only beating Wyoming by 6

teams that are probably above average and could possibly be better, but we're not really sure

21.) South Carolina
most impressive: beating Georgia?
least impressive: that their signature win came when they scored 17 points against a now 1-4 team

22.) Wisconsin
most impressive: managing to win their first 4 games
least impressive: struggling to win too many of their first 4 games

23.) Texas
most impressive: playing in the national title game last year
least impressive: being blown out at home by UCLA

23.) Florida State
most impressive: blowing out 4 of their 5 opponents
least impressive: getting blown out by Oklahoma

24.) North Carolina State
most impressive: soundly beating Georgia Tech
least impressive: blowing a large lead against Virginia Tech

25.) Kansas St.
most impressive: beating above average teams UCLA and Iowa St.
least impressive: only beating UCF by 4


As you can see, there aren't many teams that have done much to prove themselves this year.  I'm confident that the top 10 teams are all good teams that deserve to be ranked in the top 25, but the next 10 are dicey and after #20 we might as well just pull 5 teams out of a hat.