Don’t laugh but Rutgers is 3-0 - don’t sleep on that one before the big one next week
That said, I’m liking Michigan’s offense this year.
Good God, Georgia State - not UGA but 1 and 2 metro-Atlanta commuter university Georgia State, has Auburn on the ropes.
Clemson and Texas A&M fall. Wisconsin is 1-2. Ohio State’s been shaky. Is it finally time that perennial powers start moving back to the pack and make college football fun again?
Alabama is still Alabama though.
Sometimes you get your asses kicked and still win. Michigan State gets a punt return for a TD, an interception in OT, and a chip shot FG to beat Nebraska. This with no first downs in the second half. I’ll take it but Mel Tucker has some coaching to do this week.
UM did kinda go to sleep for a while, but they woke up when it counted. 
Maybe it’s just me but it seems like some of those ‘tune-up’ opponents that bigger programs are putting on their schedules are turning out to be a lot stiffer competition than these programs bargained for. There’s obviously the FSU-Jacksonville St debacle. And Auburn barely survived Georgia St last night - the 10-pt spread at the end doesn’t indicate how close Auburn was to losing that game. They were a missed 4th down conversion from losing it.
A&M losing to Arkansas is not at all surprising to me. A&M has a solid defense but they’ve struggled to establish consistently good offense going back to last year. And the Razorbacks are a solid top-10 team now, IMHO. Unlike the last time when they were a serious contender under Bobby Petrino, this Arkansas team is, I think, more physical and more balanced. Based on what I’ve seen so far, I think they could put up a fight against most teams right now.
Alabama is clearly the number one team, with Georgia a serious number two contender at this point. This might be finally the year that the SEC East seriously challenges the SEC West for conference supremacy in Atlanta. SEC East hasn’t won since 2008, IIRC. Quite the drought.
Outside the SEC, I’m looking at the BIG and PAC-12. The top-heavy ACC appears to be sunk at this point, and OU looks pretty wobbly on offense. The Big 12 might actually be Baylor’s conference this year, and not OU’s, but it’s so hard to pick against the consistency of the Sooners.
Heartbreaking loss for Nebraska and I’m not sure they recover from it. The Huskers have to start winning these kinds of close games.
This weeks numbers aren’t out yet, but as of last week, the Big 10, Big 12, and the SEC were pretty much interchangeable in the composite computer rankings. The ACC and PAC-12 were in a completely different tier (not in a good way), with the PAC-12 the laggard of the two.
I’m just looking at the top end of the conferences. UCLA beat LSU, and Oregon beat Ohio St. I agree that LSU is probably not as good as they once were but there’s still a lot of talent there, and Ohio St. is still pretty stout. I don’t see an ACC or Big12 that can even possibly hang with the elite teams of the SEC right now.
That’s nice and all, but all of the computers disagree with you. To be fair, they’re simply taking every single game played into account, as well as the relationships between those week over week, so it probably can’t compete with us humans and our eye tests.
Ohio State had a player quit in the middle of the game yesterday! Don’t think I’ve ever seen that and naturally he took to Twitter.
That was one of the worst meltdowns I’ve ever read about/seen. He can’t even spell “luck” so I’m guessing he’s not well-suited for the NFL combines.
They’re averaging shit, which isn’t valid. My caveat is that the season is young, but so far, the top teams of the PAC-12 are better than the top teams of the ACC and Big12.
Conference from top to bottom? I’m sure there’s parity. As an SEC follower, I’ve always observed that there’s a soft middle and a weak bottom, but the top two or three team in the SEC (usually the SEC west) are badass.
You forgot the caveat that this is your opinion. That’s a far bigger caveat than the age of the season, considering the vast majority of cross-conference football has already taken place. If my options are to believe you or believe a composite of sources, each of which I individually give more weight than I give you, I’m going to take the latter every time. When you become the one-person playoff committee that no one questions, due to your uncanny abilities, I’ll reconsider.
The composite is now out for week 4.
Pac-12 - 33% of the conference made the top 50
| Composite Rank | Team |
|---|---|
| 9 | Oregon |
| 18 | UCLA |
| 40 | Arizona St. |
| 42 | Oregon St. |
ACC - 64% of the conference made the top 50
| Composite Rank | Team |
|---|---|
| 19 | Wake Forest |
| 21 | Clemson |
| 26 | NC State |
| 33 | Boston College |
| 34 | Pittsburgh |
| 43 | North Carolina |
| 44 | Virginia Tech |
| 47 | Louisville |
| 48 | Miami |
Big-12 - 80% of the conference made the top 50
| Composite Rank | Team |
|---|---|
| 6 | Oklahoma |
| 13 | Texas |
| 15 | Oklahoma State |
| 24 | Baylor |
| 31 | Iowa State |
| 32 | Kansas State |
| 36 | West Virginia |
| 49 | TCU |
Oh yeah, well you forgot that the number one team in the PAC-12 (Oregon) went into Columbus, Ohio and defeated Ohio State. How ya like them apples?
You also forgot that UCLA defeated a ranked LSU team that’s two years removed from an undefeated national title campaign.
Clemson already has two losses and their wins aren’t that impressive. I think Clemson is still ‘good’ but not the dominant team we’ve seen before. And who else in the ACC is capable of competing in the top four?
OU’s wins aren’t that impressive either - barely winning against Tulane, Nebraska, and West Virginia.
So, I bring data. You bring “LSU was great once!”.
Cool.
No, I bring UCLA won a big inter-conference game and Oregon won an even bigger inter-conference game. Oregon beat Ohio State in Columbus.
Let’s see, what happened the last time OU played an important inter-conference game? Oh yeah, I remember now: LSU 63 OU 28
What happened when Texas played Arkansas? Oh yeah, I think the Razorbacks drove Steve Sarkisian back to the bottle, lol.
How’s Clemson doing this year? How’s NC doing?
There’s your answer, kid.
UCLA beat a nobody. LSU’s best win this year was against 54th ranked Mississippi State. I don’t give a flying fuck what they did 2 years ago, nor does anyone else who knows anything about college football. Hell, the composite actually thinks that A&M is better than LSU.
While I personally think Ohio State is a decent team, that’s simply me giving them credit they have yet to earn, as they haven’t actually done anything to show it yet.
Their wins:
| Rank | Team |
|---|---|
| 74 | Minnesota |
| 83 | Tulsa |
| 127 | Akron |
Let’s see, what happened the last time OU played an important inter-conference game? Oh yeah, I remember now: LSU 63 OU 28.
What in the fuck this has to do with 2021 is beyond me. Is there even a single starter on today’s team from that season?
And this has what to do with the Pac-12 being better than the ACC and Big-12?
But Clemson won it all in 2018. That means they’re awesome, right!!!
Clemson is currently 21st in the composites, North Carolina is currently 43rd. Of course I already showed that above, so apparently you aren’t actually looking at any data.
You keep on banging that Pac-12 drum, and your anecdotes, too.
I guess we can both agree that it’s early in the season, right? But seriously, what do the computers have to go on at this point that we humans don’t? If we know that Oregon is at the top of the Big 12 and Ohio St is at the top of the BIG, then it stands to reason that Oregon beating Ohio State is a big deal. There’s nothing that a Big-12 or ACC team has done this year that even remotely compares.
If we’re talking about conference strength from top to bottom, I concede that the computers might have a point - I’m not crunching the data to that degree. But I’m watching a handful of games among conference leaders, and so far, PAC-12 has outperformed ACC and Big-12. And I don’t think anyone else who really knows their shit would question that - but I’ll concede, it’s a long season.
Sure, but most cross-conference football is done until the regular season is over, so conference rankings aren’t likely to change.
All of the games. The difference is that they just don’t care and that they can take all games across all weeks into consideration. You, for example, talked about the awesome Ohio State and LSU, while making fun of OU (who has indeed had a far rougher time than expected in several of their games).
But the computers acknowledge that OU has actually beaten better teams. You don’t think highly of West Virginia, for example, but the computers do. You might also have forgotten that they were one of the top rated defenses in the country just this past year, and that continues to be strength so far for
them. You just think you’re considering all of the facts.
Since the computer sees all of the games, it sees the following wins:
Ohio State wins
| Rank | Team |
|---|---|
| 74 | Minnesota |
| 83 | Tulsa |
| 127 | Akron |
Oklahoma wins
| Rank | Team |
|---|---|
| 85 | Tulane |
| Unranked | FCS team |
| 60 | Nebraska |
| 36 | West Virginia |
LSU wins
| Rank | Team |
|---|---|
| Unranked | FCS team |
| 97 | Central Michigan |
| 54 | Mississippi State |
It also knows that Ohio State lost a reasonably close (we know better, but based on the final score this is true to a computer) game to the team it currently has at 9, which is good. That’s why they have Ohio State at 14 even though their wins came against an even worse schedule than LSU and far worse than OU.
The computers are better than you. And me. And Corso (we’re all better). And even Gus Johnson. Some of them have weird little biases that creep into things, but when you get enough of them, and you give them enough data, they are pretty damned good at this ranking thing.