Last Saturday saw a big shakeup in the college football rankings with an especially big turnover at the top of the table. The top five college football rankings were completely reordered in a way that suggests a new ‘balance of power’ may be occurring in the nation’s best college football conference, the SEC.
Of course nothing has changed at the very top of the rankings where Alabama still reigns supreme. The Crimson Tide had a bye last week and will play on the road against SEC newcomer Missouri this week. Missouri isn’t a bad team but all you need to do is look at sports betting sites to see just how good the Crimson Tide is–they’re favored to beat the home team by 21.5 points!
The University of Oregon remained #2 as they beat another overmatched Pac 12 team. The Ducks are idle this week and next play on Thursday, October 18 at Arizona State. This means that barring a very bizarre turn of events they’re likely to hang on to the #2 spot for at least another week.
The real shakeup starts at #3 which is now occupied by the University of South Carolina Gamecocks. The Gamecocks have been underrated relative to other teams in their conference all season long, but people are now starting to realize that they very well could be the second best team in the SEC behind Alabama. The Gamecocks dominated then #5 Georgia last Saturday en route to a 35-7 victory. The Gamecocks face a tough test this weekend against #9 LSU–the Bayou Bengals had been ranked 4th in the country (#3 in the USA TODAY poll) before a road loss to the University of Florida Gators. The Gators, in turn, moved up to #4 in the AP poll and will play at Vanderbilt this weekend.
Outside of the ACC, Florida State dropped from #3 to #12 following a listless road loss to North Carolina State. The Seminoles host Boston College this weekend looking to get back on the winning track. West Virginia is now #5 by virtue of an upset win at Texas. They’ll face another tough challenge in the ‘Lone Star State’ this weekend as they take on 4-1 Texas Tech. On the cusp of a move into the top 5 is Notre Dame–the ‘Fighting Irish’ have one of the top defenses in the country and host Stanford this weekend. The Irish are expected to win this game but may need some help–it’s unlikely they’ll be able to move up in the rankings unless one of the teams ahead of them loses.
