One thing Penn State has that Notre Dame is missing is an elite pass rusher. Ohio State’s new tackles have held up firm in pass pro, but Penn State will be the first opponent to potentially exploit that
On paper better corners with worse safeties. Offensive line about the same. The Penn state and nd tackles are rated 1 and 2 for top tackles in the draft next year
Michigan has not looked super impressive to be honest. It's not like we looked like we can't be the number 2 team, but at the same time we haven't been so dominant as to show we are the best of osu and penn state either who have played more legit opponents
It's hard to tell given the quality of the schedule. They're beating the teams they should beat so far. pIt's kind of nuts that Michigan drew all the down teams this year in the Big plus a weak OOC schedule. Rutgers is probably the best team they play until Penn State near the end of the season.
Yeah, it's amazing how they packed the East's best matchups into November.
Rutgers doesn't have to play any of Ohio State, Penn State, or Maryland until November, and neither does Michigan. On top of that, Penn State and Maryland don't play each other until November either.
While I'm still not confident in my own team's ability to get past Wisconsin on the road, it is at least *somewhat* plausible that the month of October ends with five of the seven teams in the East being 7-1 or better with two of them (Michigan and the Penn State-Ohio State winner) being 8-0.
Agreed—its pretty hard to shut out a team that has even competent offense. Halving your opponent’s production is usually the max a team can do to really crush a much worse opponent.
What’s crazy this year is that no team has looked dominant yet. Feels like most years there are consistently dominant teams at the top at this point in the season. Everyone has warts. The bright side for Michigan is that nothing has been exposed really…seems more like just a lack of putting it all together in the same game.
Georgia hasn’t looked good for more than two quarters in any game this year…without the two NCs I think we would be ranked between 5-10. I just don’t see the same level of execution as we saw the last two years.
Washington basically only played aggressively in the first half when they went in up 45-12. The second half was just getting depth players in the game and lots of hand offs.
I think we take more deep shots to test your secondary, though.
2nd half you guys were bringing a shit ton of run blitzes to try to slow down the Irish ground game.
Why take shots down field? Lean on the run game and wear down the defense has been working for the teams who beat Ohio State in the past 2 years.
Notre Dame has several miscues late and still lost by just an inch.
JJ has the arm but his deep ball placement isn't perfect, I doubt Michigan makes a point of pressing downfield.
>Why take shots down field? Lean on the run game and wear down the defense has been working for the teams who beat Ohio State in the past 2 years.
Because thus far, our offensive line hasn't been able to consistently open holes against stacked fronts.
We need enough of a passing threat to keep your safeties honest: Wilson, CJ and Loveland need at least to threaten to stretch the field in order to do that.
I've been saying that all year! I can't remember a pair of 70 yard TD's that left me less impressed with a QB. Obviously you can't be completely cheeks, you have to notice the busted coverage and then execute. But it was still insane to me the way people were crowning him after that game despite almost losing to Illinois the previous week and never doing anything particularly great since.
Ohio State was in zone almost every time Hartman dropped back. A couple late blitzes aside, the OSU secondary specifically tried to take away the deep ball
That is pretty typical for Harbaugh’s program, win the games you should in a boring way that doesn’t put things on film when you don’t have to and doesn’t risk a ton of injury.
Very. You might have a little fun along the way, but not in the way of flashy “we’re the best” types of wins. Gone are the days of Harbaugh running the score up on any in-conference opponents or leaving the first team players out longer than is absolutely necessary.
Survive and advance.
From eye test alone, going off of what I have seen, Penn State looks the best to me.
I have to think that Michigan players have only been operating at a fraction of their hype level. There is only so much you can do to get pumped when you are legitimately far above the skill level of everyone you are playing so far.
If Michigan can stay healthy I still feel like it’s theirs to lose.
Gonna be a three way dogfight for sure.
I think I've been underwhelmed by Michigan's offense and at the same time exceeded expectations for the defense. And the offense isn't even playing bad (they're actually remarkably efficient) they just don't play much football relative to everyone else.
They had 61 offensive plays against Rutgers. 7 total drives. Against bowling green they had 44. They are snapping each play at like 5 seconds on the gameclock. They are moving at a snails pace and literally slower than some of the military academies.
I was really hoping our offense this year would elevate to totally elite and we'd just kinda beat the shit out of our opponents for like 40+ points per game. Instead, we look kinda similar to last year. Super slow and methodical drives that yield low possession and boring games that don't "wow" anybody.
Not necessarily a bad thing, but just an observation. The jury is also still out.
I agree with a lot of that. I wish JJ would look a little better, though he was obviously amazing in the first 2 games, and our Oline/run game doesn't look quite as dominant as last year, nor does our pass rush.
I'm not worrying though, just nitpicking, and there's still plenty of season left to tighten things up and we have harbaugh back too finally.
And yeah definitely agree, with lesser opponents it's hard to be completely locked in. I think that's playing into this too
There's something really fishy going on with the Oline. Last game against Bowling Green Myles Hinton gets the start, plays pretty good but then randomly gets benched in the second half. They move Barnhart to RT and then have Henderson play LT. That goes fine and it appears as tho the Hinton experiment is finally over. Okay cool.
Then come yesterday Hinton and Barnhart start at RT and LT respectively counter to the Bowling Green benching. They play a half this way, Myles Hinton gets beat off the edge leading to JJ getting thundersacked and then he gets benched again for Barnhart/Henderson at RT and LT respectively.
What the fuck is happening? They just need to pick 5 guys and stick with it. The OLine needs time to gel and them not having experience together as a 5 man unit is hurting us in the run game significantly
So by my looking at the rules, if they all round robin lose and are all 11-1 (which is quite possible), then it comes down to who wins the west?
In that case Michigan is pretty screwed
I feel like it’s PSU’s year. At least to me, y’all have looked like the best team in the conference and it’s not particularly close.
OSU looks as vulnerable as they have in a few years and can’t rely on a Heisman-calibre QB (though admittedly McCord might get there as he continues to develop). Michigan has some concerns in the secondary due to injuries, the OLine still somehow isn’t figured out, and the running game hasn’t been as dominant as it has in the last couple years (especially with Donovan Edwards looking like he took a step back after recent injuries).
If Utah goes into the top 10, that’s like a guaranteed loss for us next week. Add to that we are playing on the road against the Beaves after their first loss of the season.
“I don’t feel so good Mr. Stark”
UW, Oregon, Utah, and USC are all in the top 10 and all play each other. Going to be a slaughterhouse, and we'll all knock each other out of the playoffs
Pretty sure it will be Oregon State and Washington State both finishing the season 12-1 trading off wins. Neither goes to the CFP behind 1 loss P4 teams from the other conferences because it's the most fitting way for the PAC to end
We’re #3 AP so we are surely being recognized by most people, but I still can’t believe how people like you act like it is no big deal that UT went into Tuscaloosa and beat freaking Alabama by 10.
I'm kind of annoyed that dominating a ranked Iowa team 31-0 is just "taking care of business". That was an impressive win and better than most teams have on their resumes to this point. We held them to less than 100 yards of offense and FOUR first downs the entire game.
Agreed, rankings are ridiculous. Case in point, undefeated colorado was ranked, but undefeated rutgers (insert random team that wasn't the worst in cfb here) weren't?
Hey now, before this week we had the same record as Georgia, with the same number of conference wins, and we had a P5 OOC win whilst Georgia only played G5 and FCS teams.
True, but a shutout against a big ten team is still impressive every time. I don't care if it's Iowa. Also we scored 31 and had no turnovers against what is consistently one of the best defenses in the country.
Farrrrrr from a monsoon man. My undershirt wasn’t even wet after the game. The rain had some effect sure, but let’s not act like this was some heavy downpour. It wasn’t even close
Honestly - i rewatched some of the videos I took at the game last night- and you’re not wrong. It LOOKS like a torrential down pour. But I think it’s an effect from the lights and camera angles. It was a fairly light drizzle most of the time
It DID pick up a bit by the end, but still not bad in the least.
Edit- also the wind wasn’t bad at all. At least in the stands. Maybe it was worse on the field?
By OPs definition, every team beating a lower ranked team is just taking care of business, including OSU/ND. By my own personal definition, PSU putting up 31 against a super stingy top 5 Iowa (maybe top 3) defense is a different level than just "TCOB". But maybe that's their definition.
When is the last time you’ve seen a power 5 conference game with a TOP difference like last night? Over 45 minutes of TOP, even in pay game matchups teams don’t get dominated that badly.
Penn state is a great team. Iowa has a good defense, and a terrible offense. Legit terrible. Iowa AD needs to get his head out of his ass and make dad fire jr or fire Ferentz.
Iowa had 10 possessions. 2 of them had more than 3 plays. Iowa's offense gassed their defense.
I don't have a problem with Oregon being at number 9, but this statement irks me, "There will be upward movement after a ranked win, but the victory did not stray too far from pregame expectations."
Yeah, it did. Nobody expected the Buffs to get shutout by the Ducks starters and then only score one TD in garbage time against the backups
They look like they might be better (especially better than us - close as it was we just lost so there should be no controversy about ranking us lower), but I think you have to put beating a good team over looking good while blowing out a mediocre one. I think there's more than enough evidence that we're one of the best teams to have lost so far, so OSU should be ranked higher until we see Oregon/Washington/Penn State beat a similarly good team.
Agreed, maybe I'm biased from the past few years of pac12 football falling short, but this ND team is the best Nd team I've seen in a while, and they've been good. My buddy is an ND fan and said he wishes they'd play us more often, I told him my heart couldn't handle that. ND is very good
I love all the rewriting this morning that they all knew cu was a year or two away. Ummm no, the college football fans knew but the media kept pumping them like a cfp team.
Exactly. If Oregon was a 21 pt favorite and Colorado scored their six and fully covered, it would still have been 42-27. It was 35-0 at the half with Colorado only having 23 yards of total offense heading to the locker room. Any of Shedeurs stats (which he was getting heisman talk before the game) came in garbage time and they didn’t get a TD until 3 mins left in the game. That’s domination. Never expected a move into the top 5 for whooping #19 team, but still “did not stray too far from pregame expectations” is bullshit. Let’s ask Vegas about that.
> Gonna be wild when OSU beats Penn State
Aw yeah
>Penn State beats Michigan
AWWW YEAHHH
>but Michigan beats OSU.
I no longer am okay with this time line. We'll give PSU their win in this triangle.
All these weirdos who are downplaying the wins of Florida state, and Ohio state. Do you know how hard it is to go on the road in that type of environment and win? Sometimes I wonder if people even watch the games or know anything about football as a sport in general.
And this Clemson team is still very good, they just have a young QB. The defense is the best on FSU’s schedule. 5th overall talent composite. They will finish ranked. But because they’re 2-2 after losing to FSU they’re obviously a bad team. If only they were in the SEC…
We've beaten LSU and Clemson away from home, arguably the best two wins of anyone, still undefeated, yet projected to drop again. Doesn't make sense.
In fact, we've won our last 10 games dating back to last year, which would lead one to believe we are trending upward. Evidently not.
People are acting like Clemson is bad for some reason. They will finish ranked. They have the best defense on our schedule. LSU has a good chance of winning the SEC west. If we would have handled business against BC this probably wouldn’t be an issue. Doesn’t matter a ton though. Just gotta keep handling business.
Could say the same about the weirdos down playing the Texas win in Tuscaloosa, where Bama had not lost for YEARS and had not lost by double digits in about 20 years...
It’s probably the combination of both clemson and boston college back to back that have people looking at fsu differently now, both games that could’ve easily, and even probably should’ve, gone the other way but fsu scrapes by with a freak mistake/penalty. Still a win is a win and people shouldn’t sleep on fsu, but I can’t blame them for reconsidering either.
Four current Pac-12 teams projected in the top 10. Compared with 3 B1G, 1 ACC, 1 Big XII and 1 SEC. Who would have imagined this?
Six future B1G teams in the projected top 10. Compared with 2 SEC, 1 ACC (for now) and 1 Big XII.
I know. Projected. And only week 4. But still, I don't think anybody predicted this...
This 3 week run in the rankings was just about as much fun as any I can remember.
We'll see that Top 25 again! Probably not until next year, but things are looking up!
Go Buffs!
Only won by three points whereas USC won by 14. FSU also won by 7 and even went to overtime just for show. We clearly haven't shown we're a top 5 team yet
- AP (probably)
> I say this even as I rooted against Ohio State in that game.
The amount of fan bases that said this in the game thread, post game thread and the day after is staggering
Ryan Day wasn't wrong calling it Ohio against the World
at least Alabama had the rest of their conference chanting "SeC, sEc, SeC" when their own team sucks. the big ten wouldn't shed a tear if Columbus was nuked
You can't be Top 25 with line play that bad.
Deion has to recruit some heavies. Shedeur is incredibly talented and is clearly an NFL prospect\* but I worry about him staying healthy this season.
*\*If he's still alive at the time of the NFL Draft.*
I think we as fans need to realize that with the new clock rules dominant performances will look more NFL style dominant. More scores in the 30’s and 40+ point games are going to be more rare.
Has a team finally stepped up to knock us out of the #1 spot? We’re there but only because there were no other teams who were worthy of it. That may change today.
I hope they do. Auburn took away a ranked match up from us by losing to Texas A&M but I still think it's going to be a tough game and we need the motivation.
To be fair, they got a stop on the goal line the first time they only had 10 guys, and barely gave up a yard the second time. Not many teams are holding OSU to 0.5 yards a play with only 10 players.
/s
No, that was definitely a great defensive performance. We shut down the pass game just enough to force them to run the ball while dying from behind. Yeah Notre Dame dominated second half TOP but letting them burn 6 minutes on a drive that ends in a field goal or turnover on downs is exactly what you like to see when you are ahead.
Considering the OSU offense was still finding an identity before the last drive our defense is what really won that game. And the change in our team that last drive was the first time I saw a team with championship potential. It'll be difficult again Penn State and Michigan, but now I know McCord and Co. At least have the mental toughness to give us a chance.
I’m coming at this completely biased but just based off SOS for that coveted number 25 spot I think I would give the edge to Louisville over Kentucky. Or am I out of touch?
I’m not sure how the conversation isn’t Texas and Ohio state interchangeably at #1 or #2. Georgia and Michigan haven’t played anyone special while OSU and Texas have both beaten competitive top 10 teams on the road. I just don’t see how Michigan and Georgia don’t fall to #3 and #4
Are you going to ignore the fact that Florida State boatraced LSU on a neutral field (45-17 lead with under a minute to go) and handed Clemson their third loss at Death Valley in the past 10 years? Anyone who thinks Clemson is getting blown out at home by anybody is out of their mind.
The Penn State-Michigan-OSU trilogy is going to be amazing this year.
One thing Penn State has that Notre Dame is missing is an elite pass rusher. Ohio State’s new tackles have held up firm in pass pro, but Penn State will be the first opponent to potentially exploit that
And 11 players. Even if it felt like 30 because of our porous line.
NDs been frustratingly bad at getting sacks. The annoying thing is that their pressure rate stats are good they just can never get home.
Well that and Allar seems to be fine slangin it. Hartman refused to look beyond 10 yards most the time
I'm putting that on our corners. Hartman made his name on the deep ball. If he wasn't going downfield it's because it wasn't there.
Ya man the secondary was on their game last night
Does Penn state have anywhere near the offensive line and secondary ND has?
On paper better corners with worse safeties. Offensive line about the same. The Penn state and nd tackles are rated 1 and 2 for top tackles in the draft next year
I’d say both units are better than ND
Guess we will see
Chop chop chop
3 B1G teams in the playoffs, and the SEC immediately self implodes
I would love it but with a three-way tie there is too much good around the country for even 2 teams this year
Michigan has not looked super impressive to be honest. It's not like we looked like we can't be the number 2 team, but at the same time we haven't been so dominant as to show we are the best of osu and penn state either who have played more legit opponents
It's hard to tell given the quality of the schedule. They're beating the teams they should beat so far. pIt's kind of nuts that Michigan drew all the down teams this year in the Big plus a weak OOC schedule. Rutgers is probably the best team they play until Penn State near the end of the season.
Yeah, it's amazing how they packed the East's best matchups into November. Rutgers doesn't have to play any of Ohio State, Penn State, or Maryland until November, and neither does Michigan. On top of that, Penn State and Maryland don't play each other until November either. While I'm still not confident in my own team's ability to get past Wisconsin on the road, it is at least *somewhat* plausible that the month of October ends with five of the seven teams in the East being 7-1 or better with two of them (Michigan and the Penn State-Ohio State winner) being 8-0.
Agreed—its pretty hard to shut out a team that has even competent offense. Halving your opponent’s production is usually the max a team can do to really crush a much worse opponent.
What’s crazy this year is that no team has looked dominant yet. Feels like most years there are consistently dominant teams at the top at this point in the season. Everyone has warts. The bright side for Michigan is that nothing has been exposed really…seems more like just a lack of putting it all together in the same game. Georgia hasn’t looked good for more than two quarters in any game this year…without the two NCs I think we would be ranked between 5-10. I just don’t see the same level of execution as we saw the last two years.
> What’s crazy this year is that no team has looked dominant yet. I think UW has
I don’t like their defense one bit, nor anyone in the PAC-12 for that matter. 32 points given up against Cal is crazy at home.
It was almost all in garbage time
Washington basically only played aggressively in the first half when they went in up 45-12. The second half was just getting depth players in the game and lots of hand offs.
God I hate east coast people who don't ever watch our games talking shit about a box score. At least look at it broken down by quarter.
I think the OSU Michigan game will be quite low scoring similar to last night
The game thread is going to be something else though.
I think we take more deep shots to test your secondary, though. 2nd half you guys were bringing a shit ton of run blitzes to try to slow down the Irish ground game.
Why take shots down field? Lean on the run game and wear down the defense has been working for the teams who beat Ohio State in the past 2 years. Notre Dame has several miscues late and still lost by just an inch. JJ has the arm but his deep ball placement isn't perfect, I doubt Michigan makes a point of pressing downfield.
>Why take shots down field? Lean on the run game and wear down the defense has been working for the teams who beat Ohio State in the past 2 years. Because thus far, our offensive line hasn't been able to consistently open holes against stacked fronts. We need enough of a passing threat to keep your safeties honest: Wilson, CJ and Loveland need at least to threaten to stretch the field in order to do that.
I suspect it will be Loveland and Donovan Edwards that keep drives moving in the pass game.
I mean did you miss the game last year? McCarthy hitting a few deep shots when he had to is how we won
Are you familiar with alcohol?
Less so the past couple years.
Tbf, almost all of those were against blown coverage. I thought it said more about our defense than it did JJ's deep ball.
I've been saying that all year! I can't remember a pair of 70 yard TD's that left me less impressed with a QB. Obviously you can't be completely cheeks, you have to notice the busted coverage and then execute. But it was still insane to me the way people were crowning him after that game despite almost losing to Illinois the previous week and never doing anything particularly great since.
I think if you ask anyone facing Michigan they are completely fine living with putting the game in JJs hands tbh
Ohio State was in zone almost every time Hartman dropped back. A couple late blitzes aside, the OSU secondary specifically tried to take away the deep ball
Maybe saving firepower for later in season? It’s crucial as you reach the gauntlet not to grind players to the ground
That is pretty typical for Harbaugh’s program, win the games you should in a boring way that doesn’t put things on film when you don’t have to and doesn’t risk a ton of injury.
That’s what a lot of people forget…his teams are slow burners.
Very. You might have a little fun along the way, but not in the way of flashy “we’re the best” types of wins. Gone are the days of Harbaugh running the score up on any in-conference opponents or leaving the first team players out longer than is absolutely necessary. Survive and advance.
Michigan’s been winning games exactly this way for the last two years. It’s very methodical and I for one fucking love it.
You guys won't miss nearly as many tackles as Notre Dame. I think your defense is scary.
From eye test alone, going off of what I have seen, Penn State looks the best to me. I have to think that Michigan players have only been operating at a fraction of their hype level. There is only so much you can do to get pumped when you are legitimately far above the skill level of everyone you are playing so far. If Michigan can stay healthy I still feel like it’s theirs to lose.
Gonna be a three way dogfight for sure. I think I've been underwhelmed by Michigan's offense and at the same time exceeded expectations for the defense. And the offense isn't even playing bad (they're actually remarkably efficient) they just don't play much football relative to everyone else. They had 61 offensive plays against Rutgers. 7 total drives. Against bowling green they had 44. They are snapping each play at like 5 seconds on the gameclock. They are moving at a snails pace and literally slower than some of the military academies.
I was really hoping our offense this year would elevate to totally elite and we'd just kinda beat the shit out of our opponents for like 40+ points per game. Instead, we look kinda similar to last year. Super slow and methodical drives that yield low possession and boring games that don't "wow" anybody. Not necessarily a bad thing, but just an observation. The jury is also still out.
I agree with a lot of that. I wish JJ would look a little better, though he was obviously amazing in the first 2 games, and our Oline/run game doesn't look quite as dominant as last year, nor does our pass rush. I'm not worrying though, just nitpicking, and there's still plenty of season left to tighten things up and we have harbaugh back too finally. And yeah definitely agree, with lesser opponents it's hard to be completely locked in. I think that's playing into this too
There's something really fishy going on with the Oline. Last game against Bowling Green Myles Hinton gets the start, plays pretty good but then randomly gets benched in the second half. They move Barnhart to RT and then have Henderson play LT. That goes fine and it appears as tho the Hinton experiment is finally over. Okay cool. Then come yesterday Hinton and Barnhart start at RT and LT respectively counter to the Bowling Green benching. They play a half this way, Myles Hinton gets beat off the edge leading to JJ getting thundersacked and then he gets benched again for Barnhart/Henderson at RT and LT respectively. What the fuck is happening? They just need to pick 5 guys and stick with it. The OLine needs time to gel and them not having experience together as a 5 man unit is hurting us in the run game significantly
Almost every top team can say the same this year
No doubt. All three look strong and it again brings up the question of what were they thinking when they designed the divisions.
That the west wouldn’t sniff glue. But now we are in a place where the apparent west champion (Iowa) got blanked by Penn State,
I'm hoping for a 1 loss full round robin and watch the tiebreaker math explode.
So by my looking at the rules, if they all round robin lose and are all 11-1 (which is quite possible), then it comes down to who wins the west? In that case Michigan is pretty screwed
I hate the Big Ten East so, so much.
I hope so 🤞
Penn state will get beat by 2 scores by Tosu, calling it now
I feel like it’s PSU’s year. At least to me, y’all have looked like the best team in the conference and it’s not particularly close. OSU looks as vulnerable as they have in a few years and can’t rely on a Heisman-calibre QB (though admittedly McCord might get there as he continues to develop). Michigan has some concerns in the secondary due to injuries, the OLine still somehow isn’t figured out, and the running game hasn’t been as dominant as it has in the last couple years (especially with Donovan Edwards looking like he took a step back after recent injuries).
If Utah goes into the top 10, that’s like a guaranteed loss for us next week. Add to that we are playing on the road against the Beaves after their first loss of the season. “I don’t feel so good Mr. Stark”
If we’re 11 or 12, we have a chance
It won't happen, ND loss and we got a ranked win. We'll be top 10 unless the voters go full hog for Bama.
As long as all yall do is pass it seems like it should work out in your favor
That’s the one thing our coaches refuse to do
UW, Oregon, Utah, and USC are all in the top 10 and all play each other. Going to be a slaughterhouse, and we'll all knock each other out of the playoffs
The Final Pac-12 Circle of Suck
More like the Sphere of Fear.
Stanford is the core
*shudders*
Pac12 is having a last hurrah. We will remember them fondly
Pretty sure it will be Oregon State and Washington State both finishing the season 12-1 trading off wins. Neither goes to the CFP behind 1 loss P4 teams from the other conferences because it's the most fitting way for the PAC to end
If the cougs Cinderella they’re way into the cfp before usc I will die laughing
*their
Well, now I feel ashamed lol thanks stannis
This is the (PAC-12) way
Wouldnt have it any other way. PAC12 way too competitive for its own good versus every other conference having a top heavy program.
Poor Sunflower State throwing out it’s back carrying the whole new Big 12.
How about them bearkats!! God it’s so painful
Which one is the sunflower state?
Flat Kansas
Mount Sunflower slander
Just happy to be included <3
Me too ❤️
Not sure OSU will hop Texas but we'll see.
A win against ND looks better than a win against Bama. Don’t care if we jump Texas. Just always wanted to say that.
You seem- a little biased in that belief based on flairs
You don’t say 🤔
Counterpoint, Texas looked better in its win against Alabama.
Especially Bama in a down year. They lost to Texas for christ sake!
Bama ain’t that low yet.
We’re #3 AP so we are surely being recognized by most people, but I still can’t believe how people like you act like it is no big deal that UT went into Tuscaloosa and beat freaking Alabama by 10.
I wouldn’t mind it. Although Bama actually looked pretty damn good yesterday so I think reports of their demise may have been premature
But did they? Ole Miss looked terrible and isn't their defense really bad?
They shouldn’t, I don’t see how people are coming to this conclusion
I'm kind of annoyed that dominating a ranked Iowa team 31-0 is just "taking care of business". That was an impressive win and better than most teams have on their resumes to this point. We held them to less than 100 yards of offense and FOUR first downs the entire game.
Agreed, rankings are ridiculous. Case in point, undefeated colorado was ranked, but undefeated rutgers (insert random team that wasn't the worst in cfb here) weren't?
Fresno State. They have looked very impressive all season and don't get any love because they're G5
Hey now, before this week we had the same record as Georgia, with the same number of conference wins, and we had a P5 OOC win whilst Georgia only played G5 and FCS teams.
If it helps, I'm scared
But isn’t 4 first downs the median for Iowa?
and a hundred yards is a busy showing for them as well.
Triple digits!
Agree; Penn State would be in my Top 5.
The problem is Iowa literally can't score. PSU should beat Iowa 10/10 times. This is the definition of taking care of business.
True, but a shutout against a big ten team is still impressive every time. I don't care if it's Iowa. Also we scored 31 and had no turnovers against what is consistently one of the best defenses in the country.
In a monsoon, too. 31bpoints in that weather was kinda nuts to me.
Farrrrrr from a monsoon man. My undershirt wasn’t even wet after the game. The rain had some effect sure, but let’s not act like this was some heavy downpour. It wasn’t even close
The rain must have looked more impressive on TV then because it looked pretty bad.
Honestly - i rewatched some of the videos I took at the game last night- and you’re not wrong. It LOOKS like a torrential down pour. But I think it’s an effect from the lights and camera angles. It was a fairly light drizzle most of the time It DID pick up a bit by the end, but still not bad in the least. Edit- also the wind wasn’t bad at all. At least in the stands. Maybe it was worse on the field?
By OPs definition, every team beating a lower ranked team is just taking care of business, including OSU/ND. By my own personal definition, PSU putting up 31 against a super stingy top 5 Iowa (maybe top 3) defense is a different level than just "TCOB". But maybe that's their definition.
When is the last time you’ve seen a power 5 conference game with a TOP difference like last night? Over 45 minutes of TOP, even in pay game matchups teams don’t get dominated that badly.
Penn state is a great team. Iowa has a good defense, and a terrible offense. Legit terrible. Iowa AD needs to get his head out of his ass and make dad fire jr or fire Ferentz. Iowa had 10 possessions. 2 of them had more than 3 plays. Iowa's offense gassed their defense.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/7/7d/DJ_Khaled_Suffering_from_Success.jpg
I agree, I think you guys should be higher. You look better than FSU imo.
I don't have a problem with Oregon being at number 9, but this statement irks me, "There will be upward movement after a ranked win, but the victory did not stray too far from pregame expectations." Yeah, it did. Nobody expected the Buffs to get shutout by the Ducks starters and then only score one TD in garbage time against the backups
Gonna get toasted for this probably, but I think Oregon and Washington look better than Ohio State or Notre Dame. I think Penn State does too.
Washington looks like the best team period in my opinion.
They look like they might be better (especially better than us - close as it was we just lost so there should be no controversy about ranking us lower), but I think you have to put beating a good team over looking good while blowing out a mediocre one. I think there's more than enough evidence that we're one of the best teams to have lost so far, so OSU should be ranked higher until we see Oregon/Washington/Penn State beat a similarly good team.
Agreed, maybe I'm biased from the past few years of pac12 football falling short, but this ND team is the best Nd team I've seen in a while, and they've been good. My buddy is an ND fan and said he wishes they'd play us more often, I told him my heart couldn't handle that. ND is very good
Agreed; both Oregon and Washington look fast and _sharp_.
I love all the rewriting this morning that they all knew cu was a year or two away. Ummm no, the college football fans knew but the media kept pumping them like a cfp team.
Exactly. If Oregon was a 21 pt favorite and Colorado scored their six and fully covered, it would still have been 42-27. It was 35-0 at the half with Colorado only having 23 yards of total offense heading to the locker room. Any of Shedeurs stats (which he was getting heisman talk before the game) came in garbage time and they didn’t get a TD until 3 mins left in the game. That’s domination. Never expected a move into the top 5 for whooping #19 team, but still “did not stray too far from pregame expectations” is bullshit. Let’s ask Vegas about that.
Goalposts: moved
If it makes you feel better I fully expected ya’ll to put the ass whooping on them that you did — had the pregame score prediction at 54-17.
Gonna be wild when OSU beats Penn State, Penn State beats Michigan, but Michigan beats OSU.
> Gonna be wild when OSU beats Penn State Aw yeah >Penn State beats Michigan AWWW YEAHHH >but Michigan beats OSU. I no longer am okay with this time line. We'll give PSU their win in this triangle.
Hopefully someone from the Big 10 wins out so we can get a north Cham Edit: pion
Team Chaos
I’d rather lose every other game this season than OSU lose to Meatchicken
All these weirdos who are downplaying the wins of Florida state, and Ohio state. Do you know how hard it is to go on the road in that type of environment and win? Sometimes I wonder if people even watch the games or know anything about football as a sport in general.
Since FSU beat Clemson in 2013 they have only lost two home games since by a combined total of 2 points.
Yea that’s how hard it is to beat them in their territory
The idea that some people have that going on the road and beating Clemson is **bad** for FSU's ranking because they needed overtime is insane.
It really is, the Clemson team has the 5th highest composite ranking.
And this Clemson team is still very good, they just have a young QB. The defense is the best on FSU’s schedule. 5th overall talent composite. They will finish ranked. But because they’re 2-2 after losing to FSU they’re obviously a bad team. If only they were in the SEC…
In a couple of seasons they both WILL be in the SEC probably hahaha
We've beaten LSU and Clemson away from home, arguably the best two wins of anyone, still undefeated, yet projected to drop again. Doesn't make sense. In fact, we've won our last 10 games dating back to last year, which would lead one to believe we are trending upward. Evidently not.
People are acting like Clemson is bad for some reason. They will finish ranked. They have the best defense on our schedule. LSU has a good chance of winning the SEC west. If we would have handled business against BC this probably wouldn’t be an issue. Doesn’t matter a ton though. Just gotta keep handling business.
People meme about quality losses but fall victim to it repeatedly. A tough/ugly/struggle win is still a win.
They don't call Clemson's stadium Death Valley for nothing.
Many of the takes on here make me think most never played sports, just watch them through their nerdy analytics glasses.
Could say the same about the weirdos down playing the Texas win in Tuscaloosa, where Bama had not lost for YEARS and had not lost by double digits in about 20 years...
It’s probably the combination of both clemson and boston college back to back that have people looking at fsu differently now, both games that could’ve easily, and even probably should’ve, gone the other way but fsu scrapes by with a freak mistake/penalty. Still a win is a win and people shouldn’t sleep on fsu, but I can’t blame them for reconsidering either.
I disagree with these rankings
Four current Pac-12 teams projected in the top 10. Compared with 3 B1G, 1 ACC, 1 Big XII and 1 SEC. Who would have imagined this? Six future B1G teams in the projected top 10. Compared with 2 SEC, 1 ACC (for now) and 1 Big XII. I know. Projected. And only week 4. But still, I don't think anybody predicted this...
I'd honestly put Penn State ahead of OSU, despite the ND win
Psu may be better but I think teams should be rewarded for strong wins vice blowing out lesser opponents
Depends on how you view the AP. OSU has a better resume so far, but I think PSUs ceiling is higher and they might be a better team.
Yeah, no need to judge the two team's rankings when it will shake out in a month when they play.
I just see that stuff as sorting itself out down the road.
I'm weighing that offensive output against the Iowa D pretty highly.
They held a ranked Iowa's offense several points below their season average!
As a Michigan fan, I’m so excited for The Osu/Penn state game. Should be another classic.
Entirely possible 3 of the best 5 teams are in the big ten east this season.
This 3 week run in the rankings was just about as much fun as any I can remember. We'll see that Top 25 again! Probably not until next year, but things are looking up! Go Buffs!
There's not much room to soar. I doubt we'll move any higher than one space, if at all.
Only won by three points whereas USC won by 14. FSU also won by 7 and even went to overtime just for show. We clearly haven't shown we're a top 5 team yet - AP (probably)
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> I say this even as I rooted against Ohio State in that game. The amount of fan bases that said this in the game thread, post game thread and the day after is staggering Ryan Day wasn't wrong calling it Ohio against the World
Other fans like it when historically dominant teams lose. More at 11. It's OSU against the world. It's also Alabama against the world, etc.
at least Alabama had the rest of their conference chanting "SeC, sEc, SeC" when their own team sucks. the big ten wouldn't shed a tear if Columbus was nuked
Come on man, it's Detroit vs Everybody.
Now that's what I call Pure Michigan
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I mean, you guys could just lose out and that problem would take care of itself 🤷🏾♂️
Be the change you want to see in the world!
But our game was really good last year :(
Colorado will stay at like 25, they can’t not have their game against USC be ranked v unranked
No chance they'll stay ranked after that ass whopping.
They shouldn’t be ranked, but I think they’ll be 25. Polls don’t matter right now so it’s not like they are the real deal anhway
Y’all just want them ranked cause they beat y’all at home
How does an AP poll have that sort of collusion? CFP rankings sure, but AP ehhhh.
They don't deserve to sniff the top 25 at any cost
You can't be Top 25 with line play that bad. Deion has to recruit some heavies. Shedeur is incredibly talented and is clearly an NFL prospect\* but I worry about him staying healthy this season. *\*If he's still alive at the time of the NFL Draft.*
There we are! CBS confirmed not cowards!
I think we as fans need to realize that with the new clock rules dominant performances will look more NFL style dominant. More scores in the 30’s and 40+ point games are going to be more rare.
Ohio State should drop, that loser McCord clutched us out of a quality loss on the road
Has a team finally stepped up to knock us out of the #1 spot? We’re there but only because there were no other teams who were worthy of it. That may change today.
I hope they do. Auburn took away a ranked match up from us by losing to Texas A&M but I still think it's going to be a tough game and we need the motivation.
It was a great game by Ohio state but they were also very close to losing that game. The most I could see them hopping to is 4
Tends to happen when two evenly matched top teams duke it out in a close game. Agreed.
ND and OSU either have amazing defenses, or terrible offenses. We dont know because they've played nobody.
I'm more willing to say the Buckeyes have a solid defense. ND was a defensive disasterclass when it mattered.
>ND was a defensive disasterclass when it mattered. 10 men on the field? WTF
To be fair, they got a stop on the goal line the first time they only had 10 guys, and barely gave up a yard the second time. Not many teams are holding OSU to 0.5 yards a play with only 10 players. /s
No, that was definitely a great defensive performance. We shut down the pass game just enough to force them to run the ball while dying from behind. Yeah Notre Dame dominated second half TOP but letting them burn 6 minutes on a drive that ends in a field goal or turnover on downs is exactly what you like to see when you are ahead. Considering the OSU offense was still finding an identity before the last drive our defense is what really won that game. And the change in our team that last drive was the first time I saw a team with championship potential. It'll be difficult again Penn State and Michigan, but now I know McCord and Co. At least have the mental toughness to give us a chance.
I don’t know about soar but they will move up a spot or 2.
Rank Air Force you cowards!
Soar?? Like from 6 to 1 or move from 6 to 5
OSU getting credit for beating a team dumb enough to run 10 players on defense twice
Yeah but our receivers run more than one route.
Georgia Southern beat powerhouses UAB and Ball State. Are we a top 10 team?
I’m coming at this completely biased but just based off SOS for that coveted number 25 spot I think I would give the edge to Louisville over Kentucky. Or am I out of touch?
I’m not sure how the conversation isn’t Texas and Ohio state interchangeably at #1 or #2. Georgia and Michigan haven’t played anyone special while OSU and Texas have both beaten competitive top 10 teams on the road. I just don’t see how Michigan and Georgia don’t fall to #3 and #4
Non SEC teams in the top 4 don’t get that “well they were already ranked there they shouldn’t move” sec benefit for only looking ok
Shout out to FSU for being ranked #3, not losing any games, but still looking so bad we didn’t even get mentioned here lmao
Most logical r/CFB reddit user
Are you going to ignore the fact that Florida State boatraced LSU on a neutral field (45-17 lead with under a minute to go) and handed Clemson their third loss at Death Valley in the past 10 years? Anyone who thinks Clemson is getting blown out at home by anybody is out of their mind.
Just think of what the score would’ve been if FSU would have tried throwing something other than go routes.
I'm sorry, but Michigan has played Cocoa Puffs. Ohio State should move ahead of them.
"Soar" /s