CGB Top 25 - Week 6

If I were in charge of the polls, I think week six is about where I'd have them start.  Previous weeks have felt a bit like a sham, making lots of educated (or uneducated) guesses as to who was good and who was not.  Even now, it's difficult, but I no longer feel like I'm throwing darts here.  Well, with the top half of the poll, at least.  In making my own Top 25 this week, I got out a list of about 19-20 teams, and then stalled.  Team after team I considered, and they all either had no good wins or multiple bad losses to balance the good wins they had.  Heck, I ended up voting for Kansas, despite watching them struggle to put away Iowa State in a game that was long on botched extra points and short on defense, simply because, yes, they're still undefeated, one of just nine still standing.

Anyway, here's what we've come up with.  Go here to vote for your own CGB Top 25 for Week 6!

Rank	Team	Delta
1	Alabama
2	Florida	2
3	Virginia Tech	2
4	Boise State	2
5	Cincinnati	1

Boise State falls a couple spots this week, and I suspect you'll be seeing more of that in the coming weeks as teams continue to pile up more impressive wins than the Broncos' sorry schedule affords.  Florida passes them by beating LSU on the road, and even Virginia Tech, who defeated Miami a couple weeks ago, has a better résumé.

6	Texas	3
7	Southern Cal	1
8	TCU	5
9	Iowa	5
10	LSU	3

Texas' best win this year is still over Texas Tech.  If they're actually Top 5 material, they'll eventually pile up some impressive wins within the Big XII, but for now, they have to sit behind teams with more impressive scalps.  TCU and Iowa remain undefeated, though Iowa had to hold on vs. Michigan to remain so.  The Hawkeye's wins (Michigan, Arizona, @ Penn State) are by now good enough that it's plausible to overlook their opening-week scare vs. Northern Iowa.  Meanwhile, there's no shame in losing to Florida, even at home, so while LSU drops three spots, it's mostly to be passed by undefeated teams.

11	Miami (Florida)	2
12	Ohio State	1
13	Oregon	1
14	Nebraska	5
15	Georgia Tech	5

After Oregon, there's a big points drop-off in our poll; the Ducks garnered 45 points (votes for 10th, 11th, and 12th place), whereas Nebraska, ostensibly right behind them, gained just 31 points (14th, 15th, and 18th place votes).  Right now, I do believe the gap between them to be that large.  Mainly, though, we start getting into the portion of the poll where there's a whole lot of disagreement.  At least the Huskers beat Missouri on Thursday night, because beyond that, only their close loss to Virginia Tech is worth recommending them -- an non-conference slate of Florida Atlantic, Arkansas State, and Louisiana-Lafayette hardly proves anything, other than they're not completely terrible.

16	South Florida	1
17	Brigham Young	5
18	Penn State	3
19	Wisconsin	2
20	Kansas	5

If the disagreement between Yellow Fever, Avinash and I was evident before, it's even worse lower down in the poll.  Not a single team past No. 18 Penn State was even voted for by all three of us (and I really didn't want to vote for the Nittany Lions, but there just wasn't anyone else.  And if you thought Nebraska's non-conference schedule lacked punch, it sounds downright meaty when compared to Kansas' cupcake schedule of I-AA Northern Colorado, UTEP, Duke, and Southern Miss, none of whom currently have a winning record.

21	Oklahoma
22	South Carolina	1
23	Oklahoma State
24	Auburn	14
25	Arkansas
Last week's ballot

Here, we picked some teams.  You might pick different ones.  We could argue over which ones to pick, but it doesn't really matter.  None of these teams have demonstrated much at all; Oklahoma's 3-2 record at this point is due to wins over I-AA Idaho State, Tulsa, and Baylor.  Woo.  And after Auburn lost by 19 at Arkansas, they're lucky to still be ranked.

Dropped Out: Stanford (#16), Missouri (#18), Georgia (#24).

Stanfurd, Missouri and Georgia were not so lucky.  All lost, all by multiple scores.  I'm still a little ashamed we voted for Stanfurd last week.