RSSBot
News Junkie
(AP photo)
Highlights from the top-25 ballot with the AP rankings due out in a few moments …
*** Kept Alabama in the top spot for the third consecutive week. The Crimson Tide earned the position initially because of their strength of schedule and quality wins. The Tide’s resume hardly took a hit with the impressive performance against LSU. In fact, it’s now even better relative to the competition.
Clemson held the No. 2 position after beating Florida State for the Tigers’ second high-quality win of the year. (The only quibble: They got both Notre Dame and FSU at home.)
The Tide and Tigers clearly have the best resumes — it took me just a few seconds to slot them into the No. 1 and 2 holes.
That’s not to say they are necessarily the best teams, or the favorites to win the title. But they have the best results — teams like Ohio State and Baylor are woefully behind Bama and Clemson when it comes to SOS and quality wins.
*** LSU held onto the No. 3 spot despite the loss in Tuscaloosa, while Notre Dame jumped into the No. 4 position. The three-rung climb was the result of overall improvement in resume:
The Irish not only beat Pitt (6-2 entering the game), but Navy toppled Memphis. The Irish have now handed two teams their only loss of the season: Temple and Navy.
Add the wins over 6-3 Pitt and 6-3 USC and the two-point loss at Clemson, which continues to gain quality, and one could certainly make the case that UND has a top-four resume, if not a top-three.
*** Florida was unimpressive against Vanderbilt, and that was factored into the decision to drop the Gators (along with Notre Dame’s improved resume).
But the deeper we get into the season, the less weight any single result carries. They matter, but must be weighed against the sweep of the season. There are plenty of close calls from teams up and down the rankings, from Ohio State-NIU to Clemson-Louisville to Iowa-Illinois to I-could-go-on.
*** Ohio State moved up one spot, to No. 7, which is obviously much lower than the Buckeyes’ position in the AP or CFP rankings. They have hardly been dominant on a weekly basis (Northern Illinois, Indiana and Minnesota), and they have exactly one win over a Power 5 team with a winning record (Penn State).
Baylor has a similarly weak profile. In fact, it’s worse than OSU’s: The Bears don’t have a single, solitary victory over a FBS team — not Power 5, but FBS — with a winning record.
Removed from then ballot: Mississippi and Texas A&M.
Added to the ballot: Navy and Houston.
1. Alabama
2. Clemson
3. LSU
4. Notre Dame
5. Florida
6. Stanford
7. Ohio State
8. Oklahoma State
9. Michigan State
10. Baylor
11. Iowa
12. Utah
13. Michigan
14. Oklahoma
15. Florida State
16. Temple
17. UCLA
18. TCU
19. Navy
20. North Carolina
21. Memphis
22. Wisconsin
23. USC
24. Houston
25. BYU
xxxxxxx
* Follow me on Twitter: @WilnerHotline
* My e-book, “Andrew Luck: Inside the Making of a No. 1 Pick,” is available for $2.99 on Amazon for Kindles and for other devices (PCs, iPads and iPhones) with the free Kindle app.
* Download the Bay Area News Group’s new iPad app for more college sports and other news, or check out college sports coverage on MercuryNews.com.
The post My AP top-25 football ballot: Alabama remains No. 1, Clemson is close behind, Notre Dame and Oklahoma State rise appeared first on College Hotline.
Continue reading...
by Jon Wilner