Week 5 Rankings

October 4, 2009

After 5 great weeks of college football, I've now seen almost every one of the upper-tier teams in the country play live. Thousands of highlights I've seen don't compare to the 57 live games I've watched.

This week didn't include the most thriling games, but teams like Notre Dame and Michigan were pushed to the edge and taken to overtime. One survived, one did not. Michigan lost on Tate Forcier's interception thrown in overtime while Notre Dame beat Washington.

Two major upsets happened: No. 8 Oklahoma lost (which was expected, from me anyway) and No. 12 Houston was shocked by UTEP in a 58-41 loss. This is the same Houston defense that limited prolific offenses like Oklahoma State to 35 points and Texas Tech to 28 points and this is the same UTEP offense that gained under 100 yards total on offense in a 64-7 loss to Texas in Week 4. This was just a case of being a "trap game" we always like to talk about because Houston obviously was not focused and got caught looking ahead to next week's big matchup at Mississippi State. Houston QB Case Keenum put on a show as usual, however, doing all that he could in completed 51 of 76 passes for 536 yards and 5 touchdowns. His defense just let him down.

And it wasn't a good day for the ACC. North Carolina was embarrassed by Virginia and the same for Clemson. Clemson lost to a Maryland team that has been horrible this year, but like I said in my Week 5 preview note, Clemson doesn't really show up to play unless they're on national tv. They didn't show up today in losing to Maryland 24-21. The really sad thing was though that North Carolina actually made Virginia look like a football team.

Four more undefeated teams lost this weekend so now there are 13 that remain of the 119 FBS teams in the country.

The official college football rankings: The AP Poll, Coaches' Poll, and Harris Poll will be released on Sunday and added to this note for those who'd like to compare rankings to mine.

Now, since the professionals always seem to get it wrong, here's my Top 25, the way it should be.
in parentheses is where I ranked them last week
1. Florida (1)
Did not have a game
2. TEXAS (2)
Did not have a game
3. Alabama (3)
Won 38-20 over Kentucky
4. USC (4)
Won 30-3 over No. 24 California
5. LSU (8)
Won 20-13 over No. 18 Georgia
6. Boise State (6)
Won 34-16 over UC-Davis
7. Virginia Tech (7)
Won 34-26 over Duke
8. Ohio State (5)
Won 33-14 over Indiana
9. Cincinnati (10)
Won 37-13 over Miami (OH)
10. TCU (12)
Won 39-14 over Southern Methodist
11. Miami (18)
Won 21-20 over No. 8 Oklahoma
12. Oklahoma State (13)
Did not have a game
13. Iowa (15)
Won 24-21 over Arkansas State
14. Kansas (16)
Did not have a game
15. Ole Miss (14)
Won 23-7 over Vanderbilt
16. Oregon (17)
Won 52-6 over Washington State
17. Penn State (20)
Won 35-17 over Illinois
18. Brigham Young (24)
Won 35-17 over Utah State
19. Auburn (NR)
Won 26-22 over Tennessee
20. Oklahoma (9)
Lost 21-20 to No. 17 Miami
21. South Florida (NR)
Won 34-20 over Syracuse
22. Missouri (21)
Did not have a game
23. Georgia (22)
Lost 20-13 to No. 4 LSU
24. Houston (11)
Lost 58-41 to UTEP
25. Wisconsin (NR)
Won 31-28 over Minnesota

Dropped from the Rankings:
California (19)...lost 30-3 to No. 7 USC
Michigan (23)...lost 26-20 to Michigan State in overtime
Nebraska (25)...did not have a game, so for this week I'll let some of the undefeated teams out there (South Florida, Auburn, Wisconsin) crack the rankings. Nebraska should work their way back in next week.

On the Bubble:
Nebraska, Georgia Tech, South Caroilna, Utah, Pittsburgh, West Virginia, Boston College, Notre Dame, Stanford, UCLA, Arizona.