This is going to bother some people, but I moved several teams down to the bottom of the top 25 (the last seven teams in fact) due to not having played much of anyone so far. If they beat someone decent, I’ll move them back up, so no need to make a big deal out of it. At this point, I don’t consider Arizona to be a good team, but if they start better than 1-4, I might give the teams who beat them more credit.

A couple of teams had a loss as their only quality opponent, but if the team didn’t look like it belonged, I’ve already moved it accordingly. I’d rather a team play with a top 10 team and lose than not play any top 100 teams (for instance) and be undefeated at this point.

On the other hand, fewer people are likely to complain about Boise St.

I am giving slightly less weight to margin of victory, but Texas is an exception because they so narrowly beat BYU at home and then Utah (a loser to USC) beat BYU so handily on the road Saturday, I didn’t think giving Texas credit for that as a quality win was appropriate. Also, BYU’s first game was a one-point win over Ole Miss, who got absolutely destroyed by Vanderbilt on Saturday.

So even though I ranked BYU in preseason, I feel like that has been proven wrong at this point.

rank / team / prior
1 LSU 1
2 Oklahoma 2
3 Alabama 3
4 Oregon 4
5 Florida St. 5
6 Boise St. 13
7 S Carolina 14
8 Nebraska 12
9 Florida 17
10 W Virginia 19

Full rankings

Full rankings

rank team prev.

1 Auburn 1

2 Oregon 3

3 Oklahoma 5

4 TCU 2

5 Ohio St. 4

6 Mich. St. 6

7 Boise St. 11

8 Arkansas 7

9 Stanford 9

10 LSU 10

11 Missouri 8

12 Wisconsin 12

13 Okie St. 13

14 Nevada 16

15 Texas A&M 15

Continue reading for 16-25 and bowl comments

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Rankings:

Full ratings site

1 Auburn 1

2 TCU 2

3 Oregon 4

4 LSU 3

5 Okie St. 6

6 Boise St. 7

7 Mich. St. 5

8 Ohio St. 9

9 Nebraska 8

10 Missouri 11

Continue reading entry

LSU/Alabama Rivalry:

LSU finally won a game easily today. I’m happy about that, but I’m still more excited that LSU beat Alabama last week, even though I just got around to posting this. That’s the big rivalry to me. This was initially two separate blog entries, so that’s why it’s so long.

Now, I know what you’re thinking–Alabama’s biggest rivals are Tennessee and Auburn. While this is true, LSU has had no such rivals in the conference since Tulane left after the 1965 season. LSU started playing Auburn and Arkansas consistently only when the SEC split into two divisions, which coincided with Arkansas’s joining the conference in 1992. (LSU and Arkansas did have a big rivalry before World War II.) Florida and LSU don’t have the same history insofar as battling for #1 in the conference as LSU and Alabama. LSU started playing Florida every year in 1971 and it wasn’t until 1983 that the Gators finished with fewer than 3 losses, and only once in that time period did they finish with 3. As for Ole Miss, that rivalry peaked in the 1960s–only twice since 1974 (1986 and 2003) have both teams finished with winning records in conference in the same season–and the Rebels have a natural rivalry with Miss St. anyway. I’ll start with series facts, transitioning into more narrative about the LSU/Alabama rivalry.

Continue reading entry

What has Veterans Day have to do with Sports??? Who bought a poor condition Honus Wagner Card?? When did a basketball game break out in College Football?? NFL in Europe?? Big East Expanding, say it ain’t so?? You can find it all out inside this edition of Rants and Raves.

It looks like the Big East is ready to expand its football conference to 10 teams. Some of the teams being mention are Villanova, TCU, Central Florida, Houston and Temple.

It might be better for the Big East to expand to 12 teams. Have 6 teams in each division and have a conference championship. Two logical choices are Villanova and Notre Dame. Villanova is a power in FBS football, and Notre Dame, even though they aren’t a powerhouse anymore, always draw a crowd wherever they go. But, the main thing is, the Big East doesn’t have to alter any other sports in the league because these two teams already participate in them. You can let Notre Dame continue to negotiate a separate football television contract, while the Big East can exclude the Irish in any football revenue generate by the Big East Network. Of course the Irish will still make way much more money in the deal, but they would be part of a conference and give bigger exposure to the Big East.

The next two teams in the conference (for all sports) could be TCU and Central Florida. Central Florida would give the Big East more access in the lucrative Florida football talent pool, plus it gives a natural rivalry with South Florida. Admitting TCU would give the Big East a top ten team and it gives TCU a yearly chance for a legitimate access to a bowl game.

With the addition of Notre Dame, TCU, Villanova and Central Florida the Big East gets greater access to the State of Florida (Central Florida) an up-and-coming powerhouse (Villanova) and instant credibility (Notre Dame and TCU).

Here is an update on the T-206 Honus Wagner card. Collector Doug Walton had the winning bid of $262,000 for the poor condition card. The card was laminated, each corner was cut and it had a crease in the middle of the card.

ESPN is breaking up “Sunday Night Baseball” announcing team. After 21 years together, Jon Miller and Joe Morgan will no longer be the voices of Sunday baseball. Both their contracts will not be renewed. While they worked well together for most of their time together, the broadcast started to get boring 4 years ago. The only request I have is not to hire Curt Schilling please.

If the NFL does well in Europe, NFL Commissioner, Roger Goodell would like to see a franchise in England. How it will go is, the NFL will increase the number of NFL games in England, then if attendance is good for these games, then they would put a team in England. My take for the name of the team would be “London Foggers.”

Usually you see a 67-65 Michigan win over Illinois in basketball. But in football!! Yikes!! But, that is what happen last Saturday in front of 105,000 people in Michigan. No Michigan football team ever scored 67 points. Wow, I find that hard to believe!! This is the type of game I personally like. It had 132 points and the teams combined for 1,237 yards of offensive.

As a veteran I just want to say to all who have served, and to those presently serving, in the Armed Forces, thanks for the sacrifices you have made to serve our great Country. 98% of all Americans just don’t know how much “REAL” freedom they have, and they take it for granted and even abuse it.

God Bless this Great Country!!

Pictures by: Big East Logo (Suathletics.syr.edu), Villanova Logo (Villanova website), TCU (TCU Website), Central Florida Logo (USF website), Notre Dame Logo (Notre Dame Website), Veteran (Vikki Blackwell), Honus Wagner T-206 (Honus-Wagner.Org), Michigan Logo (sportsposterwarehouse.com), Illinois Logo (sportsposterwarehouse.com), NFL Logo (midwestsportsfans.com)