Week 10 had the potential to be one of the more chaotic and disruptive weekends of the college football season, with seven ranked-on-ranked matchups. Naturally, five of those seven matchups were won by the favorite, and instead of a weekend resulting in chaos, it was a weekend of teams making statements.
It’s always the loaded slates that hardly ever meet expectations, and the weekends you least expect that deliver the goods.
No team sent a stronger statement on Saturday than the Georgia Bulldogs with their 42-7 dismantling of Ole Miss on the road, and they were rewarded with the No. 1 being added next to their name. The Dawgs and Rebels each threw for 186 yards in the game, but all was not equal on the ground, as Georgia dominated both lines of scrimmage and picked up 295 rushing yards compared to Ole Miss’ 66 yards on the ground.
Perhaps the biggest stunner from Week 10 is that AP voters finally got things right, at least for the most part.
Yes, they caught a break with the mostly chalk results and a lack of difficult decisions to make, but for as much as we love to pile it on when the poll is a disaster, we have to tip our cap on the rare occasion that the poll makes a lot of sense.
Georgia may have a loss, unlike the two unbeatens of Utah and UCLA, but there is no reality where someone could watch what the Bulldogs did to Ole Miss on Saturday night and not tab them as the No. 1 team in the country.
If anyone wants to waste energy arguing about how UCLA and Utah should both be ranked ahead of one-loss Notre Dame, they can have at it.
Just like there isn’t a world where Georgia shouldn’t be ranked No. 1, there also isn’t a world where voters were going to put both Utah and UCLA ahead of the Fighting Irish after they knocked off Miami.
Notre Dame couldn’t stay put at No. 4 after beating the team that the same voters had ranked No. 1 in the country one week ago. And no, it does not matter that Miami’s best player, Malachi Toney, did not play.
Is Alabama being ranked No. 7 and Tennessee being ranked No. 9 that big of a deal? No, none of this is with the College Football Playoff Rankings taking all precedence, but Vols fans have every right to be frustrated with the Tide being ranked ahead of them.
Alabama and Tennessee are both 7-2 on the season, and with the Volunteers beating the Crimson Tide by 16 points earlier this season, the ‘tiebreaker’ should go Tennessee’s way. On top of that, Tennessee dominated then No. 8 Kentucky 34-6 in Week 10.
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Alabama going to Baton Rouge and beating up on then No. 15 LSU on Saturday can’t and shouldn’t be ignored, but with Tennessee winning the head-to-head and having the more impressive win on paper, it doesn’t make much sense to have the Vols ranked behind the Tide this week.
Tennessee fans can also point a (small) finger at Texas in this situation as well. The Longhorns beat Tennessee in Knoxville, hence their ranking ahead of the Vols, and with voters having to rank these teams somewhere, Texas really not being able to fall anywhere other than No. 8 adds another wrinkle to the mess.
If we got into all the resumes, hypotheticals, and head-to-head matchups, we’d be here all day.
We pointed out last week that the Trojans were getting way too much love from the voters, moving up to the No. 18 spot after knocking off what we now know is a very mediocre Ohio State team.
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This week, USC was on a bye, and its signature win against the Buckeyes looks even worse with Ohio State losing to Oregon, yet the Trojans moved up three spots to No. 15 by simply not playing.
I’d say make it make sense, but it doesn’t. USC has one notable win against a now three-loss Buckeyes team and losses to Oregon and Wisconsin. That is not the resume of a Top 15 team in the country.
Actual reality will fall into place in Week 11 when the Trojans travel to Bloomington to take on No. 6 Indiana in a monster matchup.