Truthfully, after two weeks, we don’t know a lot. The teams at the top of the rankings have generally won two games they were supposed to win, and nothing has really separated them from each other. It’s the same teams we had at the end of last season, and will probably remain that way until a few key games are played later this year.
What we do know though mostly has to do with teams not doing well:
- UCLA, Tennessee and Miami are definitely not back
- Texas is still only sort of back, and definitely can’t claim to be DBU after getting scorched by Joe Burrow like that (Neither can LSU make that claim after getting scorched like that by Texas.)
- Michigan still has problems, but that OT win over Army looked eerily similar to Oklahoma’s last year, and they made the playoff. TTUN will be judged by ND, MSU, and OSU. Until Harbaugh actually beats them all, keep quiet.
- I’m not sure there is a “second-best” team in the ACC. It’s Clemson and, well, nothing. Pencil in the Tigers in the playoff at this point unless something shocking happens.
- Is USC now the best shot the PAC-12 has of making the playoff?
- A lot of teams with new offenses look shiny and amazing, but now that there’s a couple of weeks of film out there, teams will start to adjust to slow them down. Which ones can keep it up?
If I was ranking teams, I’d have Clemson #1, LSU #2, simply because they’ve accomplished the most. They’ve both beaten a ranked team, LSU did it on the road in a close game, Clemson at home, but in fairly dominating fashion. That’s not to say that I think LSU is better than Alabama, Oklahoma, Georgia or Ohio State, just that those teams haven’t really accomplished anything through two weeks. Those games are coming though. It’s a long season.
Barring a major upset, next week won’t really provide any answers either. But you never know.
Leave a Reply