NCAA Football Rankings 2014: Predicting the Top 25 After Week 6
Week 6 looked like the best week of the season on paper.
We didn't even know the half of it.
Four of the top six and five of the top eight teams in last week's Associated Press Poll went down in the span of three evenings, and that was just the tip of the iceberg. Upsets on Thursday, Friday and Saturday bled all the way into Sunday morning, and when finally the weekend was over, 11 of the top 19 teams in college football had lost.
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So...what does that mean for next week's AP poll? Anarchy, mostly, to be honest. Predicting how it shapes up will not be easy, although Martin Rickman of SI.com gave it the old college try Saturday night:
Here is my own ill-fated attempt:
| 1. Florida State | 5-0 | 1 | def. Wake Forest, 43-3 |
| 2. Auburn | 5-0 | 5 | def. LSU, 41-7 |
| 3. Baylor | 5-0 | 7 | def. Texas, 28-7 |
| 4. Ole Miss | 5-0 | 11 | def. Alabama, 23-17 |
| 5. Mississippi State | 5-0 | 12 | def. Texas A&M, 48-31 |
| 6. Notre Dame | 5-0 | 9 | def. Stanford, 17-14 |
| 7. Michigan State | 4-1 | 10 | def. Nebraska, 27-22 |
| 8. Alabama | 4-1 | 3 | loss to Ole Miss, 23-17 |
| 9. Oklahoma | 4-1 | 4 | loss to TCU, 37-33 |
| 10. Oregon | 4-1 | 2 | loss to Arizona, 31-24 |
| 11. Georgia | 4-1 | 13 | def. Vanderbilt, 44-17 |
| 12. TCU | 4-0 | 25 | def. Oklahoma, 37-33 |
| 13. Arizona | 5-0 | NR | def. Oregon, 31-24 |
| 14. Texas A&M | 4-1 | 6 | loss to Mississippi State, 48-31 |
| 15. Ohio State | 4-1 | 20 | def. Maryland, 52-24 |
| 16. Oklahoma State | 4-1 | 21 | def. Iowa State, 37-20 |
| 17. East Carolina | 4-1 | 22 | def. SMU, 45-24 |
| 18. Kansas State | 4-1 | 23 | def. Texas Tech, 45-13 |
| 19. UCLA | 4-1 | 8 | loss to Utah, 30-28 |
| 20. Stanford | 3-2 | 14 | loss to Notre Dame, 17-14 |
| 21. Nebraska | 5-1 | 19 | loss to Michigan State, 27-22 |
| 22. Missouri | 4-1 | 24 | BYE |
| 23. Clemson | 3-2 | NR | def. NC State, 41-0 |
| 24. Georgia Tech | 5-0 | NR | def. Miami, 28-17 |
| 25. Marshall | 5-0 | NR | def. Old Dominion, 56-14 |
Rankings reflect a prediction of the Week 7 AP poll—not how the author would rank the teams himself.
Fun Fact
You like entropy? Good. Because #TeamChaos was in full effect during Week 6. Per Brett McMurphy of ESPN.com, this was the first week since November 1990 that four of the top six teams in the AP poll have lost. The major shake-up above reflects that.
Biggest Risers
Arizona
Arizona's undefeated record looked fraudulent before the week. It struggled to beat UTSA and Nevada and needed a Hail Mary to beat Cal. There were reasons to believe it would regress to the mean.
It didn't.
Rich Rodriguez called a masterpiece of a game at Oregon Thursday night, kicking off the wild week with an upset of the No. 2 team in the country. His offense was efficient (if not underwhelming), and his defense took advantage of a beat-up line to play its best game of the year.
The latter point is of particular importance. Nobody will ever confuse the Wildcats with a defensive juggernaut, but they have just enough playmakers to make things happen. Inside linebacker Scooby Wright, who stripped quarterback Marcus Mariota in the fourth quarter to seal the win, stands out as an All-Pac-12-type talent.
TCU
TCU looked great on paper heading into Week 5, enough so that it crept into the back end of the AP poll. But its best opponent—by far—was Minnesota, which was decent cause for skepticism.
How good might this team really be?
We found out the answer on Saturday, when the Horned Frogs beat Oklahoma, 37-33, in a wild game on their home field. Gary Patterson's team had been knocking on the door of a huge win since joining the Big 12 two seasons ago but only now got over the hump.
"Finally, after two years, the football gods...we finally got a little luck," Patterson said after the game, per Jake Trotter of ESPN.com. But it wasn't just luck that got TCU into the winner's circle.
This revamped offense does not look like a fluke.
Mississippi State
Mississippi State made a big jump after beating LSU, going from unranked to the middle of the poll.
It took the next step Saturday night.
Dan Mullen's Bulldogs were even better against Texas A&M than they were in Baton Rouge, bouncing back from an early touchdown to score 48 of the next 58 points. Dak Prescott had another Heisman performance, and the defense stymied Kenny Hill and the Aggies offense. Especially up front, Mississippi State's defense looked legit.
The whole team did.
Biggest Fallers
BYU
BYU's playoff chances turned into a pumpkin when Taysom Hill fractured his leg against Utah State.
The home loss to the Aggies meant the Cougars dropped out of the AP rankings. The loss of Hill means they probably won't climb back in.
It's tough to say what might have happened had Hill not gone down in the late second quarter of Friday's game, but BYU was losing on its home field even with its star QB in the lineup. Hill or no Hill, a defense that allows Utah State, sans Chuckie Keeton, to score 24 first-half points never belonged in the College Football Playoff discussion to begin with.
Wisconsin
Wisconsin scored 14 points in a loss at Northwestern despite 259 rushing yards on 27 carries by running back Melvin Gordon.
How is that even possible?
The answer lies with the quarterback position. Tanner McEvoy was as bad as he's been all season, leading to a quick hook and the insertion of former starter Joel Stave. He...did not fare particularly well. Stave's three interceptions sunk the Badgers more than anything in Evanston.
At some point, one has to wonder if true freshman D.J. Gillins should burn his redshirt and step into the lineup. That seems like a Hail Mary—especially after Nebraska's loss at Michigan State preserved Wisconsin's good standing in the Big Ten West—but grooming a new quarterback is the most important thing this team can do for the future.
Gordon won't be around to bail it out for long.
LSU
Might LSU be the worst team in the SEC West?
(And if so, is hell starting to get chilly?)
Les Miles' Tigers were throttled for 60 minutes at Auburn, allowing 566 total yards in a 41-7 loss. It was as hapless as this team has looked since before the Nick Saban era, and that includes the similarly hapless showing against Mississippi State a few weeks ago.
Worse yet, the Tigers' one quality win this season looks a lot worse after Wisconsin lost to Northwestern (see above).
Stomaching a down year will be difficult for LSU fans, who have grown accustomed to a certain standard of dominance. But the future still looks bright. It's unreasonable to expect a national title contender from a program that has lost so much to the NFL the past two seasons and is starting so many true freshmen on offense.
LSU will be back, and it won't be long before it gets there.
But things are going to get worse before they get better.
