The College Football Stock Market, Week 5: Who You Should Buy and Sell

The College Football Stock Market took a hit this weekend as nine ranked teams, some National Title hopefuls, lost, six of them coming to teams that weren't ranked. You might call it the "Black Saturday of College Football." Through all of this you must be wondering who's stock you should buy and who's you should sell well consider me the "College Football Stock Broker", I'll help you sort through it.

Buy

Ball State

Ball State is probably the most underrated team in college football right now. They have tremendous talent on offense, their defense is getting a lot better, but when you can put up over 40 points a game your defense doesn't have to be that stellar.

The great thing about this team is they are consistent, not flip-flopping from game to game, they come to play every game and that has showed as they are going into this weekend undefeated. Another thing is, last week they lost their star receiver, Dante Love, and instead of showing the holes in the offense without him, they came out this weekend and throttled Kent State. With Nate Davis, the quarterback, the helm Ball State can make a lot of noise if this year continues to play out like it has been. You should definitely buy their stock.

The Big XII

Which is stronger, Big XII or SEC? Big XII by far.

The depth in this conference is simply astounding, six of the twelve teams are ranked in the AP Top 25, with Oklahoma, Missouri, and Texas in the top five. What really separates this conference from the others is their quarterbacks, but that can be misleading. Daniel, Bradford and Reesing have been the big names so far this season but every team has a solid quarterback that leads the team.

Perhaps the most underrated quarterback of the bunch is Zac Robinson from Oklahoma State who has some of the best skill position talent around him. Another quarterback often overlooked is Iowa State's Austen Arnaud who is a great quarterback, and a very accurate passer.

Overall, the quarterback play in this league is what has them on top and, if they can keep performing like they have been, the Big XII will have at least two quarterbacks in New York at the end of the season. Now is a great time to buy the Big XII stock.

Ole Miss

This weekend they broke a streak of nine, that's right nine, straight SEC losses by beating Florida, in the Swamp.

Houston Nutt has obviously gotten things going in the right direction for the Rebels, especially with the "Wild Rebel" formation with wide receiver Dexter McCluster lining up at quarterback, like Nutt did with McFadden at Arkansas.

They also have a great quarterback in Jevan Snead. If he can cut down his interception to touchdown ratio, right now its at 8-8, this team can create some chaos in the SEC. However the best thing about this team is that over 50 percent of the team is underclassmen, 41 freshman and 25 sophomores compared to 30 juniors and only 19 seniors, this makes the future look very bright in Oxford.

They may not completely change things for you this year, but keep them in your back pocket, they may be a sleeper.

Sell

The Poll System

The poll system that we have today is flawed. It creates too many opportunities for subjectivity among the poll voters. Look at the recent poll and you can see a trend of subjectivity in favor of some teams and the opposite for others.

Take for instance USC, who lost to Oregon State on Thursday night. The game wasn't as close as the score proved. Oregon State was in control of that game from start to finish, yet they only drop eight spots putting them at No. 9.

Seeing how far other teams such as Florida and Georgia dropped it is apparent that USC should have fell farther. On the other end Ohio State got jumped by Auburn, after Auburn beat Tennessee by two whole points! How does this make sense?

It is obvious that poll voters are being subjective against Ohio State. While it does make sense why they wouldn't move Ohio State up, they still can't have them get jumped by an Auburn team that beat a very weak Tennessee team by two points.

These are simply a few examples of how the polls have shown subjectivity in the past few years, it is apparent that the AP Poll has become a beauty contest so you should sell them and fast.

USC

This is not the greatest team ever. USC looked mediocre at best on Thursday night against a struggling Oregon State team. Although they didn't play well it is a fact that USC never matches up well with the Beavers and they exploited those mismatches on Thursday night.

USC will most likely run the table, raising their stock, but due to the depth and toughness of both the SEC and of the Big XII, USC will have to hope that everyone and their cousin shows up to play those top tier teams in both of those conferences or them to have a shot at getting back into the title game. 

The lack of strength in the Pac-10 is the reason you should sell them, not because they are bad, but because everyone around them is mediocre.

Knowshon Moreno for Heisman:

Up until Saturday night Knowshon was the front-runner for the Heisman Trophy, and up until Saturday, Georgia had cruised passed easy opponents. Then he hit the Alabama defense. The Tide's defense was like a black hole, sucking up whatever came their way. This wasn't good for Moreno's Heisman candidacy.

A Heisman candidate is supposed to lead the team through the games and win the big games, or show that he did everything in his power to help them win the big games, and Knowshon didn't do that Saturday night against the Crimson Tide.

He ran nine times for a measly 34 yards and one touchdown, compared to his over 100 yard average coming into the game. Knowshon may still be able to win the Heisman, but to do so he must show he can show up to play when his team doesn't, for that you should sell his stock.  

Five Teams with the Highest Stock After Week 5:

1. Alabama

2. Penn State

3. Oklahoma

4. BYU

5. Missouri

Five Teams with the Lowest Stock After Week 5:

1. Georgia

2. Florida

3. USC

4. Wisconsin

5. Ohio State

Thanks for reading this week's stock report hope you tune in next week, and check out last week's report.