Midseason College Football Jump-Ups, Meltdowns and Poll Landings

As we approach the official midway point of the college football season, there are certain things we can count on, and beyond the obvious—excitement every time Brent Musburger says, “You are looking live…” or excitement every time Musburger tips his hand as to who he would (theoretically) take with the points—an annual rite has always been watching teams come from nowhere down the last straightaway of late October and November to jump into national relevance and watching teams free-fall for whatever reason (scheduling, injuries, scooter incidents, etc.).

With the Week 7 slate upon us, now seems like as good a time as any to attempt to separate the growers from the faders.

Jump-Ups

1. Florida

You laugh and that’s probably justified. Get it all out. Really.

The Gators have lost convincingly in consecutive weeks to the two best teams in the country, aren’t even sure if they have a quarterback and aren’t even ranked as you sit and read this very piece, but after this weekend’s tilt against an underwhelming Auburn team (all Michael Dyer apologies mandatory), the forever-staring Will Muschamp should be able to assemble a suitable enough game plan to compete with as much (or more) talent as the remaining teams on his schedule.

Georgia, South Carolina and Florida State all have glaring weaknesses (inconsistency, the lot of ‘em), and the Gators are good enough in situations with fast players covering short fields that Muschamp's weird stare could become a weird, happy stare come December. Poll Peak: 13

 2. Illinois

Sure, the Illini have Michigan and Wisconsin left on their schedule, but road-wise, they’re Big Ten schedule is Indiana (already won), Purdue, Penn State and Minnesota.

Even though I always temper any Illinois optimism by focusing intently on a picture of Ron Zook for a prolonged period of time, I’m positive Illinois’s D is better than the 67 points they gave up to Michigan last fall in Ann Arbor.

Also, I’m positive Russell Wilson won’t care about a football game longer than he will, when Wisconsin travels to Champaign in late November. Poll Peak: 8

3. Arizona State

I’m not even sure if Arizona State is good or not, but they’ve gone 5-1 going through the meat of their non-Oregon (this week) portion of their schedule and miss Stanford entirely, at least until a potential conference title game.

The lack of defensive depth is still a concern, but it certainly helps that after Oregon, Dennis Erickson and his crooked ASU visor get Nobody U and Who State. Double-digit wins appear to be realistic, even if the Sun Devils aren’t that good, whatever that means. Poll Peak: 9

4. Houston

Putting up offensive yardage totals that are starting to consistently resemble (good) credit scores and staring at the likes Marshall, Tulane and Rice before below-average showdowns against SMU and Tulsa feels like a recipe for more and more people to say to themselves, “Hey, what about Houston?” in late November. Poll Peak: 11

Meltdowns

1. Michigan

I’d really like to believe in you, Michigan. Really, I would. Unfortunately, evidence of Denard Robinson’s existence, both overwhelmingly positive and decidedly negative, is accessible with relative ease, and coincidentally as are most of his deeper passes to most eager defensive backs going forward.

At the heart of the maize and blue is that we’ve seen very little in the way of Michigan playing able defenses outside of Notre Dame, and I even say that loosely. October and November, outside of a probable Purdue quashing, has the appearance (at Michigan State, at Illinois, Nebraska, Ohio State) of a completely different sport for Michigan. Poll Landing: 20

2. West Virginia

The Mountaineers are easy to look at and imagine as a team that finishes the year in a similar place to where they are now (top 15), but road games at surprisingly solid Rutgers and a shootout certainty at Cincinnati could very easily derail Dana Holgorsen’s ability to lay next to a soon-to-be limited edition Big East championship trophy. Poor, poor Skullet. Poll Landing: 21

3. Texas A&M

At this point, “Those running backs sure are pretty good!” isn’t nearly a convincing enough refrain to make me believe the Aggies are any better than a team simply able to jump out to leads or stay with more complete Big 12 squads.

The secondary has been abysmal against (admittedly) good to very good quarterbacks in Tyler Wilson, Brandon Weeden and Seth Doege, and they still have the robotic RGIII, the versatile James Franklin, and the formerly mustachioed Landry Jones left. Not cool, you guys. Mike Sherman’s seat could see a drastic temperature surge come December. Poll Landing: NR

4. Georgia Tech

Though I particularly enjoy watching both the Yellow Jackets and Paul Johnson’s wonderfully emotionless existence, my suspicion is that the little we know about Tech is confined to home success against the easy part of their schedule.

Miami’s front handled QB Tevin Washington as a new starter in Atlanta last year (this season: at Miami Oct. 22) and GT, then gets Clemson and Virginia Tech in consecutive weeks. If come November 10, they even take two of three, I’ll be genuinely surprised/happy to see more wonderfully emotionless pacing. Poll Landing: 23

Week 7 Picks

Yes, I’m familiar with how many road favorites I’m taking. I’m not proud. This is why you should use these for entertainment purposes.

USC -3 @ Cal

South Carolina -2.5 @ Mississippi State

Wisconsin –(Whatever) vs Indiana

Baylor +9.5 @ Texas A&M

Michigan St -1.5 vs Michigan

LSU -16 @ Tennessee

Illinois -4 vs Ohio State

Oklahoma St -8 @ Texas

Virginia +7.5 vs Georgia Tech

Alabama –(Whatever) @ Ole Miss

Virginia Tech -7 @ Wake Forest

Oregon -16 vs Arizona St

Kansas St +3 @ Texas Tech

Clemson -8.5 @ Maryland

Georgia -11 @ Vanderbilt

Stanford -21 @ Washington State

Dan Rubenstein co-hosts The Solid Verbal college football podcast and can be followed on Twitter here.