BCS Rankings: Kansas State and Sliding Teams That Will Continue to Plummet

At this point of the season, there are very few phonies left in college football. Just about every team that we see as a contender has already encountered at least one test. You may not think that they are as good as another contender, but if they passed those tests, they aren't phonies.

Phony is a strong word, but sometimes it applies. It means different things for different teams. In some cases, it means that a team was once seen as at least a dark-horse national championship contender and got exposed, like Clemson.

Maybe it means that they were thought to be a BCS team but got exposed, like Notre Dame at the beginning of the year. 

It doesn't really mean that they are bad teams, but that they have been exposed. All of these teams were exposed recently and will continue to be exposed more this season. In other words, they are going to lose more.

Kansas State

Things sure can happen fast. Kansas State was in a tough game versus Oklahoma on Saturday. I literally got up, made a quick trip to the store that couldn't have lasted more than 15 minutes. When I got back, the game was a full-fledged blowout. 

It's not that the Wildcats 7-0 record came entirely against bad teams. That's not the case at all. But they are clearly not worthy of being in the same discussion as some of the best teams in the country. 

Their next three games are at Oklahoma State, at home vs. Texas A&M, and at Texas. That screams 1-2, if not worse. 

Michigan

Michigan has fluctuated a little between overrated and underrated this season. It tends to happen with big name schools. Everything they do is under a microscope. 

The Wolverines are capable of beating just about anyone in the country, but they lack consistency. Their last four games are at Iowa, at Illinois, and then at home vs. Nebraska and Ohio State. That run looks like a 2-2 to me. 

The 2011 season has been a good one for the Wolverines, but they are still a year or two away from being truly elite.

Texas

The Longhorns' 5-2 record is good, but it's hard to not notice the consecutive thrashings that they took against Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. I know that those are good teams, but those losses were rather convincing.

Texas closes the season against Texas Tech, at Missouri, vs. Kansas State, and then at Texas A&M and Baylor. 

Even if Texas is one of the two losses in the aforementioned 1-2 prediction for Kansas State, that's still a stretch that looks to surrender a loss or two.