College Football Rankings: Virginia Tech and Teams That Are Ranked Too High

Every year in college football, teams' rankings are inflated due to ease of schedule or ongoing win streaks. The real value of the team is lost within the polls.

Some teams get underranked, other teams overranked, but the constant with rankings is that it is an imperfect system. We use them to project who the best teams are, but a loss from any team could drop it well below its value and vault a team worse than it into a higher ranking.

It's how the college sports world turns.

It happens in basketball, and it happens in football. Overranking and underranking teams is just a way of the world.

Here are some teams who are overranked in the latest USA Today polls.

West Virginia, No. 23

This is a team that got trounced by Syracuse and followed that loss up two games later with a loss to Louisville.

The Big East should not have a single team in the Top 25, regardless of whether West Virginia is the best in the conference or not.

The conference itself is easy, and the Mountaineers' only prime-time opponent, LSU, thrashed them by 20-plus points on national television.

This is a very good football team who might get a BCS bowl game, but know that there are easily 25 teams that are better than West Virginia in college football this season.

Southern Miss, No. 20

No team who has not played a Top-25 team or has lost to Marshall should be in the Top 20. 

I don't care what the winning streak is, and I don't care how much they've embarrassed the weak teams they play. The Southern Miss Golden Eagles have yet to prove anything this season and are awarded with a ranking that makes them seem as if they are one of the more dominant teams in the nation.

Being ranked No. 20 means they are better than the likes of Georgia Tech and Penn State.

To be honest, Southern Miss would be lucky to even hang around with those teams for three quarters.

Nebraska, No. 16

Nebraska is definitely a Top-25 football team; I just think that a more accurate ranking would be hovering a spot or two around No. 20.

Keep in mind, the Cornhuskers lost to a feisty Northwestern team that they should have easily beaten, and their win against Penn State should not be taken too heavily.

It doesn't seem particularly hard to beat a team that is in the midst of the worst controversy in the history of the school. Nebraska found a team in shambles and slipped away with a 17-14 victory.

It was a good win, but the Cornhuskers' increase in ranking may have been too much.

No. 19 in the polls last week was the perfect ranking because, to be honest, I think you'd be hard pressed to name 19 teams better than the Nebraska Cornhuskers.

Boise State, No. 11

I'm going to get heat for this one, especially considering Boise State slaughtered UGA earlier this season.

Still, I don't think this Boise State team is the No. 11 team in the country.

In fact, I have no idea where the Broncos should be ranked. I know they aren't in the Top Eight or so, but this team could be anywhere from No. 9 to No. 20. 

They'll always receive a good ranking because they are a consistent one-loss-per-season team.

Their schedule is too easy to play in the national championship game, but the Broncos' ranking is hard to pinpoint, so for that, they are both over and underranked.

Virginia Tech, No. 7

Under no circumstance will I be convinced that Virginia Tech is not overrated.

This team should have lost to Duke but narrowly escaped with a 14-10 win. This team was absolutely embarrassed at home by the Clemson Tigers, and it just evaded an upset bid by Eastern Carolina.

I'm all for winning some ugly games, but the eye test means something.

This is a Top-20 football team, but nothing more. The Hokies' win over Georgia Tech was certainly impressive, as was their gutsy win against Miami.

But those aren't world-class wins, and they've been way too close to some world-class losses for the Hokies to be No. 7 in the polls.