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It pays to be a big, public, Texas university, apparently.
Despite the two “flagship” schools of the Lone Star State dropping their first big tests of the season, neither fell out of the top 15 in the third edition of SB Nation’s FanPulse Fan Poll.
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Now, there’s certainly no shame to losing to a program like LSU - though giving up one billion passing yards to Joe Burrow is questionable - and losing to #1 Clemson on the road is almost a given at this point. But, despite the (relatively) close results in the two biggest games of the weekend, should either the Longhorn or Aggie fan bases feel all that great about where their team is? Sure, Texas put a ton of points on the board against a vaunted SEC defense - but when they were trying to get stops? Yikes. And never mind the fact that they could score from inside the five yard line - twice. For A&M, Kellen Mond looked like he had taken several steps backwards and the Aggie O couldn’t get anything going until well into garbage time. The defense did a nice job against Trevor Lawrence, who looked almost average for the second week in a row.
TCU fans voted their nemesis in Austin as the tenth best team in the country, dropped A&M to 15th, and kept Baylor out - while voting the Horned Frogs 24th overall. Frog fans also gave a slight nod to Iowa over Iowa State (20 and 21, respectively) ahead of the in-state rivals GameDay showdown in Ames this weekend. TCU voters were also slightly down on Oklahoma compared to the rest of the country, ranking the Sooners fifth heading into week three.
Other notable results were Texas Tech fans ranking Stanford 25th while leaving USC out completely, despite the Trojans hammering the Cardinal Saturday night. The Aggies did the same, while also (shockingly) failing to rank the Longhorns. They kept their team at 12. Texas was fair in their rankings compared to the national vote, with the Horns coming in tenth in their poll and the Aggies slightly behind them at 14. Baylor fans think their Bears should be in, placing them at 23rd.
Remember, it’s not too late to sign up to be a part of the weekly poll. Each team site counts as one vote, so be sure to get your’s in weekly. You can sign up HERE if you haven’t already!