Week 7 Football AP Poll: Keep Climbing

The TCU Horned Frogs continue to rise in the national rankings, jumping up to ### in the AP Poll following a thrilling 38-31 victory over the Kansas Jayhawks, with the national spotlight of College GameDay on-site. In Week 6, just only six ranked teams took a loss, three of which came to other ranked teams. Those ranked versus unranked results: BYU losing to Notre Dame in Las Vegas, Washington falling to Arizona State in Tempe, and Will Levis-less Kentucky’s home loss to South Carolina. Texas returned to the poll at #22 after its shutout of the reeling Oklahoma Sooners; Illinois makes its debut in the ranking at #24 with its 5-1 start after defeating Iowa by a FG; James Madison joins the rankings as it remains undefeated in its first FBS season.

Most Overrated

#22 Kentucky - We discussed Utah last week and they went out and lost again and are still in the Top 20 despite 2-losses and no good wins. But we can take a similar view of the Wildcats this week. Kentucky does sport an allegedly good win, in Gainesville over the 2-loss Gators (better than can be said of Utah, but I digress), but the other wins are over FCS and sub-100 SP+ MAC teams. Pair that with a “good loss” at Ole Miss and a home loss to South Carolina. The ‘Cats may be a solid team and bounce back with huge wins over Mississippi State and Tennessee in the coming weeks; great, rank them at that time. Until then, how can any voter rank them as high as #13?

Most Underrated

#28 Coastal Carolina - The Chanticleers are the Upset Girlfriend in the Distracted Boyfriend meme, the media and AP voters are the Distracted Boyfriend, and the Girl in the Red Dress is James Madison. Even though they aren’t eligible for the postseason, the Dukes are the new impressive G5 darling, jumping into the Top 25 fresh from the FCS. Coastal is no longer getting that love, despite basically having equivalent or better resume as JMU to date. I sincerely hope both remain undefeated until their showdown to end the season with some fireworks.

Spotlight Voter

Chuck Landon (@chuckonsports), Huntington, WV - I thought this might be the week that I jump on Jon Wilner’s weekly atrocity of a ballot, which he seems to maintain simply as a way to troll all of College Football. But then I saw what we got from Mr. Landon. Landon has undefeated UCLA ranked hilariously low at #16 - 5 spots below the 2-loss Utes team the Bruins just knocked off. He has Florida ranked hilariously high at #19. But his masterpiece of nonsense on this ballot: Landon ranks TCU #15 - “hey that’s not that far off, pretty solid actually” - yes, except he has Kansas at #14, the team the Frogs just defeated in Lawrence. “But the starting QB went out at halftime, the game shouldn’t count.” Mr. Landon, did you see how the starting QB was performing? Did you see how the backup performed? You think that excuses the loss on their home field? C’mon.

TCU Status

The Horned Frogs moved up four spots in the AP Poll to #13 with the road win over #19 Kansas. TCU moved ahead of BYU, Kentucky, and Utah (each picking up their 2nd loss) and a pair of ACC teams whose only loss is to Clemson, while getting leapt by UCLA following a 2nd consecutive impressive home Bruin win. TCU will welcome #8 Oklahoma State to Amon G. Carter Stadium this week. The Pokes dropped a spot with the close win over Texas Tech, getting jumped by Tennessee. In the Coaches Poll, TCU climbed three spots to #15 while OK State held at #7.

Big 12 (+4) Votes

• #8 Oklahoma State - The Cowboys drop a spot after surviving a furious effort from Texas Tech before massive showdown in Fort Worth on Saturday.
• #13 TCU - Light of faith, follow through. Praise to Thee
• #17 Kansas State - ‘Cats jump 3 spots by sneaking out a road win in Ames
• #19 Kansas - Jayhawks hold firm at this spot, obviously respecting the “quality loss” that is dropping a game to TCU.
• #21 Cincinnati - Bearcats climb three spots despite barely escaping a not good USF team.
• #22 Texas - Quinn Ewers is back and Texas is back...in the Top 25
• #27 Baylor - Bears got a bye week ahead of a tricky weekday trip to Morgantown
• #28 BYU - Cougs ran out of luck in Vegas against the Irish; next is a home game against Arkansas where a win likely jumps them back into the Top 25 but a loss may fully remove it from the voter roll.