Week 9 AP Football Poll: Frogs at 7

Week 8 was another headliner week with many ranked-on-ranked games and thrillers across the day. Only two teams dropped out of the rankings from last week: Texas with its loss in Stillwater and Mississippi State after running into Angry Bama. Those two were replaced in the rankings by LSU, which jumped all the way up to 18th thanks to a win over Ole Miss, and South Carolina sneaking in at #25 by handing Texas A&M its fourth loss.

Most Overrated

#13 Penn State - If the name in front of the Nittany Lions’ resume was Cincinnati or Tulane, Penn State would probably not even be ranked. In its one game of consequence thus far, PSU got annihilated by Michigan and there are no high quality wins. Its best win is probably on the road over a 3-4 Auburn team that can’t wait for the season to end. Penn State moved up 3 spots in this week’s poll following a dominant home win over Minnesota...a 4-3 team tied for last place in the terrible B1G West.

Most Underrated

#16 Syracuse - The Orange is just not getting the proper respect it deserves, it just pushed Clemson to the brink (and probably should have won) in Death Valley and does have a Top 25 win over NC State. ‘Cuse is ranked 3 spots below above noted Penn State team that got annihilated by Michigan and has no quality wins. Could the Nittany Lions go defeat Ohio State (I mean, no) and Syracuse go lose to Notre Dame? Perhaps, but as it stands currently, there’s no reason to have Syracuse out of the Top 15.

Spotlight Voter

Jon Wilner (@wilnerhotline), San Jose, CA - Wilner tends to be a hot take artist and his poll is routinely one of the worst regarded every week, so I’m concerned I may be losing my marbles, but I actually kinda like the swings Wilner takes this week. The most outlandish thing WIlner did this week that is getting him roasted across B1G and SEC Twitter: he dared to put Clemson atop the ranking. While true that the Tigers nearly dropped a game at home to Syracuse, it is the only team to have defeated three current Top-25 teams. Ohio State, Georgia, and Tennessee should jump the Tigers if each wins this weekend while Clemson is on Bye, but I think it is an understandable position to put Clemson in that spot today. He’s among the highest on Syracuse and lowest on Penn State, which we covered above.

TCU Status

The Horned Frogs moved up just one spot with the Top-25 win over Kansas State. Voters continue to keep the Frogs as the lowest undefeated team, despite having clear respect for the Oklahoma State and Kansas State teams that TCU has defeated. TCU will next have a tricky spot in Morgantown that is always a dangerous place to play. We don’t need to get into the fight at the top here yet as the way the national media positions the Playoff race at this point is pretty exhausting and it is just far too early to get ahead of ourselves. For what it’s worth, I think a Playoff Committee ranking today would have TCU higher than these voters based on resume, rather than some attempted projection of what might happen the rest of the season. Some of these things may work themselves out, but taking emotion and baggage of brand names, which 4 teams would you choose from below current blind resume? Note: these are the 11 “Top 10” teams (there is a tie at #10) in the latest poll, randomly sorted. This is certainly not nearly all of the relevant information, but just a snapshot of win quality so far - the reader may make their own conclusions. I’ll put the team names in the comments later this week.

Big 12 (+4) Votes

• #7 TCU - #DFWBig12Team
• #9 Oklahoma State - Cowboys bounced back with a big win over Texas to jump back into the Top 10
• #20 Cincinnati - Bearcats survive in Dallas, stopping SMU’s game-tying 2-point conversion attempt. Next go to Orlando for a UCF team looking to get back in the AAC race
• #22 Kansas State - Wildcats remain ranked after quality loss to TCU ahead of massive contests vs. OK State & Texas.
• #26 Texas - Quinn Ewers looked human in Stillwater, so now national media will have to ask “What would it take for 3-loss Texas to make the Playoff?”