Week 11 AP Poll: Moving Up

Week 10 brought the fireworks and the chaos as nine AP Top 25 teams lost, 5 of which lost to previously unranked teams. Four teams dropped from the rankings, Oklahoma State, Wake Forest, Syracuse, and Oregon State replaced by #18 Texas, #20 Notre Dame, #24 Washington, and #25 Florida State. Kansas State took the biggest tumble this week, falling 10 spots to #23 after a 7-point loss to the Longhorns. LSU was the biggest climber, jumping 8 spots to #7 after the clutch 2-point conversion in OT to top Alabama. Now that the CFP rankings are set to come out weekly, the AP Poll carries less weight, but still makes for fun chatter.

Most Overrated

#20 Notre Dame - Frog fans were certainly happy to see the Irish end the Clemson Tigers’ perfect season on Saturday, and seems some voters were chomping at the bit to have any excuse to send the Golden Domers flying up the rankings. While it may be plenty fair to have Notre Dame ranked after the huge win, the fact remains that Notre Dame is a 3-loss team with losses to 4-loss Marshall and the Pac-12’s last place team 6-loss Stanford and sending this squad into the Top 20 is suspect. That said, if the Irish want to go ahead and take down Lincoln Riley and the USC Trojans to close the season, then we can keep them in the Top 20.

Most Underrated

Non-Texas 3-loss Big 12 teams - K-State only has losses to #4, #16, and #18. OK State, Baylor, and Kansas are all strong teams, but have the misfortune of all having to play each other in addition to the other top Big 12 squads. How far up the rankings do you have to go before getting to a team that would be favored on a neutral site against all four of those teams - maybe Penn State at 14?

Spotlight Voter

Mike Barber (@RTD_MikeBarber), Richmond, VA - There’s very little to quibble with on the whole when the AP voters have TCU at #4. Also, we know what to expect from the voter from Lubbock, however this ballot from Barber is defying logic and understanding. Last week Barber had a reasonable ballot with TCU at #6, one spot below Clemson. Barber dropped TCU to #7 after (allegedly) watching a weekend of football that featured those Clemson Tigers getting pantsed by a previously unranked Notre Dame; choosing to keep the Tigers ahead of the Frogs. Not only did he keep Clemson a spot in front of TCU, he also had the Oregon Ducks leap the Frogs - moving from #8 on his ballot last week, up to #5 after beating Colorado.

TCU Status

The Horned Frogs moved up three spots, climbing past Tennessee, Alabama, and Clemson after each suffered losses in Week 10. I am personally surprised a sufficient number of voters put TCU ahead of the Vols and would certainly not be shocked for the Committee to keep Tennessee ahead when its ranking is trotted out on Tuesday night. The 1-loss teams of the Pac 12 are lurking just behind, as well as 2-loss LSU & Alabama, but for now TCU keeps winning and for the most part voters accept that situation.

Big 12 (+4) Votes

• #4 TCU - All Glory to the Hypnotoad!
• #18 Texas - Longhorns got a much needed win over Kansas State to remain in the Big 12 race and jump back into the rankings
• #22 UCF - The Knights went to Memphis and whooped that trick to keep pace in the American ahead of marquee showdown with #16 Tulane.
• #23 Kansas State - Returning to Adrian Martinez as QB was a bold choice after the way Will Howard was playing...Martinez was fine, but the ‘Cats couldn’t complete the comeback over Texas
• #26 Cincinnati - Bearcats with a 10 point victory float along outside of the Top 25
• #30 Oklahoma State - After spending weeks claiming TCU was lucky to have played Will Howard and Jason Bean, the Cowboys promptly went out and got decimated 85-16 by Will Howard and Jason Bean.
• #31 Baylor - A week after Richard Reese ran wild against Texas Tech, the Bears trotted out another RB to go crazy against OU, as Craig Williams amassed 192 yards and 2 TDs.
• #32 Kansas - Devin Neal with a career performance of 224 yards rushing, 110 yards receiving to lead the Jayhawks