The college football rankings from Week 6 are finally up here.
Web site news
NFL Week 5 SuperPower Rankings
News and notes from the SP rankings:
-If the Pats show even a hint of weakness against the Cowboys, No. 1 will go to the Colts. Dr. Z’s SI rankings joined CBS and Fox in ranking the Colts ahead of the Pats this week, leaving the Colts just two more turncoats shy of taking over the top spot in the Consensus Rankings.
-The Chargers are the latest team to be overrated for beating the Broncos.
-You may recall I picked two upsets last week: the Chiefs over the Jags and the Dolphins over the Texans. Neither happened; the only dog I picked to win that actually managed to do that was the Chargers over the Broncos, which caused the rankings to finally put the Broncos in a more correct position. I missed the other two technical upsets, Carolina over New Orleans and the Bears over the Packers, but went 10-for-14.
This week, my upset special may not seem to have a big enough gap in the Consensus Rankings to qualify. I don’t agree that the tight pull-out over the Bills shows that the Cowboys have the stuff to “overcome adversity”. I think it shows weaknesses other teams can exploit. That said… you can probably see where this is going. That game has probably put that little seed in the minds of the Patriots players: This is an easy one. Oh, and the game is in Dallas. That counts for something.
This week’s College Football Rankings are coming out tomorrow.
Lineal titles updated
Plenty of “upsets” in college football this week. But only one lineal title change, as the 2004 Utah title changes hands yet again. Clarity is a ways off but the Bulldogs play lowly Idaho this week.
New Home for My College Football Rankings
The College Football Rankings join a long list of things making the march to the web site, but not because it’s ill-fit for Blogger under the status quo. It’s simply too hard to figure out, and then hand-code, the more flashy ranking page you saw last week, so I’m only posting the full, top-to-bottom rankings. Last week’s rankings are here and this week’s are here. You need something that views Rich Text Format files.
The lineal titles are also updated; in such a wild week, LSU and Ohio State actually held onto their titles. Whoda thunk?
Can someone explain something to me?
Back in August, I put up a topic poll on my website, linked to on the right side. Within the first twenty-four hours or so, I picked up two responses that weren’t from me.
Since then, in nearly two months, I have received zero responses.
So my question is, why haven’t you been steering the direction of the web site (and to a certain extent, Da Blog)?
Please! I’m begging you, give me some help and vote today! I could lose all the results after a week from tomorrow! Why did two people see fit to vote when I first put up the poll but no one has since then?
Upset Special of Week 4
The web site is updated with the lineal title changes and the Week 3 SuperPower Rankings, which reveals teams that really divide the rankings, with some having them at #9 while others have them in the 20s. The Panthers are 7th on CBS and 21st in Cole’s Yahoo rankings; the Bucs are 19th in ESPN and Robinson’s Yahoo rankings but 9th in NBC; the Eagles are 9th in Cole and 21st in NBC.
The Colts merged the NFL lineal titles this week and play a Broncos team next that I think is overrated. The loss to Jacksonville should have exposed them – they should not have been anywhere near the top after such close wins over two teams everyone thinks are awful – but they’re still no lower than 12th in any list. People are thinking it says more about the Jags, who move up 10 spots to 8th in the SuperPower Rankings. Jacksonville has a bye this week, but I just might pick the Chiefs against them. Which brings me to my picks, where I’m 3-0 on upset specials. I thought this one was fairly obvious – just about any team could have upset the Broncs the way they were playing. Evidently not everyone agreed.
This week I’m picking the #20 Lions over the #11 Bears. The Bears are facing problems beyond the QB position. If the offense can’t get going, even with Griese, the Lions offense could overpower the vaunted Bears defense. All my other picks are here.
Delay in Regular Update
Because I’m a bit under the weather with a cold, the release of the Week 3 Consensus Power Rankings and my Week 4 picks are delayed until tomorrow morning.
NFL Week 2 SuperPower Rankings
New England dominated the Chargers on Sunday, but clearly it hurt the Chargers more than it helped the Patriots.
Like college football polls, people don’t like dropping teams when they don’t lose. New England barely took any spots away from the Colts, only passing them in MSNBC and SI, despite the Colts struggling against the Titans. However, the margin between the Colts and Patriots was so thin last week that it’s enough for the Pats to pass the Colts in the SuperPower Rankings, with added help from passing the Chargers in CBS for #2 and breaking the tie in USA Today.
Meanwhile, the Chargers slip after being the only other team in the top three in every single ranking before the season and after Week 1. By itself, having the offense struggle against the mighty Bears D and falling to the Patriots shouldn’t reflect too badly on the Chargers, and indeed the Chargers don’t fall that far (no fall in Fox and only a one-spot dip in ESPN), but the Chargers didn’t look like the third-best team in the nation against the Patriots. They fall to sixth in four rankings, eighth in the SI rankings, and fifth in the two Yahoo rankings, with the Steelers (in perhaps a bit of a hasty jump given the quality of their opposition), Broncos (also dubious given their reliance on last-second field goals against lowly Buffalo and Oakland), and Cowboys (the new #3) being the chief beneficiaries. The Chargers should be able to take a breather and allow people to get a true gauge of the state of their offense against the Packers.
Outside the top six, the Bears and Ravens remain strong while the surprises at 2-0 – the Packers, Niners, Texans, and Lions – divide the group. The first three are generally thought to be for real; the Lions, who have defeated two lousy teams in close games, aren’t. The Packers have the benefit of three of the four teams directly ahead of them in last week’s SuperPower Rankings losing, which basically guaranteed them a ticket to the Top 10. The Texans round out the Top 10 with the Niners close behind. One really divisive team is the Cardinals; three lists have them 15th or 14th, five within a spot of 20th, and one of the Yahoo lists has them as low as 24th.
The Bengals take a massive slip after their D played awful against the Browns. Either the D is going to be a massive seesaw from week to week or their strong performance Week 1 was more due to an iffy Ravens offense (they did lose McNair in the middle of the game). Which in turn, doesn’t reflect well on the Jets D. The Seahawks also fumbled away their Top 10 placement this week, setting up a game between teams that need recoveries from surprising losses, and the Saints take a big tumble after falling to lowly Tampa Bay – an upset I called, by the way.
At the bottom, the Browns’ win leaves the Falcons with the bottom spot all to themselves, although the Chiefs may have something to say about that. The Chiefs’ drop is mostly attributable to a number of surprises from the bottom; in addition to Cleveland, the Bucs won and the Raiders were a dubious timeout away from doing the same. The Dolphins and Bills also have to curse their former fellow cellar-dwellers, including Arizona’s stunning upset of the Seahawks.
Read the complete Consensus Power Rankings through Week 2 of NFL action here.
Football Lineal Title Update
The Football Hub is updated with all the wonderful lineal title changes of the past week. On the NFL side, Houston’s defeat of Carolina sets up a lineal title unification bout when the Colts face the Texans this coming week. Both of the college football titles that changed hands last week change hands again this week, and the 2004 Utah title is back in the hands of the team that created it.
Florida faces Ole Miss this coming week, while Utah faces UNLV, Ohio State faces Northwestern, and in the most likely title change (which isn’t saying much), LSU faces South Carolina. The 2004 Auburn Title is two weeks away from a potential unification with the Princeton Title; LSU needs to survive SC and Tulane, while Florida needs to survive Mississippi and Auburn. With Auburn’s struggles, SC is the most likely upset, but LSU is so strong it might not matter.
While my College Football Rankings won’t be released until this coming week, I can tell you one interesting fact about how they’re shaking out. Notre Dame is currently infamously embroiled in futility, and had I released the college football rankings this week, they would place dead last. Ouch.
Your Hub for All Things Football
I’ve added a new section to the web site – Morgan Wick Sports – that will serve as a home base for the Lineal Titles, the SuperPower Rankings, and the College Football Rankings. This week’s SuperPower Rankings are now available there. Go to morganwick.freehostia.com/sports/football.
The NFL lineal title history is now located there as well, and the ATH Drinking Game is now here.