Michigan ranked # 5 in the AP Poll

Submitted by Bambi on October 28th, 2018 at 2:17 PM

Link to Poll

1 Alabama 8-0

2 Clemson 8-0

3 Notre Dame 8-0

4 Louisiana State 7-1

5 Michigan 7-1

6 Georgia 7-1

7 Oklahoma 7-1

8 Ohio State 7-1

9 Central Florida 7-0

10 Washington State 7-1

11 Kentucky 7-1

12 West Virginia 6-1 

13 Florida 6-2

14 Penn State 6-2

15 Texas 6-2

16 Utah 6-2

17 Houston 7-1

18 Utah State 7-1

19 Iowa 6-2

20 Fresno State 7-1

21 Mississippi State 5-3

22 Syracuse 6-2

23 Virginia 6-2

24 Boston College 6-2

25 Texas A&M 5-3

NW is 27, MSU 29, Wisconsin is receiving votes

ralphgoblue

October 28th, 2018 at 5:31 PM ^

to be fair the teams from 26-40  are not worthy of top 25  maybe Washington but MSU,N Western etc are not top 25 teams right now

Others Receiving Votes:
Others receiving votes:Washington 120, Northwestern 86, Georgia Southern 62, Michigan St. 51, Cincinnati 45, Iowa St. 42, South Florida 29, Stanford 26, Oklahoma St. 24, UAB 17, Oregon 13, Wisconsin 12, Auburn 7, San Diego St. 6, Army 6, NC State 5, California 2, Buffalo 1.

Jack Be Nimble

October 28th, 2018 at 3:30 PM ^

No, they aren't.

If not for a terrible pass interference call yesterday on what should have been the last play of the game, they lose to Missouri. They already lost to Texas A & M. Alabama, LSU, and Georgia are also clearly better.

Kentucky has benefited from an easy schedule so far and a Florida team that is much better now than it was early in the season. They're probably the 5th or 6th best team in the SEC.

TrueBlue2003

October 29th, 2018 at 1:57 AM ^

The advanced stats and "smart" people (analysts at the books) really do not like Kentucky so much so that Mizzou was favored last weekend, and UK got pretty lucky to win that.  If that game happened again today, Mizzou would still be favored.

I am actually a little surprised the advanced stats don't like UK a little more. They beat Florida by two scores and Miss St by three TDs. And yet, they're 28th in FPI and 29th in S&P+.  Guess the algorithms don't like when you only beat CMU by two TDs and Vandy by one TD at home.

Maize4Life

October 28th, 2018 at 2:23 PM ^

Penn St will be Michigans 4th top 25 opponent ( 3 top 15) with Ohio St still to come..YET despite what the CFP people tell you that means NOTHING...UCF which plays absulutely NOONE will be about ranked the same as Michigan tommorow just a few spots below...SOS is a joke and really means nothing..if Michigan had scheduled a cupcake instead of ND wed be 8-0 right now and I am tired of teams that play nobody getting rewarded and recognized

mfan_in_ohio

October 28th, 2018 at 2:28 PM ^

UCF got jumped by an OSU team that, in the last two weeks, got housed by Purdue and then had a bye week, and you're saying they get too much respect?  I'm not saying that they deserve to be higher, but it's pretty clear that voters have a hard ceiling when it comes to UCF because they haven't played anyone.  When LSU loses to Alabama I'll bet they stay ahead of UCF, and you'll see Wazzu jump them as well if they keep winning.

rice4114

October 28th, 2018 at 2:28 PM ^

Replace ND with Akron and we are undefeated and #4. Maybe even have a future loss that we can recover from given enough chaos. Bama will never drop below 4 as long as Saban is coaching, Clemson plays an entire season of Indianas, Purdues, Northwesterns, and Rutger. They are also on auto bid. If you want to be Bama-Clemson do what they do. There are 2 spots up for grabs every year. 

BornInAA

October 28th, 2018 at 2:45 PM ^

This^^^

System is broken. Bama plays 1 good team in regular season - LSU next week then maybe Georgia in champ game. Clemson will play nobody. We have to go through MSU OSU PSU gauntlet every year just to win division.

Polls should go away. Need 8 team playoff with Conference Champions only. ND needs to go ACC in football too. USF would get their shot.

 

Newton Gimmick

October 28th, 2018 at 2:54 PM ^

I like the AP poll.  It gives context for wins and losses, historically.  It's a big deal for an underdog to beat a "Top 5" team in mid-October -- the rankings are a good, if not completely accurate, shorthand for the quality of opponent played.  Remember when Carr was 10-0 against Top 10 teams?  Without the rankings, that phenomenon would be hard to describe. 

As long as it doesn't influence matchups on the field (like it once did) for playoffs or bowls, then I like preserving it.

Sideline

October 28th, 2018 at 3:30 PM ^

I think the simplest solution is you give the “Power 5” Auto-bids for conference champions (anywhere in the Top-6 or Top-8), then you hand out 1 or 3 “At Large” and then set up a Playoff Bracket— Final 6 gives “BCS” #1 and #2 Bye’s (Like NFL) 3v6, 4v5, THEN Re-Seed like the NHL used to do and have your 4-team finals. 

You could even bring back the BCS Bowl Tie-ins if really needed PACvB1G for a spot, ACCvSEC for a spot in that “first round”... is first just implement the Final 6 before trying to add that in and confuse the humans that are the Committee. 

Mr Miggle

October 28th, 2018 at 6:51 PM ^

If you expand the playoffs to eliminate the hardest choices, you will keep expanding them down the road. There will always be arguments about who should get in. There are a lot of arguments about the 68 team basketball tournament.

I think adding teams to the playoffs should be done if we really want to lengthen their season. As a fan, I like watching more games. If I was an advocate for the players, I'd take a different position. And even as a fan, I'm not really looking forward to seeing a team that's not even close to the top in the regular season win the playoffs. 

BornInA2

October 28th, 2018 at 3:11 PM ^

If you really want to fix it you go back to the old system: Conference champs go to bowl games. Everyone else stays home. Conference champ is the one who has the best regular season conference record. *Not* the winner of one 'conference championship' game.

That would de-emphasize winning every non-con game. You want to be ready for conference games, then play good teams non-con.

Four or eight team playoff, or the current litany of Pointless Bowls and you will see more and more teams scheduling Bethune Cookman and Incarnate Word (yes, Baylor has them in 2020 and Iowa State yet this season).

yossarians tree

October 28th, 2018 at 5:17 PM ^

Yes, the biggest flaw in the current system is that teams in a conference should have to play every team in the conference and then decide the champion based on in-conference record/ tie-breakers, etc. I hate the unbalanced schedules, especially considering that a team like Michigan could play crossover games against Iowa, Northwestern, Wisconsin, while OSU could play Illinois, Nebraska, Minnesota--a vastly easier schedule. And yet the games against the other division all count toward your division record.

With an 8-team playoff you are creating 7 post-season games that will be huge for television and creating interest in the sport. What's mysterious to me is why they won't do this because it would generate massive revenues and we all know the NCAA is whored out to big money.

WolvinLA2

October 28th, 2018 at 4:22 PM ^

You think OSU/MSU/PSU is a gauntlet, but Bama has a cakewalk?  LSU/TAMU/Auburn is just as hard and they also have Miss St and a very tough Georgia in the SEC champ game. We will almost certainly have an unranked Big Ten champ game opponent.  It's not that different. You guys complain about this stuff way too much.

Squeezebox

October 28th, 2018 at 4:16 PM ^

Or ND other than the 1st week of the season, and that might account for the difference in the rankings.  Always need one week to adjust to the change in rosters, or in this case the change in OC/OL coordinators.

I think that the change from Drevno to Warinner is the main difference this season.