It seems like the top 7 in our poll has been in place since September and that’s really not that different than reality. Another week has passed and the same teams remain entrenched at the top. Someone is knocking on the door though and they are from Myrtle Beach!
18 Stripes Top 20 Poll
| RANK | TEAM | RECORD | NEXT |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alabama | 9-0 | 55-17 Win at LSU |
| 2 | Notre Dame | 10-0 | 45-21 Win vs. Syracuse |
| 3 | Clemson (+1) | 9-1 | 45-10 Win at Virginia Tech |
| 4 | Ohio State | 5-0 | 52-12 Win at Michigan State |
| 5 | Cincinnati | 8-0 | BYE |
| 6 | Texas A&M | 7-1 | 31-20 Win at Auburn |
| 7 | Florida | 8-1 | 31-19 Win at Tennessee |
| 8 | Coastal Carolina (+1) | 10-0 | 22-17 Win vs. BYU |
| 9 | USC (+2) | 4-0 | 38-13 Win vs. Wash. State |
| 10 | Indiana (+2) | 6-1 | 14-6 Win at Wisconsin |
| 11 | Miami (+2) | 8-1 | 48-0 Win at Duke |
| 12 | Iowa State (+2) | 8-2 | 42-6 Win vs. West Virginia |
| 13 | Oklahoma (+2) | 7-2 | 27-14 Win vs. Baylor |
| 14 | Louisiana (+6) | 9-1 | 24-21 Win at App State |
| 15 | Northwestern (+1) | 5-1 | BYE |
| 16 | BYU (-8) | 9-1 | 22-17 Loss at Coastal Carolina |
| 17 | Colorado (NR) | 4-0 | 24-13 Win at Arizona |
| 18 | Georgia | 6-2 | BYE |
| 19 | Tulsa (NR) | 6-1 | 19-6 Win at Navy |
| 20 | Buffalo (NR) | 4-0 | BYE |
OUT:Â Marshall, Wisconsin, Oklahoma State
IN:Â Tulsa, Colorado, Buffalo
Week 14 Recap
Devonta Smith (231 yards) and Mac Jones (385 yards) pretty much punched their tickets to the Heisman ceremony in a romp over lowly LSU. That’s 5 losses now for the defending champs.
Clemson started a bit slow but pulled away from Virginia Tech on the road. Ohio State had no trouble with Michigan State while building a big lead and coasting the rest of the way.
A&M was on upset watch but found a way to win in the 4th quarter. Florida yet again won at Tennessee with Kyle Trask throwing for 433 yards and 4 touchdowns. He’s getting that Heisman invite, too.
All of these wins came on the road, interestingly. Typically it’s the time of year where we’ll see an upset or two but not from our top 7 teams.
Unfortunately, BYU wasn’t as lucky on the road. Give them credit for scheduling the game with Coastal at the last minute and being up for the challenge. If you haven’t yet, please watch Coastal Carolina play this year they are so fun.
USC, Indiana, Miami, and Iowa State all notched big wins but remain on the outside looking in for the playoffs.
***
AP Top 25: Alabama, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Clemson, Texas A&M, Florida, Cincinnati, Indiana, Miami, Iowa State, Coastal Carolina, Georgia, Oklahoma, BYU, Northwestern, USC, Louisiana, Tulsa, Iowa, North Carolina, Colorado, Liberty, Texas, Buffalo, Wisconsin.
CFB Top 25: Alabama, Notre Dame, Clemson, Ohio State, Texas A&M, Florida, Iowa State, Cincinnati, Georgia, Miami, Oklahoma, Indiana, Coastal Carolina, Northwestern, USC, Iowa, North Carolina, BYU, Louisiana, Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma State, NC State, Tulsa, Missouri.
Week 15 Games to Watch
Utah (+2) at Colorado
Former UCLA head coach Karl Dorrell is having a nice opening season so far with Colorado. Right now, the Buffaloes are tied with USC for 1st place in the Pac-12 South. Don’t mess it up!
Michigan (+29) at Ohio State [CANCELLED]
Illinois (+14.5) at Northwestern
Northwestern is totally losing this game, aren’t they?
Navy (+6.5) at Army
ESPN GameDay decided to pick this game largely because it’s being played at West Point. I don’t know, this matchup isn’t great this year with Navy already 3-6 and really struggling. A bit of a puzzling move by ESPN with some other big games to choose from this week.
North Carolina (+3.5) at Miami
It’s time to sort out the second tier of the ACC. If North Carolina can’t upset the Canes it’s going to be tough and look back on that win in Chapel Hill by the Irish and be too impressed.
Purdue (+9.5) at Indiana
As of this writing, this game is in doubt due to Covid issues with Indiana. 2020, man.
Wisconsin (+1) at Iowa
Remember when Wisconsin was all the rage after their first two games? They’ve been humbled quickly with back-to-back losses in recent weeks. Time for a good old Midwestern rock fight with Iowa.
Cincinnati (-12.5) at Tulsa [CANCELLED]
Another item of evidence as to why ND wouldn’t want to be in a conference is the UNC/Miami game. That’s even a CONFERENCE game and we literally have no need for it. ND doesn’t need to worry about how good we looked against UNC or whether they were overrated or whatever. All that ever mattered was qualifying for the CG and nothing else matters. I DO wish I had to lock myself in to some of these games, even if it was this one, but I don’t. Other than the joy of simply watching a game, I don’t care one bit about any of these matchups. And it sucks.
I think that’s why it’s always important to be able to zoom out and look at things from a big picture. Technically, we could’ve lost to Syracuse and “be fine” because we were still in the ACC Championship. As if, merely making that game was goal number one on the year.
Not really. Losing to Syracuse, nobody would be talking about us getting into the playoffs if we lose to Clemson. As it is, we may get in even if we lose to Clemson, unless it’s a blowout, in which case, the story will be too many Clemson starters out last time, fluke win by ND.
I think you agree with me?
Well my thought was less about the direct impact to ND and more about the peripheral impact. In a normal season, if we had played UNC and beaten them down like we did two weeks ago, we’d certainly be watching this game hoping UNC comes out and showcases that electric offense that we absolutely decimated. We want them to show the world that they ARE a really good team and that our win over them was significant. It still kind of does for bragging rights, I guess, but other than that it’s meaningless for us. All because the conference standing is all that matters.
That’s why I like to zoom out and just worry about how we look at ND from our own viewpoint. We’re at the point as a program where we shouldn’t care what people think of us based on the UNC game.
Whether UNC wins or loses doesn’t matter to anything really at this point. But, I think looking back years from now it will absolutely matter if they finish 9-3 and ranked pretty high so we can remember that win fondly versus them dropping another game or two and remembering a big win over an 8-5 team.
Right, and that’s my argument for why the conference sucks. I enjoy having that rooting interest in other games.
Georgia’s CFP ranking is totally inexplicable. I think you have it a lot closer to right. The Committee must be giving them recruiting rankings extra bonus points or something.
Agreed, I like Eric’s list a lot better. I’d probably have USC at #11 this week though. Nice win last week but they weren’t impressive early on. Plus, they’re gross.
But on a related note, glad to see Helton is presumably doing enough to somehow keep his job for one more game against ND in 2021 though, so there’s that.
The amount of benefit of the doubt they get for winning nothing in particular is complete madness.
BuT tHe ReCrUiTiNg RaNkInGs
The thing that is going unsaid about the whole tOSU deal is how lucky they are that they happened to have played Indiana already out of their 5 games. tOSU has the tie breaker against Indiana so it doesn’t really matter if they played and lost a 6th game they would still represent the B1G East in the championship and this is what allows the conference to change the rules and not really do anything too crazy.
But if the Indiana game hadn’t have been played then the conference would really be in a bind because they would be unable to give tOSU the free pass because Indiana could beat the Buckeyes and then they would have the tie breaker. The conference wouldn’t be able to just assume that tOSU would beat Indiana in that scenario and the Buckeyes would be shut out of the championship game.
I think there has not been much movement at the top is because therehave not been very many games played and te ones played have been mostly in conference games so it is hard to compare apples to oranges.
It’s like a condensed version of a peak BCS year, except we have a playoffs at the end of it.