Only one team dropped out of our poll this week, although the nation’s number one team found itself in a dog (dawg) fight on the road in Lexington which nearly sent a shockwave through the SEC. We’ve got some bangers coming up on the schedule this weekend and it’ll have to wait another week for some chaos in this article. I saw on Reddit, this was the first regular season weekend since week 4 in 2013 that a top 25 team wasn’t upset.
Here’s the latest 18 Stripes Top 20 Poll:
18 Stripes Top 20 Poll
| RANK | TEAM | RECORD | NEXT |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Georgia | 3-0 | BYE |
| 2 | Texas | 3-0 | vs. ULM |
| 3 | Oregon | 3-0 | BYE |
| 4 | Missouri | 3-0 | vs. Vanderbilt |
| 5 | Ohio State | 2-0 | vs. Marshall |
| 6 | USC | 3-0 | at Michigan |
| 7 | Alabama | 3-0 | BYE |
| 8 | Ole Miss | 3-0 | vs. Georgia Southern |
| 9 | Miami | 3-0 | at USF |
| 10 | Tennessee | 3-0 | at Oklahoma |
| 11 | Kansas State (+5) | 3-0 | at BYU |
| 12 | Louisville (-1) | 2-0 | vs. Georgia Tech |
| 13 | Utah (-1) | 3-0 | at Oklahoma State |
| 14 | Oklahoma | 3-0 | vs. Tennessee |
| 15 | Oklahoma State | 3-0 | vs. Utah |
| 16 | Iowa State | 2-0 | vs. Arkansas State |
| 17 | UNLV (+3) | 3-0 | BYE |
| 18 | Penn State | 2-0 | vs. Kent State |
| 19 | Nebraska | 3-0 | vs. Illinois |
| 20 | NIU (NR) | 2-0 | vs. Buffalo |
OUT:
#13 Arizona
This early in the season Arizona has been one of the more disappointing non-blue bloods. They allowed 39 point to New Mexico in their opener, slept walked against Northern Arizona before winning in the 2nd half, and were just blown out by Kansas State 31-7 in the Little Apple.
First round bye watch (if they win their conferences):
#1 Georgia
#3 Oregon
#9 Miami
#11 Kansas State
On the basis of their resounding victory, the Wildcats move up considerably this week and are the favorites to win the Big 12 at the moment. I debated dropping Georgia (262 total yards of offense against Kentucky is a red flag) but decided against it.
National Storylines
GJ Kinne continues to DGT™ but Texas State came up just short in a 31-28 loss to Arizona State.
Have you watched UNLV (transfer from Holy Cross) quarterback Matthew Sluka play? He is pure chaos on the field. The Rebels beat Kansas on the road 23-20 to move up our rankings.
Georgia couldn’t score a touchdown until the 4th quarter and needed every point to beat Kentucky 13-12.
Quinn Ewers strained his abdomen which led to the first extended Arch Manning experience for Texas. It went well as the Horns beat UTSA easily 56-7.
Wisconsin quarterback Tyler Van Dyke hurt his knee as visiting Alabama rolled the Badgers 42-10.
Wake Forest’s offense looked spunky last week. This week, not so much. They hosted Ole Miss and got pounded 40-6.
Maybe Boston College is pretty good? They led early against Missouri and only ended up losing 27-21 in Columbia.
Tennessee led 65-0 at halftime against Kent State, yes they held on to win.
The Civil War ended up not being competitive–Oregon beat Oregon State 49-14.
Ball State was shutout 62-0 visiting Miami.
Utah was struggling with Utah State for a while before pulling away 38-21.
A nice solid 34-19 win for Oklahoma over Tulane.
South Carolina narrowly missed a last-second tying field goal and lost 36-33 to LSU.
Davis Warren has 6 picks and sits 16th out of 18 qualifying Big Ten quarterbacks in passer rating. Michigan did beat Arkansas State 28-18.
NC State trailed Louisiana Tech 17-6 at halftime but came back to win 30-20.
Washington probably is pretty bad this year, they lost the Apple Cup to Washington State 24-19.
Pittsburgh came from behind to win the Backyard Brawl against West Virginia 38-34.
Are things not going well in Starkville? A SEC team losing at home 41-17 to a MAC team (Toledo) isn’t something you see often.
Remember Kurtis Rourke from Ohio on our grad transfer quarterback list? He’s at Indiana now and they demolished UCLA 42-13 inside the Rose Bowl.
A furious 2nd half comeback saw UCF beat TCU 35-34 in Forth Worth.
Opponent Watch
Texas A&M (2-1): Redshirt freshman Marcel Reed made the start for injured Conner Weigman and the Aggies still beat Florida in the Swamp easily 33-20.
Northern Illinois (2-0): This has been the longest bye week ever. The Huskies are finally back on the field this weekend hosting the Bulls of UB.
Purdue (1-1): Their season, derailed.
Miami [OH] (0-2): Chuck Martin’s team looks offensively challenged (22 points through 2 games) but it’s been against Power 4 programs. This weekend they lost 27-16 to Cincinnati.
Louisville (2-0): Fresh off a bye week, the Cardinals will make this week’s picks as they face the Yellow Jackets.
Stanford (1-1): An idle tree.
Georgia Tech (3-1): VMI were no match, falling 59-7 to the Jackets.
Navy (2-0): Off this week, they’ll face a big AAC game this weekend against Memphis.
Florida State (0-3): Speaking of Memphis, they just beat Florida State this past weekend 20-12. This Noles team losing to new ACC team California this weekend would be something special.
Virginia (2-1): Cancel the undefeated season for the Hoos, they dropped one at home 27-13 to Maryland.
Army (2-0): The Black Knights are coming off a bye and play Rice this weekend.
USC (2-0): A well rested Trojans squad is flying to Ann Arbor this week.
I’ve seen Matt Sluka play a bunch, never count that kid out.
For people who haven’t seen Botelho and Craig are out for the season with knee injuries and Schrauth is out at least several weeks with a knee injury. Coogan will start at center, Spindler at guard, and Traore will get the starter snaps at DE.
I was looking at Botelho’s career page and he’s played nearly every game since the start of 2020, but if I’m applying the COVID and red shirt rules correctly he has guaranteed eligibility next year since he’ll be a less-than-4-game redshirt this season. Will be interesting to see if he’s interested in a super senior season.
Yea if possible, it would be huge to have him back. He seemingly was starting to play at a really high level.
From his perspective, I would think it would be ideal to get healthy at ND before entering the draft. Rather than trying to rehab during the draft process and start one’s NFL career coming off such a serious injury. Much easier to ease oneself back into regular games at ND as an elite starter than as a mid-round draft pick at best (at least with the injury) trying to make the team.
I would think if he came back and got fully healthy and had a good year he could end up in the top 3 rounds (which I’m thinking is where he would have been if he had never gotten injured and entered after this year) whereas going to the NFL now is probably below that.
We’ll see how the replacements play over the rest of the season. If it looks like it could be a battle for snaps again next year, which it has been over his career thus far, I think it would be more likely he transfers to a school where he can get guaranteed starter’s snaps.
I think Georgia absolutely deserves the drop they got in the AP poll after that stinker of a game. Honestly, Stoops made some very poor (cowardly) coaching decisions at the end – they could easily have won that game.
I am believing in Texas until I’m convinced otherwise. I think they have a good chance of beating the Dawgs in Austin on 10/19.
NIU has an upcoming trip to Raleigh to take on NCSU so I think we’re going to learn a lot there
If they win that they have the inside track to the G5 bid and I don’t think it is close
It would be hilarious (and I would accept it) if they went undefeated, we won the rest of our games, and they were the 8 seed and we were the 9 and we had to go play a playoff game at their place.
That would be… amazing (as well as hilarious). One of the most fun surmises I have seen in a while. What’s their place like?