A quarter of the teams in our poll lost this past weekend. Chaos is slowly creeping into the college football season and we know it cannot be stopped. However, there wasn’t a major shakeup of teams within our top 20, although we do have a new #1 team in the land following the activities that took place in Tuscaloosa on Saturday night.
Here’s the latest 18 Stripes Top 20 Poll:
18 Stripes Top 20 Poll
| RANK | TEAM | RECORD | NEXT |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alabama (+5) | 4-0 | at Vanderbilt |
| 2 | Texas | 5-0 | BYE |
| 3 | Tennessee | 4-0 | at Arkansas |
| 4 | Oregon | 4-0 | vs. Michigan State |
| 5 | Ohio State | 4-0 | vs. Iowa |
| 6 | Georgia (-5) | 3-1 | vs. Auburn |
| 7 | Miami (+1) | 5-0 | at California |
| 8 | Penn State (+4) | 4-0 | vs. UCLA |
| 9 | Missouri | 4-0 | at Texas A&M |
| 10 | Iowa State (+5) | 4-0 | vs. Baylor |
| 11 | BYU (+5) | 5-0 | BYE |
| 12 | USC (+2) | 3-1 | at Minnesota |
| 13 | UNLV (+4) | 4-0 | vs. Syracuse |
| 14 | Michigan (+4) | 4-1 | at Washington |
| 15 | Indiana (+4) | 5-0 | at Northwestern |
| 16 | Ole Miss (-9) | 4-1 | at South Carolina |
| 17 | Louisville (-6) | 3-1 | at SMU |
| 18 | Clemson (+2) | 3-1 | at Florida State |
| 19 | Kansas State (NR) | 4-1 | BYE |
| 20 | Utah (-10) | 4-1 | BYE |
OUT:
#13 Illinois
We had 5 teams in the rankings from last week who went on to lose in recent days. However, only Illinois dropped out of our Top 20 this week. They went into Penn State, only mustered 219 yards, and didn’t score after the 1st quarter in a 21-7 loss. So far in 2024, the Nittany Lions have been by far the quietest team in the top 10.
First round bye watch (if they win their conferences):
#1 Alabama
#4 Oregon
#7 Miami
#10 Iowa State
Do regular season games still matter? The first round bye aspect to the playoffs provides enough drama, I think. Plenty are expecting Georgia to be right in the mix for a National Championship despite this weekend’s loss but their odds of getting a bye just went way, way down in a competitive SEC.
The latest Big 12 team to move up for the bye is Iowa State! Both the Cyclones and BYU have started out really strong so far but the advanced stats like Iowa State a bit better in 2024. The Cyclones are a surprising 16th overall in FEI right now, 6 spots ahead of the Cougars.
National Storylines
Controversy in Miami as the Hurricanes survived an upset from Virginia Tech following a wild short Hail Mary attempt by the Hokies. You have to watch it to understand the nuance involved. This was a super likely letdown game for Miami, and luckily they escaped.
Rutgers is 4-0 after they beat visiting Washington 21-18 last Friday.
Texas didn’t look right for most of the 1st half then poured it on beating Mississippi State 35-13 in Austin.
I debated putting Ole Miss-Kentucky on last week’s picks and the Wildcats took that personally. Kentucky wins 20-17 in one of the biggest upsets of the season so far.
Ohio State cruised past Michigan State 38-7, easy business.
Michigan survived a late scare from Minnesota 27-24.
Alabama led Georgia 30-7 and looked scary good putting away the Dawgs. Except, Georgia came all the way back to tie the game before the Tide threw a dagger game-winning touchdown and sealed it with an interception in the end zone. For the recruiting experts, the Alabama touchdown and interception were made by the no. 8 and no. 30 overall true freshmen respectively in this past recruiting cycle.
Oregon vs. UCLA in the Big Ten is so weird. Less weird was the Ducks winning 34-13 at the Rose Bowl.
Arizona went into Salt Lake City and beat Utah 23-10, leaving the Wildcats one of 6 remaining teams unbeaten in Big 12 play.
Iowa State shut out Houston 20-0, I’m not sure what’s going on with the Cougars but they’ve been really bad this year and aren’t rebounding from the end of the Holgorsen era.
The heat is being turned up on Hugh Freeze as Auburn loses 27-21 at home to Oklahoma. With Georgia and Missouri on deck it’s probably not getting better any time soon for the Tigers.
Kansas State held serve at home beating Oklahoma State 42-20 with the Cowboys now starting 0-2 in league play.
Also starting 0-2 in the Big 12 is Baylor following a 34-28 home loss to undefeated BYU.
Indiana continues to DGT™ as they beat Maryland 42-28.
Northern Illinois beats Notre Dame then loses to Buffalo. Then Buffalo loses 47-3(!!) to UConn.
Mikey Keene stepped in at quarterback for UNLV and beat Fresno State 59-14.
Duke scored all of their points in the 2nd half to come back and beat North Carolina 21-20. The Blue Devils are 5-0 right now.
Watch out, Colorado is 2-0 in the Big 12 after beating UCF 48-21.
Opponent Watch
Texas A&M (4-1): The Aggies forced a fumble late in the 4th quarter to hold off Arkansas 21-17 in Arlington.
Northern Illinois (2-2): Four turnovers sank the Huskies who limited NC State to just 176 total yards and still lost 24-17.
Purdue (1-3): Neither team scored in the 1st half before Nebraska pulled away late from Purdue while winning 28-10. The Boilermakers have since fired offensive coordinator Graham Harrell.
Miami [OH] (1-3): Chuck Martin is on the board with a 23-20 overtime win against UMass.
Louisville (3-1): A tricky game against SMU awaits the Cardinals this weekend as they lick their wounds from a loss in South Bend.
Stanford (2-2): Stanford has a nice ground game and not much of a passing offense (where have we seen that?) this year–they lost 40-14 to Clemson this past weekend.
Georgia Tech (3-2): The Bees were off this week and face an undefeated Duke team this weekend.
Navy (4-0): The Middies are averaging more passing yards per game this year than Notre Dame. They beat up on UAB 41-18.
Florida State (1-4): The Noles are so far off the radar now that a 42-16 dismantling at SMU barely makes headlines.
Virginia (3-1): A date with Boston College awaits following a bye week.
Army (4-0): This past Thursday, the USMA destroyed Temple 42-14.
USC (3-1): After early struggles, the Trojans turned up the heat and beat Wisconsin 38-21 in Los Angeles.
Louisville and USC ahead of teams they lost to head-to-head with equal records, tsk tsk
It feels like with this weekend’s ugly win ND should land between 18 and 20 on the one true poll.
No one can understand the 18S magical ranking system.
I found the 18S MRS explainer in the premium section. Thanks for bundling that with our Peacock subscriptions, that was a stroke of marketing genius.
I’m guessing that you meant to rank us at 11.5 because USC sucks, although I’ll allow 12.5.
We have to be ranked at least 13.5 because Michigan sucks more. 😉
ND is a weird team to try to rank, because you can’t ignore the NIU loss, but we’re about the only team in the country so far that has beaten two teams that were ranked when we played and still ranked. So a horrible loss but two decent wins.
F+ puts us at #9 with Louisville at 19 and aTm at 23. I feel like once you get past the top 6, then next 20 teams are seem pretty even.
I can’t believe we’re #9 in F+, but to your point I just looked and at #9 we’re still closer in F+ score to #21 than #5.
The secret is that no one is actually good this year.
Bama-Georgia rubber match in the title game confirmed, very cool
Seriously, Eric, where did you mean to put ND?
I’m still banning ND for the NIU loss.
The NIU game can’t be forgiven until we beat Bama 9/1/29. I’ll expect to see us ranked on 18S if/when that happens and no sooner. Hold the line, Eric. We got your back.
Or at least until we beat another ranked team to bring up our SoS. Which will be Navy because 2024. And then we’ll beat ranked Army which would be hilarious.
There’s a timeline in which we have five top 25 wins and 40% of them are service academies.
The “which are the hardest remaining teams on ND’s schedule this year” discussion is interesting right now. Service academies right up there. I’ll save my thoughts because I’M not going to be the one to jinx anything.
Related. So, I wore the right shirt but apparently the wrong hat to the game last week (bought a green one at the bookstore) and only realized my mistake very late and went rally cap for the last defensive stand. Saved the game. You’re all welcome. The boys played great but I did my part too. I expect my voice back soon.
Good job! Same question as I just posted on the game review: Brohm gave credit to the crowd for this 4th down prob at the end. I’m sure you were yelling your voice out, good on ya but only what we should expect. But was the drowd able to be loud early before the snap (i.e. no Celtic Chant) or was Brohm just making an excuse?
BTW, I will be there for Stanford, I may have extra tickets for the right 18S applicant. Really good seats too.
The 4th down play the crowd was loud for immediately because the 3rd down play was a run that was immediately marked short, there was a running clock, and Louisville had no timeouts.
Coming out of the 2 minute warning break before the third down play the crowd was just getting loud at the snap, but the circumstances of the running clock into the 4th down play the crowd was loud.
And speaking of wrong hats a group came in wearing green ND gear (good job) and bright red Phillies hats, which made me roll my eyes. Fortunately there weren’t enough Louisville fans there for it to matter.
I can’t thank you enough for this info, it fits right in to where I’m try to get the fine tuning of the inputs to the crowd.
Very funny about the red hats
I think Georgia is going to lose to Texas in a couple of weeks and may not be in the playoff. If they only have two losses they’ll probably be in, but it depends on who they’re competing with for a spot
11 Power 4/5 teams are going to make the playoff, the number of P5 teams with 0 or 1 losses in the last eleven years:
2023: 7
2022: 4
2021: 5
2020: 10 (some teams only played 4 games)
2019: 7
2018: 5
2017: 5
2016: 4
2015: 6
2014: 6
2013: 8
So 5.7 per year excluding 2020. I’ve very confident that 2 loss Georgia would be considered amount the best 2-loss teams in the country with wins over Clemson, Tennessee, and Ole Miss.