USELESS Poll: Week 5

 

Welcome to this week’s edition of the USELESS Poll. Just by looking at its name (Undermining Statistical Excellence to Legitimize Entirely Subjective Suppositions), you can already tell that this ranking system is at least as good as graduate assistants filling out the weekly coaches poll and far superior to entrusting our national championship matchups to our computer overlords.

 

The final week of the season for Major League Baseball always rings in the best couple of months of the year. Not only do we get to watch the last few races in baseball get decided, but there’s another month of high-stakes baseball to go, as well as the meat of college football season finally arriving. Everybody has begun conference play, so not only are the games getting more competitive, but it’s getting tougher and tougher to shake off a loss for teams that are gunning for a conference or national championship.

There was only one huge upset over the last week, but still plenty of shuffling in the USELESS poll as the national picture gets a little more focused.

1. Alabama (defeated Ole Miss 33-14) – This past weekend saw Alabama post its first victory that was anything less than very impressive. The Tide never really hit its stride offensively, and while the outcome of the game was never in doubt, Ole Miss was never really put way. No reason to panic for Bama though. They might not have looked like the best team in the nation on Saturday, but it’s hard to think that any other SEC West teams will be anything more than a speed bump. With LSU underachieving and Arkansas trapped in a bad Twilight Zone episode, Alabama will roll to another division title.

2. Oregon (defeated Washington State 51-26) – Leading doctors agree that in the coming decades, heart disease will take a backseat as the nation’s leading killer, to be replaced by “having been tasked with stopping Oregon’s offense.” Can you even imagine the years taken off of your life if someone told you to stop the Ducks? Colin Cowherd put it best a couple of weeks ago: When Oregon wins the coin toss, it elects to score. The Ducks have scored 42 points or more in all five of their games and their defense looks better than that of the national runner-up squad of two years ago.

3. Florida State (defeated South Florida 30-17) – After a huge win over Clemson that gave it the inside track for a division title, it’s understandable that Florida State had a bit of a down week. And I’ve got to hand it to the Seminoles. As a BCS conference team that opened the season as a national title contender, there was no reason for FSU to do anything other than schedule four cupcakes at its home field and try to get through the conference. While the ACC and Big East are both just barely hanging on to that “major conference” title, at least the Seminoles went somewhere and played someone that they didn’t absolutely have to.

4. LSU (defeated Towson 38-22) – There’s no denying that LSU is a very good team, but the Bayou Bengals just keep on trying our patience. Coming into the season, LSU hoped that Zach Mettenberger would help get its offense going and make it more of a threat to eventually score against Alabama. LSU is still unbeaten and has put up plenty of points, but hasn’t faced a great defense yet. Speaking of which, the Tigers’ calling card is supposed to be stopping others. Being a top-5 team and allowing an FCS team to rack up 22 points on you isn’t going to sell anyone on your defensive prowess.

5. West Virginia (defeated No. 23 Baylor 70-63) – Please forgive any inaccuracies on that final score. That’s just the last report we have. It’s entirely possible that a couple dozen more points have been scored since this paragraph started. The Mountaineers began their Big XII schedule last week and went all in, eschewing any premise of defense while testing the math skills of statisticians. In a season that has seen just about every early Heisman contender either underachieve or fall flat on his face, it’s hard not to say that Geno Smith (20 TD, 0 INT, 1,728 yards, 83.2 completion percentage) is the current frontrunner.

6. Georgia (defeated Tennessee 51-44) – The Bulldogs hang on to the No. 6 spot, but just barely. For the same reason that West Virginia gets all sorts of love, Georgia is going to be punished. When you and your conference thump your chest about the NFL-caliber defense that separates yourselves from the rest of the nation, you aren’t allowed to give up 44 points to an unranked team. Georgia seems like the odds-on favorite to win the SEC East, but will need to figure out how to slow down offenses more powerful than Tyler Bray and the Vols if it wants to do anything more.

7. Kansas State (did not play) – Since the Wildcats took the week off, let’s all get to know Kansas State a little better. Welcome to Manhattan, KS - “The Little Apple”. Home of KSU, the occasional tornado, and people who get really, REALLY lost on their way to a Kansas Jayhawks basketball game. There are very few widely known alumni of KSU, but among them are Darren Sproles of the New Orleans Saints and Kirstie Alley, whose trip to New York last year is widely considered to be the origin of the great east coast earthquakes of 2011.

8. South Carolina (defeated Kentucky 38-17) – Aside from the upset of Stanford last week, the closest thing that we had to a world-shaking event was the first 2 ½ quarters of the South Carolina game against Kentucky. Despite Kentucky’s general awfulness and the Gamecocks knocking out the Wildcats’ starting quarterback in the first quarter, Kentucky took a few bites out of Carolina. By the time the second half rolled around, anyone within 100 feet of Steve Spurier was in mortal danger of being decapitated by a rogue flying visor. The Gamecocks rebounded and piled it on late, but there’s never any good excuse for trailing Kentucky in the second half.

9. Notre Dame (did not play) – The Fighting Irish survived their bye week. That might seem like non-news, but far less has gotten between Notre Dame and an over-achieving season before. The Irish may be able to look forward to many more great football seasons in the future. Notre Dame is about to start playing five ACC teams per year despite staying independent as far as the football team goes. The games against/wins over a BCS conference will rack up the strength of schedule points, but the ACC is having plenty of trouble finding more than two decent teams right now, much less five. This could turn into an east coast barnstorming tour where ND plays the conference title contender, then mops up four punching bags before running to the pollsters with its success over big-name opponents.

10. USC (did not play) – With three teams in the top-10 out of action, this might have been the least captivating week of the season yet. The Trojans sneak back into the top-10 partly because of Stanford taking a spill, but also because there is no better way to spend an off week as a college football player than in the middle of a huge city on the Pacific coast that treats your team like a bunch of rock stars. If the Trojans aren’t playing, that just means that they have more time to chill with Snoop Dogg, Will Ferrell, or whoever else might be hanging around practice.

11. Florida (did not play) – Seriously, people. All of these bye weeks by the nation’s best teams are killing this poll. It’s bad enough that the top teams rarely play any talented competition before October. Now, they’re apparently coordinating vacations. All of these guys probably spent Saturday on a cruise in international waters placing bets on how long each of them could stay in the rankings if they just embraced and touted their preseason rankings while refusing to ever play a challenging game.

12. Ohio State (defeated No. 21 Michigan State 17-16) – Despite the best efforts of all parties involved, the game between Ohio State and Michigan State actually got interesting at the end. There’s something weird about watching a team that is likely the best in its conference, yet can’t win anything due to an NCAA ban. The Buckeyes are near the top of the rankings for now, but it’s only a matter of time before its players realize that their efforts are all for naught and they drop a game to a crappy opponent for no good reason.

13. John L. Smith (Just doing the best he can) – Is there a weirder storyline in college football this season than the ongoing train wreck that is the Arkansas Razorbacks’ season? It’s gotten to the point where fans of the Hogs aren’t sure whether to laugh or cry… or threaten the life of their sad sack of a coach. John L. Smith – so mundane and mediocre in every way that even his name is so normal as to require the middle initial – was head coach of Weber State not so long ago. He had to have thought that he hit the jackpot when Arkansas brought him in. Things could have been even better once he was handed a top-5 team after Bobby Petrino was shown the door, but everything went to hell instead. At least John is trying to take the heat off his team, filing for bankruptcy and sometimes forgetting what state his team plays in when speaking at luncheons.

14. Texas (defeated Oklahoma State 41-36) – In what is shaping up to be a wide open race for the Big XII title, Texas is quietly throwing its hat into the ring. For the last two seasons, the Longhorns have built up a good defense, only to see the offense routinely get lost on the way to the end zone. This time around, David Ash finally has his offense rolling. Texas has a chance to jump into the top-10 if it can win a showdown this week against West Virginia – which we’re being told has scored three more touchdowns since we last discussed them.

15. Clemson (defeated Boston College 45-31) – You knew that Clemson would be sick over that loss to Florida State. Some Tigers – like Sammy Watkins, who sat out against BC with an abdominal parasite – took that sentiment a bit too literally, but those who suited up had enough firepower to take care of the Eagles. Normally, giving up 31 points to a team as bad as Boston College would be a concern. But the ACC has made it perfectly clear that the showdown between FSU and Clemson two weeks ago was the de facto conference championship. The Tigers will take out their frustrations on their next seven opponents, then watch FSU club the bejesus out of Virginia Tech or Miami in the conference title game.

16. TCU (defeated SMU 24-16) – The Horned Frogs’ victory over the weekend wasn’t its most impressive, but at least it avenged their only loss from last season. Already sitting at 1-0 in conference play, TCU will take on hapless Iowa State this week and looks to join the likes of Texas, Kansas State, Oklahoma and West Virginia in vying for the conference title. Also, what is it with the color purple nowadays? TCU is one of five teams in the USELESS Poll whose main color is purple? And that doesn’t even include Oregon, which might switch over at any second just as soon as it can perfect a Purple Nike swoosh.

17. Everyone in the Pac-12 not named Oregon or USC (too close to sort out) – The Pac-12 is getting a bit ridiculous. And not in the normal “this conference is so weak that we can’t determine anything other than the favorite” sort of way. The Pac-12 has entered SEC territory as seven different teams have cracked the top-25 at one point or another this season. Oregon is the clear leader as it would likely play in the national championship game if it was held today and USC still figures to get back into the national championship discussion. After that, Oregon State, Stanford, UCLA, Washington and Arizona all qualify as dangerous teams that nobody from outside the conference wants to play.

18. Oklahoma (did not play) – The Sooners took a week off to continue quietly weeping over that home loss to Kansas State. As a program that has become synonymous for shrinking away its biggest games, Oklahoma lost the final talking point remaining on its side. Bob Stoops had never lost a home game to a ranked opponent until K-State pulled off the upset. The Sooners still have plenty of time to get back into the hunt, but they have put themselves in a big spot from the get-go.

19. Rutgers (did not play) – Rutgers has done nothing of note to get a boost in the polls, but the huge group of Pac-12 schools squeezing into one spot and this poll’s insistence that the Big East have a representative in the top-20 means that the Scarlett Knights are in this week. This season is a very important one for all of the schools that continue to believe that staying in the Big East is a good idea. Pittsburgh is moving out and creating a chance for a team like Rutgers or South Florida to make the leap from good-once-every-five-years to perennial BCS contender.

20. Mississippi State (did not play) – The Bulldogs have been on the cusp of breaking into the poll for the last couple of weeks and they’ve finally made it on the first day of October. Mississippi State hasn’t been overwhelmingly impressive so far, but with Arkansas in free fall and neither Auburn nor Ole Miss presenting much of a challenge, it seems to have a free run to a 9-10 win season and the honor of losing to Alabama and LSU by slightly less than other SEC schools.

21. Northwestern (defeated Indiana 44-29) – With Minnesota dropping its conference opener against Iowa, Northwestern is now the only undefeated Big Ten team that is actually eligible to win the title. Looking at the long list of underwhelming teams in the conference, it seems entirely possible that the Wildcats could pull off a dark horse run. They are notorious for knocking off one or two ranked teams each season, and with only one currently ranked team laying in wait on the schedule, this could be Northwestern’s chance to get back to the top of the Big Ten.

22. Nebraska (defeated Wisconsin 30-27) – For three quarters on Saturday, it looked like Nebraska would be dropping out of the rankings. The Cornhuskers were getting mopped up by Wisconsin, but Taylor Martinez rallied his troops just in time to erase a 27-13 deficit. Nebraska seems to have timed its leap to the Big Ten perfectly. The Huskers’ offense likely wouldn’t be enough to keep up with the high-flying Big XII offenses, but they look like a juggernaut in their new conference.

23. Boise State (defeated New Mexico 32-29) – The wins keep on coming, but Boise State just doesn’t seem the same without those video game scores. These pedestrian efforts are going to keep the Broncos from shooting up the polls, but this could be just a hiccup that precedes another huge 2-3 year run. A year after the infamous Fiesta Bowl win over Oklahoma, Boise lost nearly all of its offense and defense – similar to this season – and went 7-5 in the following year while retooling. The Broncos are finding their footing again this season, but if a team full of underclassmen and first-year starters can put up 9-10 wins, just imagine what the next few years could bring.

24. Beer In Stadiums (defeating sobriety by at least a .08 BAC) – Before the season started, those go-getters in the Minnesota state legislature voted to allow alcohol sales in the University of Minnesota’s on-campus stadium. What’s more, the legislation mandates that the alcohol be made available for sale throughout the entire stadium, and not just in luxury suites. With this welcome new adoption nearly 20 percent of college teams now sell alcohol at their stadiums. While mixing rowdy college kids and booze might seem like a bad idea, the USELESS Poll thinks otherwise. Much like relaxed drug laws, more tolerance of something leads to less abuse. If you can buy a few beers during a game, you’re less likely to go overboard by downing that entire flask of Jack Daniels that you smuggled in.

25. Louisville (defeated Southern Miss 21-17) – You were warned, Louisville. You’re already behind the 8-ball for playing in the Big East. Barely slipping past less-than-stellar non-conference teams isn’t going to keep you in the rankings. The Cardinals get one more chance to prove that they really belong in the rankings this week as they open up conference play against Pittsburgh. Time to put up or shut up, Louisville.

Teams that are good, but not quite good enough:  Ohio, Texas Tech, Texas A&M

Teams that are probably Top-25, but I ran out of good jokes: Louisiana Tech, Cincinnati

I enjoy making this poll every week, but it’s time consuming and I can’t always catch all of the unique storylines that are vital to the unique weighting of my rankings. If you have something (dirt on a player, pictures of cheerleaders, valuable betting information, etc.) that you think should affect a team’s ranking, feel free to bring it up in the comments section.