USELESS Poll: Week 7

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.

We’re getting very close to the halfway point of the season, and we finally saw a few upsets last week. Most of the teams at the top seem pretty solid, but we’re getting the feeling that the rest of the top-25 will become a total free-for-all in the coming month.

This is the absolute sweet spot of the entire sports calendar for sensible people who favor baseball and football above all other athletic ventures. We’ve got - in this poll’s opinion – the four best teams in MLB still alive and putting on great series in the ALCS and NLCS. Meanwhile, the NFL is heating up and college football is past the point where teams contending for a national championship can convince themselves that they can shake off a loss and chalk it up to an ‘early-season stumble’.

The by-product of all of that is about two months of being able to turn on the television just about any night and be treated to games that feature teams who are totally invested in any second of the game. Now that we’re all thoroughly transfixed on the games, grab some popcorn and dig into this week’s poll.

1. Alabama (defeated Kentucky 48-7) – We’re pretty sure that some Crimson Tide players were ragged mercilessly for not covering the point spread against Georgia State two weeks ago. Unfortunately for Kentucky, it was the next man up and bore the full brunt of Bama proving that it hadn’t gone soft. The Tide nearly had the spread against the Wildcats covered by halftime and never really let off the gas. We can guarantee that the Tide will stay on top until they lose, but it’s worth noting that Alabama has a ridiculously easy schedule this season. Outside of the already-won showdown with Texas A&M and a Nov. 9 matchup with LSU, there aren’t any other legitimate threats (outside of Auburn fans who would argue otherwise) to the Tide until the SEC championship game. The history books are lined with teams who have played much better opponents than Colorado State, Georgia State, Arkansas, and Chattanooga, yet were told to stay away from the national title game due to a schedule that was too soft.

2. Oregon (defeated No. 15 Washington 45-24) – The Huskies and their dominating defense were a trendy pick to solve the riddle of Oregon’s permanently-stuck-on-fast-forward offense. As it turns out, the Ducks’ attack isn’t a riddle. It’s just a terrifying machine that doesn’t seem to have an off switch. Washington tried to fight fire with fire, but the Huskies brought a torch while Oregon showed up with an entire squadron of attack helicopters dropping napalm. Marcus Mariota continues to climb in the Heisman race and the duo of he and DeAnthony Thomas running wild has to be a terrifying thought for any defense.

3. Clemson (defeated Boston College 24-14) – OK, Tiger fans. You can all start breathing again. Just inhale and exhale into this paper bag. It’ll be alright. For the first time this season, Clemson looked like its normal underachieving self that is always on the brink of tragedy. The Tigers could barely move the ball for the first half. Even when they did get going, there was no part of last weekend’s win that wasn’t an absolute struggle. The convenient excuse for all of this was that Clemson was looking ahead to this week’s de facto division title game against Florida State. And you know what? That showdown is now just a few days away. Go ahead and hang on to those paper bags, Tiger fans.

4. Ohio State (did not play) – Fun fact… Former Heisman Trophy winner Troy Smith is still playing professional football. Not NFL football, but still playing on a team that consistently gives him money in exchange for playing the game. So who are we to judge? Anyways, it turns out that even Smith’s spot in the Canadian Football League isn’t totally safe. In fact, the only reason he still has a job is because Tim Tebow is too proud to go north of the border and take it from him. The Montreal Alouettes are currently employing Smith, but also hold the rights to Tim Tebow. For two years, all we’ve heard is that Tebow wants to play quarterback and won’t accept some hybrid role. Now, we know that there is a team just waiting for him to show up and throw for them… We never accused him of being all that smart.

5. Florida State (did not play) – Jameis Winston has built up quite the cult following among FSU fans and ACC followers who have seen the redshirt freshman play. This Saturday is his chance to pull a Manziel and turn a stellar season into a Heisman campaign with one huge game on the national stage. The Seminoles take on Clemson with the ABC cameras and ESPN College GameDay slated to be in attendance. He even had a bye week to better prepare his team. This couldn’t possibly be more of a ‘boom-or-bust’ situation. If Winston continues his ridiculous clip of completing over 70 percent of his passes and can pull out a win for his team, there will be no stopping the Winston bandwagon.

6. Louisville (defeated Rutgers 24-10) – While Winston’s Heisman campaign might catch fire this week, Teddy Bridgewater’s bid may have run off the tracks last week. Sure, he was solid and guided Louisville to a win, but he wasn’t spectacular. The Cardinals had a captive national audience as the only game on Thursday night. With the Cards’ Zombie Big East schedule, Rutgers was the closest to a big challenge they’d get and last week’s Thursday night game was the closest to a showcase game that Bridgewater will see. He won, but he didn’t do enough to impress voters who might have been getting their first good look at him since last season’s Sugar Bowl.

7. Texas A&M (defeated Mississippi 41-38) – For a few terrifying minutes last Saturday night, the nation held its breath. Johnny Football was down, and it didn’t look very good. Grabbing at a knee is usually bad news, and it’s even worse if there was no hit that caused the knee to give. Luckily for us, Mr. Football can’t be bothered by mortal things such as damaged ligaments and/or tendons. After sitting out a series and slapping on a knee brace, he proceeded to run up 459 yards of total offense that included a pair of rushing touchdowns. Whether you love him or hate him, it’s just stupid to bet against this kid.

8. Miami (FL) (did not play) – Seeing as how Miami hit the way-back machine and dialed up its seedy and illegal shenanigans from the 80s – leading to a self-imposed bowl ban – it’s easy to forget that the Hurricanes were the most talented team in the ACC last season. The superstars at Clemson and Florida State are soaking up most of the attention so far, but the Hurricanes probably don’t mind. Miami is in position to make a run at the conference title. Even if the Canes drop the ACC championship game, a top-10 ranking this early in the season and an otherwise unblemished schedule would likely be enough to get them into a BCS game.

9. UCLA (defeated Cal 37-10) – Brett Hundley has quickly shot up the charts, joining names like Teddy Bridgewater and Marcus Marriota in NFL draft discussions. Hundley looked incredibly flustered as the Bruins narrowly escaped Utah two weeks ago. Then, like a guy who could go in the first round of the draft should do, he put a shaky performance behind him and followed it up with greatness. Hundley went 31-of-41 through the air for a career high 410 yards in easily wiping the floor with Cal. Now comes the tricky part. Hundley and the Bruins have to deal with a very pissed off Stanford team this week before travelling to Oregon, which thinks that 410 yards is a pretty nice first half.

10. LSU (defeated Florida 17-6) – The hypocrisy – or at the very least, the complete lack of self-awareness – of some fans is just comical. For years, SEC fans have turned up their noses at one-loss teams from the Pac-12 and Big XII, citing high-scoring teams as gimmicks that don’t play any defense. Suddenly, a general indifference to defense isn’t so important since the conference is home to some truly prolific offenses. Here is a paraphrasing of an actual conversation between two Georgia fans (after UGA’s loss) heard at a bar during the LSU-FLA game – “It’s a shame that Georgia has all these injuries. Florida could end up winning the East and they can’t even move the ball. We beat the shit out of LSU and Florida can’t even keep up.” We thought 17-6 games was how these people got their jollies off for the last half decade?

11. Upsets (defeating those boring old blowouts) – It took nearly two months of play, but we finally had ourselves a good ol’ shakeup week. Four ranked teams went down against unranked squads over the weekend, with at least two having major significance in the BCS picture. Some people (looking your way, Colin Cowherd) will tell you that upsets are exciting, but ultimately bad for the game as they take popular and good teams out of the picture. That may be true in the 68-team NCAA basketball tournament, but even the most mixed up, crazy, unpredictable year of college football on the books – remember when the No. 2 team lost seven times in 2007? – we still get treated to entertaining BCS games featuring a majority of traditional powers.

12. South Carolina (defeated Arkansas 52-7) – The Gamecocks are acting like the one-team soap opera that we’ve all become accustomed to. They’ve hit all the major points. Drama and controversy surrounding their biggest superstar? Check. Quarterback merry-go-round and injuries? Check. Steve Spurrier saying stupid things for no good reason? Please. But this doesn’t have to be a bad thing. By the time South Carolina stops its bipolar act, it might look up to see that the rest of the SEC East has burned down around them. UGA beat Carolina, but is decimated by injuries. Florida has just half of a really good team. Missouri controls its destiny, but just lost its quarterback. Kentucky and Tennessee, we’re told, have already forfeited games to focus on basketball season. The Gamecocks may be quirky and crazy, but they’re probably the most complete team in the division that can still field all of its best players.

13. Stanford (lost to Utah 27-21) – Is it too cliché to throw out the old ‘letdown’ game adage? It seems lazy, but it also appears to have been the case in this season’s biggest upset to date. The Cardinal lost their perfect season in a war at Washington last year. Stanford got its revenge on the Huskies, but was flat throughout the game vs. Utah. But fear not, Cardinal. There is still some silver lining. Stanford will still be favored in all but one game through the rest of the regular season. All it has to do is catch lightning in a bottle and find a way to shut down Oregon for a second consecutive year and the Cardinal have a great chance to go back to the conference championship game.

14. Baylor (defeated Kansas State 35-25) – It’s not good when you get held to just half of your normal scoring output in a game while also giving up a few touchdowns. It’s much, much better when ‘only half of your normal offense’ still comes out to 35 points. Kansas State is taking its lumps after graduating over a dozen starters from last season’s Big XII championship team, but they’ve shown plenty of fight in the last two weeks against Baylor and Oklahoma State. Meanwhile, the Bears are doing their best to put up pinball scores each week. That probably won’t end any time soon as Iowa State and Kansas are the next two teams in line.

15. Texas Tech (defeated Iowa State 42-35) – Similar to the team just one slot above them, the Red Raiders love putting the ball in the air and are confident in their ability to outscore anyone. Texas Tech should be able to take care of business at West Virginia this week, but we’d much rather watch the interaction between fans the night before the game. It’s pretty rare to find two places – in this case, the Texas panhandle and rural West Virginia – that are so far away and in such different climates, yet have the exact same kind of inhabitants. You could probably sell tickets to prime seating around the bar strip in Morgantown. You’ll either see the biggest drunken hoedown ever or a redneck riot that inexplicably comes with its own banjo soundtrack.

16. Missouri (defeated No. 10 Georgia 42-26) – Missouri shoots up the polls with a huge road win against a top-10 team. Unfortunately for the Tigers, they lost start quarterback James Franklin for at least the next few weeks. Without him, it’s uncertain just how long Mizzou can stay up here. But hey… More good news – With UGA and South Carolina and Florida already in the SEC loss column, Missouri can still take solace in the fact that it controls its own destiny. The same can’t be said for…

17. Georgia (lost to Missouri 42-26) – Ha!!! We love it when the poll sets up for a killer segue like that. It’s really a shame the way things have worked out for the Bulldogs. Even considering the opening night loss at Clemson, UGA would have walked straight into the national title game if it had found a way to run the rest of the table and win the SEC championship. But then the injury bug bit. And by bug, we mean ravenous, ACL-ingesting monster. And by bit, we mean chomped down on any and every healthy UGA knee in sight. Georgia doesn’t have much of a defense, but it does have a top-5 quarterback and – up until the last couple of weeks – had enough complimentary weapons to negate the defense’s shortcomings. Now, UGA will be hard-pressed just to make it through the regular season and make a decent bowl game.

18. Fresno State (did not play) – We’re all about giving those plucky, non-BCS conference underdogs plenty of love, but it’s hard not to find Fresno just a tad boring, if not forgettable. We’ve already covered the almost mildly interesting tidbit that the Bulldogs’ current quarterback is the little brother of former Fresno quarterback and disappointing NFL signal caller David Carr… That’s literally the only cool story we could come up with. At least Boise plays in a state not known for football and has that wacky-ass field. We respect the wins, but you’ve got to give us something else to run with while you’re busy beating up on the Mountain West.

19. Virginia Tech (defeated Pittsburgh 19-9) – Last week, Virginia Tech crept into the rankings, hoping that nobody would notice. It didn’t escape our attention and we immediately called out the Hokies for being one of those schools that just cant handle being a superior team that is favored to win just about every game. Virginia Tech has had plenty of injuries and plays a ton of young kids, but still has more raw talent than most of the ACC. That said, the Hokies seemed to be well aware of their new ranked status last week as they immediately started struggling against a Pittsburgh team that isn’t bad, but also shouldn’t cause so much of a grind for a good team. For Va-Tech, the plan is simple… Find a way to beat Miami and try not to throw up all over yourself against some overmatched opponent along the way.

20. Wisconsin (defeated No. 19 Northwestern 35-6) – The Badgers made quite a statement, thoroughly dominating a Northwestern squad that had pushed Ohio State to the brink the previous week. Wisconsin might not be hanging with the elite teams just yet, but the Badgers shouldn’t be taken lightly. After all, if not for a highly questionable call against Arizona State, the Badgers might be 5-1, with only a tough loss to a top-5 team blotting their resume. Too bad for Wisconsin that it shares a (ridiculously named) division with Ohio State. The Badgers could easily be viewed – if more attention was paid to them - as a sad-sack school that wins 9-10 games each year, only to pick out a perfect game/time/opponent to lose to that totally torpedoes their efforts for the rest of the season. Wisconsin has a favorable track record in bowl games, but keeps managing to play its way off the biggest stages well before the first snow falls in Madison.

21. Oklahoma State (did not play) – Now that Oklahoma has gone down and both Baylor and Texas Tech are vying for Cinderella status, Oklahoma State is perfectly positioned to come back like a wrecking ball in the second half of the season. Sure, that loss to West Virginia was bad. In fact, it will probably keep the Cowpokes out of a BCS bowl if they don’t win the Big XII… But the conference is currently up for grabs and OSU still controls its own destiny. Okie State doesn’t have the richest history ever, but it was just barely left out of the national title game two years ago. And hey, that team ran off of a receiver who couldn’t get on the field for his first NFL game before getting arrested and a QB who is being abandoned in his second year. If nothing else, Oklahoma State needs to pull itself together just to draw in a new line of recruits who aren’t put off by the lack of Cowboys stars in the NFL.

22. Seasonal beers (defeating the piss water that we gulp down at tailgates) – Here at the USELESS Poll, we’re big fans of craft beer. While plenty of seasonal offerings are great, the easy winners are the beers that roll around in fall and winter. Maybe it’s the extra body and boldness, or maybe it’s the fact that you can enjoy them while watching playoff baseball and football, but something about the cold weather beers easily puts them on top. Octoberfest beers are just fine and milk/oatmeal stouts are good for sipping while huddled around a campfire in freezing weather, but our hands down winner is Red Brick Porter from the Red Brick Brewing Company in Atlanta. It’s now available at a few spots in the greater Statesboro, GA area. We highly suggest you buy a sixer and give it a try. If you hate it, invite us over for Monday Night Football and we’ll probably be able to dispose of the rest for you… no charge.

23. Northern Illinois (defeated Akron 27-20) – If the Huskies want to get another crack at the BCS, they need to start cracking skulls. Northern Illinois had a few lackluster performances last season, but still got the benefit of a doubt before getting embarrassed by Florida State. And what’s up with Akron? Why doesn’t LeBron James do something for his hometown university? We often refer to crappy schools that have somehow stumbled onto awesome names. Akron is just a crappy school with a crappy name. The Zips? Really? An actual line from the fight song reads: ‘Zip, Zip, go the Zips’. You aren’t even trying Akron. Do better.

24. Oklahoma (lost to Texas 36-20) – Hey. Waddaya know? At the first sign of prosperity, the Sooners fold like a tent bought on clearance during a WalMart black Friday sale. Oklahoma didn’t just get upset. It got beaten up and down the field for four solid quarters. Technically, Texas isn’t a bad team and is still very much alive in the Big XII race. But still… Sooners, you can’t keep pulling this crap. This is exactly how you convince everyone outside of your state that you aren’t worth following. The next time you’re 5-0 and wondering why you aren’t in the top-10, remember last week. Then, maybe go eat a deep fried twinkie from the state fair going on right outside the Red River Shootout. The twinkie won’t fix the loss or the humiliation, but we bet it would be incredibly delicious.

25. Washington (lost to No. 2 Oregon 45-24) – Good try, Huskies. Honestly, we haven’t seen anyone give Oregon that much of a run for its money – if we can even consider a three touchdown margin that – since Stanford upset the Ducks last season. Washington did its best to run the best guess blueprint for beating Oregon. The Huskies limited big plays and managed to launch touchdown drives that ran plenty of time off the clock. Logic would dictate that long waits on the sideline would throw off the Ducks’ rhythm. But there’s nothing logical about the Ducks – in case you couldn’t tell from those Technicolor dreamcoat uniforms that evolve each season. Oregon is the same terrifying beat that we’ve been calling it for the last two months. Washington gave it a good shot, but ended up as just another victim in the Ducks’ ever-growing list.

Teams that probably are Top-25, but I ran out of good jokes: Auburn, Nebraska

Teams that are good, but not quite good enough:  Northwestern, Utah, Notre Dame

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.