College Football Rankings Week 3
Updated: Sep 9, 2019
It is finally starting to become more clear on which teams are actually Top 25 and which ones are over hyped.
So close! In the preseason I ranked Army as my 9th best team and they were so close taking down Michigan in a season where they are unlikely to lose more than one more game all year. They had control of the game, but it appeared that the atmosphere got to them late and they were unable to finish off the Wolverines. They also decided to get fancy in the red zone and threw an interception that would have otherwise been at least three points.
Perhaps the most surprising team of the week was USC with their dominant final 35 minutes against Stanford. They are looking like the opposite of what Tennessee was looking like ahead of BYU's game against them. Tennessee looked down and vulnerable, whereas USC looks like they are the team that is "back" and the Cougars best hope of winning may be that they will be overlooking the Cougars.
This week's rankings don't see as much change as they did last week, however, as I said last week, I am still opposed to there being rankings until after week three because there are still some teams that are figuring themselves out and honestly the media has no idea who will end up exceeding or meeting all the hype.
Week 3 - Number in () is last weeks rank
1. Clemson (1)
2. Alabama (2)
3. Oklahoma (3)
4. LSU (6)
5. Ohio State (7)
Not too many surprises here, no team jumped a team that didn't lose. All five of these teams had a really good win and the gap between Oklahoma and LSU is really thin.
6. Texas A&M (5)
I'm still really high on Texas A&M. They didn't get blown out by Clemson which says something in itself. In fact, they were the closest team to beat Clemson since Trevor Lawrence took over as the full time quarterback.
7. Georgia (8)
8. Texas (4)
Texas had a tough loss to LSU but showed that they are a really tough team. If these two teams played ten times each would probably win five. But they played on and Texas lost, dropping them four spots.
9. UCF (9)
10. Auburn (11)
11. Utah (12)
12. Boise State (15)
13. Notre Dame (13)
14. Michigan (10)
Michigan is not looking very impressive to this point in the season which is a big reason they keep on dropping. Army should have won that game but they got fancy in the red zone and threw a rare interception. Michigan should be happy that they aren't playing tough Big 10 teams yet.
15. Florida (18)
16. Oregon (19)
Yes, Oregon lost to Auburn two weeks ago, but they are looking really good. Last week, I researched and found that most teams score less points the game after a tough loss, but the Ducks hung 77 points on Nevada, a team that beat Purdue to start off the season.
17. Penn State (21)
18. Wisconsin (NR)
19. Memphis (20)
20. Virginia (23)
21. Army (24)
Yes, Army lost and they went up in the rankings. Army shouldn't lose a game the rest of the season, but their schedule is not going to help them get ranked very high. This is a solid team that can hang with some really good teams if given the chance.
22. USC (NR)
BYU is now probably going to be playing four ranked teams this season. USC came out and looked like a Top 10 team in the second half against Stanford.
23. TCU (22)
24. Maryland (NR)
Wow. Maryland wasn't supposed to be this good this season and yet here we are talking about how they beat ranked Syracuse by 43 points. I thought Syracuse was going to be a sleeper BCS team... Nope.
25. Syracuse (13)
Dropped Out: Washington (16), Nebraska (17), Stanford (25)
Teams Closing in: Mississippi State, Washington State, California, Washington Iowa, Appalachian State, Boston College, Wyoming and Hawaii
Game of the week: Tennessee vs BYU
Play of the week: Florida International's Rishard Dames' intercepted a pass one handed and then weaved through traffic to score an 80 yard pick six. Yeah... That's how much football I watch.