There is no doubt that the feature story of this young college football season has been the East Carolina Pirates who have upset victories on the road at Virginia Tech and at home against West Virginia. While I believe that the Pirates are a legitimate Top 25 team possibly Top 15 they are a far cry from being Top 5.
Three voters in this week’s BlogPoll put East Carolina as the top team in the country. While I share in their enthusiasm for this team, and believe these are the stories that make college football the greatest sport on the planet, I also have to say that it robs the credibility of the poll. The Pirates are obviously good but can they play with the likes of Georgia, USC, Oklahoma or Ohio State? Then why would we rank them that high?
Other than the Pirates the teams that we really liked were Penn State, Oklahoma, California, Wake Forest, Missouri, UCLA and Illinois. They all moved up this week. Penn State made the biggest jump among teams that were already ranked by moving up 6 spots to #12.
Teams that we were down on were Florida, Ohio State, Alabama, Texas Tech, Kansas, South Florida, BYU, Utah and Fresno State. They all moved down this week with South Florida taking the biggest hit. The Bulls moved down three spots after an overtime win over Central Florida.
| Rank | Team | PPB | StdDev | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Southern Cal (44) | 24.2 | 1.8 | -- |
| 2 | Georgia (10) | 22.7 | 3.2 | -- |
| 3 | Oklahoma (9) | 22.6 | 2.0 |  2 |
| 4 | Florida (8) | 22.3 | 1.7 |  1 |
| 5 | Missouri | 20.2 | 1.9 | 1 |
| 6 | Ohio State (1) | 19.0 | 4.5 | 2 |
| 7 | LSU | 17.9 | 4.1 | -- |
| 8 | Texas | 16.8 | 2.8 | -- |
| 9 | Auburn | 15.6 | 3.1 | -- |
| 10 | East Carolina (3) | 13.6 | 4.7 | 16 |
| 11 | Wisconsin | 13.3 | 4.6 | -- |
| 12 | Penn State | 12.2 | 4.3 | 6 |
| 13 | Alabama | 11.6 | 4.4 | 1 |
| 14 | Texas Tech | 11.4 | 4.9 | 1 |
| 15 | Oregon | 11.4 | 4.2 | -- |
| 16 | Kansas | 10.5 | 4.8 | 2 |
| 17 | Arizona State | 10.3 | 4.0 | -- |
| 18 | Wake Forest | 7.9 | 4.2 | 2 |
| 19 | South Florida | 7.4 | 4.1 | 3 |
| 20 | California | 6.1 | 5.4 | 3 |
| 21 | Brigham Young | 5.7 | 4.2 | 2 |
| 22 | Utah | 4.8 | 3.5 | 1 |
| 23 | Fresno State | 4.0 | 3.7 | 1 |
| 24 | UCLA | 2.6 | 4.3 | 1 |
| 25 | Illinois | 1.6 | 2.2 | 1 |
Total Ballots: 75
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