For perhaps the first time in history—more realistically, the first time I can remember (and I don’t remember much)—the most impactful action for Clemson last weekend occurred on the west coast of the country.
With the Pac-12 in upheaval, the chances of a one-loss Tiger team making the College Football Playoff increased dramatically on Saturday. Clemson fans patiently waiting out a double-bye stretch of 16 days without football could not have gotten better news than they got after the late slate of games concluded last week.
How did the Pac-12’s rough week impact the power rankings? I’m glad you asked…
- SEC
If there weren’t such a large gap between these leagues before the week, the competition for this top spot could have been interesting. It wasn’t as if the teams from the SEC acquitted themselves well on the final weekend of September.
Two teams (Tennessee and Arkansas) choked away games in which the teams that beat them (Florida and Texas A&M) didn’t exactly play well. LSU looked “meh” against Syracuse. The other conference matchups lacked much fanfare whatsoever, either before or during play.
The fact is, though, that the major players in the league all won their games. That’s enough to keep the SEC at the top of the rankings…for now
- Big 12
It always helps your reputation when you can put some decent-looking teams with subpar records behind some dynamite teams at the top of the standings. That’s what Texas is to TCU, Baylor, and Oklahoma. The Longhorns lost in embarrassing fashion again, dropping their season mark to a deceiving 1-3.
Speaking of TCU, the Horned Frogs needed a bit of magic to get past a suddenly dangerous Texas Tech program. Kansas State, Oklahoma State, and West Virginia have also enjoyed unbeaten starts to supplement those primary contenders atop the conference standings.
The honeymoon won’t last forever. Two games this weekend feature perfect teams battling it out, meaning the “beat each other up” portion of the schedule is just beginning for this league.
- Pac-12
It’s not the end of the world, but the Pac-12’s playoff depth took a serious hit last week. Oregon and Arizona State, two viable preseason contenders, are already eliminated, and both suffered embarrassing home losses on Saturday where they were defeated by a combined 70 points.
Plenty of teams remain standing, including the teams that administered those beatdowns. Utah looks legit after a solid month of September it punctuated by pulverizing the Ducks in Eugene. One-loss teams USC and Stanford look like potentially dangerous teams, and both have already met on the field this year. UCLA might be the favorite after defeating BYU and Arizona on consecutive weeks.
However, the loss of Oregon and Arizona State and the impending fall of a bloated Arizona program that got pounded by the Bruins last week isn’t good for this league. Depth was its strongest suit, and that depth was cut down significantly.
- Big Ten
Let’s start with the good. (Hint: There isn’t much.) Michigan impressed everybody paying attention by blanking a quality BYU team. Indiana went on the road and defeated the ACC’s worst team in a game that was more lopsided than the final score indicated.
Anybody else? Anyone? No? Alright, now to the bad.
Maryland lost to West Virginia by 39, its worst loss in six seasons. A Bowling Green team that previously beat the Terps by three touchdowns went to Purdue and won on a late touchdown. Middle Tennessee almost knocked off Illinois and was probably the better team in the game.
On top of this, the league’s two standard-bearers—Ohio State and Michigan State—have not looked impressive in a single game so far, no matter the level of competition. Once the rest of the country figures this out, the top two spots in the country could be in jeopardy.
- ACC
How does a league fall behind the Big Ten in terms of power rankings? If you do what the ACC did on Saturday, it just happens by default.
The weekend started with Virginia losing by 42 points, at home, on national TV, to Boise State. Trendy preseason conference champion pick Georgia Tech is now 2-2 after a listless performance in soggy Durham, and Virginia Tech dropped a game to East Carolina in which it led big early and watched that lead disintegrate.
This league has three unbeaten teams, and one of them—N.C. State—is the only Power 5 team that has yet to play another Power 5 team in the season’s first month. There’s simply nothing here to convince anyone this league has any depth, and it’s not like Clemson and Florida State have impressed many people thus far.