TRS College Football Rankings after Week 7

WOW, what a weekend of football.

Every year has a weekend or two like this, where there cream rises...or injuries take their toll, as the case may be.

Let's take a quick look at what happened.

Missouri announced their intent to be a serious member of the SEC with a road win in Athens.  Say what you want about the injuries, Missouri didn't squeak that game out, they beat the Dawgs, limping as they were.  A good team should be a team on it's third-string running back by double digits.  Missouri was a good team, now we get to see how big a loss James Franklin is going to be.

As bad as Texas looked early in the season, their new found commitment to running downhill and an aggressive defense has them looking pretty good.  Don't get me wrong, they are not a top 10 team week to week, but they are more talented than nearly any other team in the country, and these schemes are letting them play rather thank think.  They will be in the top 20 by the end if they play like this, and they will deserve it.

We found out that as good as Arkansas played to stay close to the Aggies last week, they still have some work to do.

I think we got a realistic measure for how good the Baylor Bears really are.  When squared off against a well-coached defense that takes away those mistake plays that Baylor turns into 80 yard touchdowns, they are still good, but not great.  That said, 35 points on a Bill Snyder defense is a find showing, and they have the talent to beat you a couple times a game even when you are doing things the right way.

The PAC-12 is Oregon and everyone else at this point.  Stanford and UCLA both have a puncher's chance against them, but this race is theirs to lose.

TRS College Football Rankings

Rank	School	Wins	Games	SoS	Margin
1	Oregon	6	6	3.25	258
2	Alabama	6	6	3.5	165
3	Missouri	6	6	3.5	136
4	Florida State	5	5	2.75	208
5	LSU	6	7	4	136
6	Clemson	6	6	3.25	148
7	South Carolina	5	6	4.25	71
8	Stanford	5	6	3.75	84
9	Ohio State	6	6	2.75	148
10	Texas Aggies	5	6	3.5	95
11	Miami	5	5	2.5	146
12	UCLA	5	5	2.5	138
13	Baylor	5	5	2	227
14	Auburn	5	6	3.25	101
15	Arizona State	4	6	3.75	102
16	Texas Tech	6	6	2.5	148
17	Georgia	4	6	5	23
18	Washington	4	6	4	75
19	Michigan State	5	6	3.25	88
20	Florida	4	6	4.25	58
21	Virginia Tech	6	7	3.5	57
22	Wisconsin	4	6	3	144
23	Brigham Young	4	6	3.75	73
24	Nebraska	5	6	2.75	122
25	Louisville	6	6	2	202
26	Ball State	6	7	2.75	104
27	Michigan	5	6	2.75	94
28	Utah	4	6	3.5	70
29	Boise State	4	6	3	102
30	Oregon State	5	6	2.75	78

As I mentioned last week, Florida State was going to get its one week at the top.

That's because in the TRS system, you only get credit for games that you played this season. That is important on 2 points.

1. You played a game.
2.  It was this season with your current collection of players.

You take a week off, good luck holding onto your spot.

That said, I love my Noles, but I don't think they would beat Oregon right now. It would be a fun, and high scoring affair, but the Ducks are awful good.

CONFERENCE COUNTS:
SEC: 8
PAC-12: 7
BIG TEN: 5
ACC: 4
BIG 12: 2
AAC: 1
INDEPENDENT: 1
MAC: 1
MWC: 1

The SEC is still the class of college football, but the PAC has made tremendous strides, which is illustrated in this week's rankings. The SEC has one more in, but their worst ranked team is Florida at #20.  The PAC has 2 of the last 3 to squeeze in. Ranked is ranked, but Florida would likely throttle Oregon State or Utah more often than not.

The ACC is still very good at the top with 3 of the top 11, but Maryland has yet to recover from the beating they got from the Seminoles 2 weeks ago. I look for them to be a 5-6 team conference at the end of the year with Georgia Tech and Maryland fighting to join the top 30.

The Big Ten has so many teams that they are bound to have some ranked, but there just isn't much at the top, and Northwestern's loss to Wisconsin hurts the perception of what looked like a quality win for Ohio State.

The Big 12 is interesting. Texas looks to be turning things around after bringing in their new DC and focusing on their downhill rushing attack. It's much more like what they used to do, and sure enough they can still do it a little bit. I expect to see OU, Texas and Oklahoma State all back in the rankings by the end of the season. These are all good, though not great, teams who took losses in conference.

Soon enough other teams will do that, and if the teams in the mid-majors do it, it's going to drop them like a stone.

See you next week.