The passing of Oklahoma State's Brandon Weeden is a big reason why the Cowboys are 10-0. Photo by Brett Deering/Getty Images.
Things are getting clearer at the top of polls. LSU is the clear No. 1. Oklahoma State is in the passenger’s seat on the way to the national championship game.
If the 10-0 Cowboys win at Iowa State this Friday night and then in a superb Bedlam showdown at home against Oklahoma on Dec. 3, they will be headed to the title game.
This is a perfect example of why Big 12 contraction is not a bad thing; the Cowboys don’t have to navigate a league championship game that had been problematic for the conference favorite.
There are a couple of sticky points on this week’s ballot — we’ll get to this in a second — but the big question is who could Arizona State receive seven points in this week’s poll?
Turns out all those points came from one ballot — that of Josh Kendall of The State newspaper in Columbia, South Carolina. He put ASU — which is 6-4 and has lost two in a row, including a 37-27 loss at Washington State on Saturday night — at No. 19.
Perhaps he assumed ASU was going to beat the Cougars and didn’t check the score when he woke up this morning.
Kendall also was the only voter to rank 6-4 Washington, which was slammed by USC on Saturday.
Trickier rankings came from the trio of one-loss Boise State, two-loss Georgia and two-loss TCU. Boise State beat Georgia, but lost to TCU on Saturday. What order do you put them in? I’m sticking with Boise State, Georgia and TCU, with the Horned Frogs still saddled with that loss to SMU.
The bottom of the rankings is a revolving door. I like Notre Dame more than most every other of the voters in the AP poll (there are 60 of us), but the Irish’s best victory (Michigan State) is better than those from teams I have rated lower.
Here is my ballot for this week:
1. LSU
2. Oklahoma State
3. Alabama
4. Oregon
5. Arkansas
6. Oklahoma
7. Clemson
8. Stanford
9. Michigan State
10. South Carolina
11. Virginia Tech
12. USC
13. Boise State
14. Georgia
15. Wisconsin
16. Nebraska
17. Houston
18. Kansas State
19. TCU
20. Michigan
21. Notre Dame
22. Penn State
23. Florida State
24. Southern Miss
25. Baylor