This week’s big story is Florida, which has vaulted from “unranked” to #8 in just two weeks, with wins over Auburn and Ole Miss, They showed a powerful offense against Ole Miss, scoring 52 points and grinding out about 500 yards from scrimmage. They dominated the time of possession, 37:23 against a team that had been (and still is) in the top ten, so the voters got a wake-up call.
The other major surprise was that Wisconsin proved better than expected, handing Penn State their first loss. The Badgers didn’t show much offensive pop, and their QB was 18/38 with three INTs, but their D-squad won the game. They held Penn State to just 233 yards of offense, dropping them off the rankings chart.
| Team | AP Rank | Sagarin Rank | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Boise State | 22 | 48 | 26 |
| Oklahoma State | 19 | 38 | 19 |
| SMU | 21 | 40 | 19 |
| BYU | 10 | 25 | 15 |
| Houston | 20 | 33 | 13 |
| Mississippi State | 16 | 24 | 8 |
| Ole Miss | 9 | 14 | 5 |
| Utah | 13 | 17 | 4 |
| Kentucky | 24 | 28 | 4 |
| Missouri | 25 | 29 | 4 |
| Georgia | 2 | 5 | 3 |
| Miami (FL) | 4 | 7 | 3 |
| Texas | 1 | 3 | 2 |
| Florida | 8 | 10 | 2 |
| Iowa | 14 | 16 | 2 |
| Alabama | 7 | 8 | 1 |
| Texas Tech | 12 | 13 | 1 |
| Indiana | 6 | 6 | 0 |
| Notre Dame | 3 | 1 | -2 |
| LSU | 11 | 9 | -2 |
| UCLA | 23 | 21 | -2 |
| Ohio State | 5 | 2 | -3 |
| USC | 18 | 15 | -3 |
| Tennessee | 17 | 11 | -6 |
| Oregon | 15 | 4 | -11 |
The pattern we noticed earlier is still there, although not quite as extreme: the big disagreements are overwhelmingly in the “humans like them more” direction. Boise State is the whopper at +26; Oklahoma State and SMU are both +19. In the opposite direction, Oregon is the only double-digit case at −11.
The big surprise to me – I guess maybe Iowa really is that good. The humans think so and the computer thinks so. I remain skeptical, but I can be won over.
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