Bloodless Coup

And with Cal, Auburn and Texas all losing (plus Louisville on Thursday), well, I cant wait to see where WVU is ranked today.

how in hell does Florida end up moving to 3 after a near debacle against an unranked team? like, this isn't even a rant about where rutgers ended up. they got where i wanted them too, where i could realistically hope them to, and i'm happy. but florida simply didn't look like the 3d best team in the country yesterday, and i'm at a loss as to why they warrant a promotion for that.

and while i understand room was cleared out in front of them -- inter alia, by rutgers beating louisville -- when rutgers won a nailbiter against connecticut, they slipped a spot. and that seems to me eminently fair -- a win may be a win, but when you're gauging this many teams, when a should-win game turns into a tense anything-might-happen affair (like, say, s. carolina making that field goal at the end), the winning team still deserves to take a knock in the polls.

Because they outsmarted that wily sumbitch Steve Spurrier. :)

I'll buy that - that they weren't playing South Carolina, they were playing Spurrier. But in the end it doesn't really matter. Florida will only stay ranked that high if they win out - and if they can accomplish that, a strong argument can be made that they really deserve to be #3 (though of course that's only in one poll, and NOT in the BCS poll, which has USC #3).

Though I don't know if they'll win out. Arkansas looks better and better all the time.

It all hinges on FSU for them.

and notre dame's got USC. among the top 6, rutgers may have the easiest remaining schedule of the lot. :-)

Well I think Rutgers is going to have a hard time overcoming either of the following possibilities - a 1-loss USC team coming off a victory over Notre Dame or a 1-loss winner of the SEC championship game, be it Florida or Arkansas - even if they manage to beat WVU in Morgantown.

"even if they manage to beat WVU"??? puh-leeze; even in m'town, the burden's on your boys to prove that they can win with a run-only offense when rutgers has proven they can simultaneously smother an above average run game coupled to one of the best passers in college football. that D-line has staked its claim to best-in-NCAA, bar none.

but i agree that a 1-loss USC or florida, should it beat arkansas, will end up ahead of rutgers, just based on how things are. arkansas i'm not so sure about. they've still got an early rout to answer for, and i don't see anything happening between now and the end of the season to change the BCS computers' verdict (rutgers #2 to mich!

Well this is yet another reason to trash the travesty that is the coaches poll. The idea that the coaches really have the time to follow all the top several dozen teams in the country is ludicrous. Most coaches admit that their knowledge of most of the teams varies from slim to none. So it's time to drop that poll and let the game as played on the field this year actually shape the rankings.