I hope all of you had a great day of football yesterday with 25 new teams playing including the Big 10 and Mountain West conference debuts. Some weird stuff happened in you weren’t paying attention. Rutgers (9), Purdue (19), and Indiana (20) (not recent powerhouses by any stretch of the imagination), upset Michigan St (101), Iowa (96), and Penn St (95), and all in the GCR top 20! We all know 2020 is, in general, not something we will want to remember fondly, but what a crazy football year. Louisville (55) who took Notre Dame (5) to the limit last weekend killed Florida St (38) who had just upended then GCR UNC (7). Wake Forest (25) bested Virginia Tech (21) who was GCR #4 at the time, a week after taking down Virginia (27). Missouri (49) has won 2 in a row after upsetting Kentucky (76) after beating LSU (70) last week (who stopped South Carolina’s (74) 2-game winning streak). Georgia St (66) held off Troy (61).
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In fact so much of this “upset” stuff has happened this year (and why wouldn’t it?), there are 9 undefeated teams left (not counting the 12 1-0 in debuts yesterday). For late October, 9 is in the expected range. But since the average team that has played has played right around 4 games, the number is extraordinarily low. In the Power 5, the ACC has 2 (Clemson and Notre Dame), Big 12 has 1 (Oklahoma St), and the SEC has 1 (Alabama). For the Group of 5, the American has 1 (Cincinnati), Conference USA has 1 (Marshall), the Independents have 2 (BYU and Liberty), and the Sun Belt has 1 (Coastal Carolina). Here’s a breakdown of those teams:
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First thing I noticed is only 3 of those teams have beat a current GCR top 25 team, but 5 of them face top tier teams in the future. Not to mention, we have at least 2 dropping out of perfection (Clemson v Notre Dame and Coastal Carolina v Liberty). Of course, more should be added once the Big 10, Pac-12, MWC, and MAC have enough teams with enough games. One last point: I drew the line at 4 games. There are no 2-0 or 3-0 teams right now, so if I had written about all undefeated teams that have played 2 games, the list would not have changed at all. This season of limited, or no, cupcakes on the schedule is hurting those winning percentages for most teams. At least for now we have 9 (or 22 if you count the 7 Big 10teams, the 5 Mountain West teams, and North Dakota St (71) who are all 1-0).
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Unexpected losses or wins and new conferences playing for the first time this year, we have some changes coming to the GCR (now) top 115. The top spot still belongs to Alabama, but Clemson jumped into second. Rounding out the top 4 are Miami FL and Oklahoma St. The best new team is Michigan debuting at number 8. But instead of me going on and on, here you are from Alabama to Rice (115):
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A deep heart-felt thank you for taking the time to read today’s post. If you like what I do here at the GCR, please pass it on to your friends who share the passion. If you don’t like what you see here, please comment and prepare feedback so that I can make it better next time. Have a great week and I’ll be back midweek with the next installment of G’s Expectations.
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Cheers, G
