What would the 2020 football season be without back to back upset style weekends? Coastal Carolina (then 16) beat then #7 Louisiana. South Carolina (then 39) knocked down Auburn (then 14). Wake Forest (then 45) took out Virginia (then 31). And Florida St (then 59) who struggled with FCS Jacksonville St earlier this year, upended then #1 and top dog, UNC. We’ve seen more upsets, true, but 3 top the top 14 losing is significant in any week.
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I think it’s important to call out that COVID is having an impact on the game, its players, and its coaches. Alabama, Florida, and Purdue all announced their head coaches were ill this week. 6 games were postponed, most of them late: Cincinnati (18)/Tulsa (30), Oklahoma St (2)/Baylor (42), Vanderbilt (77)/Missouri (47), LSU (66)/Florida (20), Southern Miss (74)/UTEP (58). and FIU (70)/Charlotte (64). App St (44) cancelled its game with Ga Southern (36) earlier, but the Eagles were able to pick up UMASS (67) who played their first game. Out of 257 Division I teams, 90 have now played at least one game. Next week the Big 10 will bring that number over 100.
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With UNC’s (9) drop from first, the GCR calculations had to reshuffle the top (in reality, that happens from top to bottom after each game, but just go with the imagery for a second). Before I talk about that, though, UMASS adding a game meant that there are now 4 Independents playing (Army, BYU, and Liberty). Notre Dame (6) is fully an ACC team this year and I’ll talk about them in a second. No one would confuse UMASS with a powerhouse football program and they did lose 41-0 to Ga Southern. But that negative proved a really strong positive: the rest of the Independents won – again. Army (5-1, 46) is the only other independent with a blemish losing by 14 to Cincinnati earlier this year. BYU (14) and Liberty (24) are both 5-0 and in the top 25. That puts the Indie record at an amazing 15-2. Add Notre Dame, normally an indie, those 5 teams are 19-2 – a .905 winning percentage!
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But, back to the top tier teams. Alabama (1) with a 14-point home win over Georgia (3) put them in the top spot. They were 2nd and 3rd going into the game and didn’t move much. Alabama is now the only undefeated SEC team. Sandwiched between them is the only undefeated Big 12 team, Oklahoma St (2). Next is the top ACC team: Virginia Tech (4) who is riding being mostly successful (they are 3-1 with the lone loss at #9 UNC) despite playing a top 15 SOS. Rounding out the top 5 is 5-0 Clemson (5) who trounced hapless Georgia Tech (57) 73-7. Someone is going to ask “why is a 3-1 team ranked higher than a 5-0 team, especially in the same conference?” It’s not a simple question, but I’ll give a simple answer. The 3-1 team’s opponents are 11-9 on the season and they’ve played all Power 5 teams while the 5-0 team’s opponents are 9-13 including playing an FCS opponent, Citadel (68), who is 0-4.
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See the full list from Alabama (1) to Middle Tennessee (90) in the list below. There is a lot of football left and, as we’ve seen week after week and year after year, a great deal can and will happen. Please send me your comments, thoughts, questions, and complaints, but most of all, please share with others. Thanks and have a great week, G
