Michigan (1-1/74) and Notre Dame (1-1101)/67) both lost on the same day while Alabama (2-0/5) was ahead just 21-16 late in the fourth before scoring 3 TDs in less than 4 minutes to make the game look like a cake walk (damn those cameras keeping the Tide from telling “their” version of the game). The old Big 8 rivalry wasn’t even close as Nebraska (2-0/8) stomped Colorado (1-1/81). NC St (1-1/97) apparently forgot to show up against Tennessee (2-0/7) in the Duke’s Mayo kickoff. They were probably hanging out with Kentucky’s (1-1/75) offense vs South Carolina (2-0/20). Missouri (2-0/3) has parlayed games against weaker opponents, Murray St (0-2/201) and Buffalo (1-1/101), to remain unscored on this year. Hats off to N Illinois (2-0/48) for their special teams coming up strong in South Bend.
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There are only 3 conferences in which every team has at least one win through two weeks, The Big Ten (13 perfect teams and 5 1-1 schools), The SEC (9 perfect teams and 7 1-1 schools), and the Pac-12, both of whom are 2-0. Overall there are still 91 perfect teams and 98 winless teams out of the non-Ivy League schools. Harvard, Penn, Yale, etc., start their seasons on 9/21.
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All of that fun maneuvering put Texas (2-0/1) with a road spanking as the GCR new numero uno. I mentioned in last week’s Explanation that there would be a lot of volatility and shifting around in the next few weeks as the data normalized. We see that with 9 teams that were in the GCR top 25 last week dropping out completely. Kentucky (4th-75th), Maryland (7th to 64th), SMU (13th to 60th), Arkansas (17th to 63rd), Iowa (20th to 69th), Purdue (22nd to 27th), Michigan (23rd to 74th), Georgia Tech (24th to 59th), and Notre Dame (25th to 67th). All suffered losses except for Purdue who was idle.
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That means there are 9 replacements including 2 new GCR Top 10 teams. They are Tennessee (27th to 7th), Southern Cal (44th to 10th), UCF (29th to 15th), Washington (33rd to 17th), South Carolina (60th to 20th), TCU (42nd to 21st), BYU (53rd to 22nd), Duke (35th to 24th), and Rutgers (41st to 25th). Expect more chaos next week as well. By week 4, things start to gel towards “center” and not only can we start to predict how teams will end up, but also predict at least some of the games themselves.
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One last note. A few future bar bets to get a free drink. The first team to be in 1st place alone in the 17-team ACC is Georgia Tech. The first to be in 17th place is Florida St. The first team to be in 1st place alone in the Big Ten is Michigan St. The first 18th place team is Maryland. The first team to be in first place alone in the 16-team Big 12 is Utah. Baylor is the first 16th place team. Finally, the first team to be alone in first place in the 16-team SEC is South Carolina. The first 16th place team is Kentucky.
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That’s it for today. See you Wednesday for a new episode on what to watch for week 3. Thank you for reading and sharing, G
