FANPULSE: College Football Top 25 Week Three

The top six remain the top six, although two teams have flipped spots, as SB Nation releases its Week Three FANPULSE college football rankings.

Clemson, Alabama, and Georgia remain 1-2-3 this week, while Ohio State retains the number six spot. The flip is LSU swapping spots with Oklahoma for some unknowable reason, since on Saturday LSU beat an FCS team while Oklahoma beat an FBS team. Apparently, Northwestern State is a better win than UCLA now, which says all you need to know about UCLA.

The first big shakeup is Florida’s fall from 7 to 10. Notre Dame and Auburn move up to fill the vacuum, while Utah also makes a jump from 12 to 9. That comes at the expense of Florida, Michigan, and Texas; the latter two each slip one spot to 11 and 12 respectively.

Wisconsin rose to 13 from 16 less for what they did than what the teams above them did. Penn State dropped a spot after escaping Pitt, and Texas A&M fell three spots for no real reason. Oregon also lost a spot to make room for the big winner in this part of the poll: Central Florida, who jumped up three spots after humiliating Stanford. Iowa moved up to fill that gap after Iowa State forgot how to cover a punt.

Things really change from here to the end now. Washington, last week’s #17 team, falls to 21 despite being the first Pac 12 team all year to beat Hawai’i. Washington State moves up two spots from 21, while our first new entrant in the poll, Boise State, leaps all the way to 20 in their debut. Michigan State also fell, three spots from 19 to 22, after their loss to Arizona State (who moves in at 25). Virginia joins the party at 23, while last week’s #22, Maryland, somehow remains ranked after losing to Temple. Iowa State, Mississippi State, and Southern Cal are all gone.

BUT WAIT, WHERE ARE THE WILDCATS?

Fear not, friends. Five teams made the “Also Receiving Votes” bucket. Kansas State is there along with USC, Army, Texas Christian, and California.

As for YOUR ballots:

Through the first 22 places in the rankings, you matched the national gestalt for the most part. All differences were matters of two adjacent teams swapping places (Oklahoma/LSU, Michigan/Florida, Penn State/Wisconsin, Oregon/UCF, Wazzu/Iowa, Sparty/Washington).

You also had Virginia at 24 and Maryland at 25, with Arizona State nowhere to be found. That means you put K-State at #23, of course.

We were not the only site who had K-State in their top 25. There was one other. We’re afraid to tell you who it is for fear of rioting, but we cannot in good conscience keep it from you. The folks at Corn Nation voted K-State #24 this week, and now you have to be nice until next Monday.

Teams whose site’s readers were really mad at their team last week and now aren’t quite so peeved include Arkansas (up from 30-78), Auburn (52-76), and Tennessee (33-56). Florida State fans are still mad, but not BURN IT DOWN mad (8-32), and Nebraska fans went from lukewarm to totally on board (70-100).

Georgia Tech fans are upset, as their mark dropped from 78 to 40. Texas Tech fell from 100 to 57. Michigan State’s really mad, falling from 100 to 33. UCLA fans still want to murder Chip Kelly, I think, and they have the second-lowest confidence rating for any school which had at least ten respondents at only 12%.

The worst? That’d be Boston College, whose confidence plunged from 88% all the way down to 9% after That Thing That Happened this weekend.

Be sure to sign up if you haven’t, and please remember to get those ballots in on time after they’re mailed Sunday morning. If you won’t speak up for the Cats, nobody else will. (Except Nebraska. Sniffle.)