There’s a shakeup in the top 5 after Saturday’s stunning failure by the Georgia, and a Sun Belt team has clawed their way into the FANPulse top 25 for week seven. But the biggest shakeup was LSU jumping all the way to #2 after stomping Florida, pushing Clemson down to #3.
After losing to South Carolina in double overtime, Georgia slid down from #4 to the nine spot. Ohio State fell to replace them after LSU’s rise, while Oklahoma jumped up to fill the gap left by the Tigers. Wisconsin also moved up one, while Penn State jumped three spots and Auburn four to seal the vacuum left by not only Georgia’s fall, but those of Florida and Notre Dame, who slipped one place.
Florida didn’t fall far, landing just outside the top ten. They take the spot vacated by Texas, who dropped to 14. That allowed Oregon and Boise State to slide up a spot. Rounding out the top 15: not Utah, last week’s resident. No, making their debut in the rankings this week are the Minnesota Golden Gophers. Minnesota had been getting the side-eye despite being 5-0, but their brutal beatdown of Nebraska in the Broken Chair Game apparently turned enough heads to vault them upward.
Utah fell a spot, and Southern Methodist — who didn’t even play — vaulted 5 places to #17. Missouri also entered the rankings for the first time, landing at #18 for some reason after beating Ole Miss. The victim of the SMU/Missouri putsch doesn’t deserve your pity, though. Michigan was rewarded for beating Illinois with a three-place demotion to #19. Arizona State might; the Sun Devils dropped a spot after beating Washington State.
Three more teams entered the rankings this week in the final five. Baylor is at 21, Cincinnati at 22, and Appalachian State (!) at 24. For some inexplicable reason, despite already being in the lower quarter of the top 25, Wake Forest and Virginia hung on at 23 and 25 respectively. Just so we’re clear here, they both lost.
The five teams which were ejected this week, with their week 6 rankings: Iowa (17), Washington (18), Central Florida (23), Oklahoma State (24), and, FINALLY, THANK GOD, Texas A&M (25).
Also receiving votes: Oklahoma State, Iowa, Washington, and a team I actually voted for, Temple. (I also included San Diego State and had not completely eliminated Iowa; I did not include Missouri, Wake, or Virginia.)
Your ballot
BotC voters did not give LSU the nod over Clemson, and kept Oklahoma ahead of Ohio State. It was at the 9 spot that things start getting freaky. You pushed Boise State (9) and Minnesota (11) even further up the poll than I did (10 and 17 respectively), and punished Georgia (12) and Florida (13) more than the gestalt. You were also kinder to SMU (15) and Baylor (17). As a result of all this, every team between 9 and 18 in the national rankings which was not just mentioned landed exactly two spots lower in your poll.
You did keep Michigan at 19, and 21-25 are almost the same as the national; the exception is that you flipped Wake and Appy. That means y’all also still voted for Wake and Virginia, and y’all have some ‘splainin’ to do in the comments.
Confidence
No change at all from last week, where we were also at 70.6%.
Big sadness in Arkansas, where the rollercoaster has fallen again from 72.7% to 23.1%. Georgia plunged from 100% to 54.2%, Iowa from 69.8% to 33.3%, and Syracuse from 91.3% to 36.4%. But the big loser this week? Michigan State, who checked in last week at 54.2% and are now reporting a big fat zero. (And yes, they had enough respondents to count.)
Oh, and UCLA, already mired at 10%, dropped to 4.7% this week. What’s it going to take for those last few voters to throw in the towel?
Feeling the glow this week are Miami fans, who jumped from 26.2% to 75.6% for beating Virginia, which doesn’t seem like a big thing except Virginia is Miami’s kryptonite. Purdue jumped from 74.4% to 100% after thumping Maryland, and TCU made about half of their unhappy fans happy, moving from 31.3% to 60%. USC, the only qualified team with a zero last week, moved up to 28.6%.
Two other teams whose fans were already exceedingly pleased, Missouri and Oklahoma, pegged the needle at 100 this week.
Heisman
The extra question this week was your Heisman pick. LSU quarterback Joe Burrow leads the way at 35.2%, followed by Jalen Hurts at 24.4% and Wisconsin’s Jonathan Taylor Tailback (shoutout to the Solid Verbal) at 21.3%. Tua Tagovailoa got 10.9% of the ballot, Justin Fields 6.2%, and Trevor Lawrence is suffering his rightful penalty for trying to look like a member of Hanson: just 2% of the vote.
In closing, we’d like to thank those of you who are continuing to participate and making BotC’s contribution to the project relevant. If you’ve not been voting, and you’d like to, you can still sign up here.