Welcome back college football. You never disappoint.
The first game of the 2014 season ended on a last second field goal and the second saw a top 10 team lose by 20 plus points at home. The SEC brought the weird from start to finish and so did the Croke Park Classic out in Dublin.
Week 1 was one of those quintessentially awesome debuts the kind that has us tearing up our previous rankings questioning our predictions and wondering why in the heck we do those things in the first place. It's not like we stand any chance of being right
Accordingly the Week 2 Associated Press poll should look much different than the preseason version. Unrecognizably different. And how could it not With so many top teams looking less than dominant the whole entire pecking order must be reconsidered.
Let's try to make sense of it all
Predicted Week 2 Associated Press Poll Team Record Previous Week 1 Result 1. Florida State 1 0 1 def. Oklahoma State 37 31 2. Oregon 1 0 3 def. South Dakota 62 13 3. Oklahoma 1 0 4 def. Louisiana Tech 48 16 4. Alabama 1 0 2 def. West Virginia 33 23 5. Auburn 1 0 6 def. Arkansas 45 21 6. Michigan State 1 0 8 def. Jacksonville State 45 7 7. Georgia 1 0 12 def. Clemson 45 21 8. Baylor 1 0 10 vs. SMU (TBD) 9. LSU 1 0 13 def. Wisconsin 28 24 10. Stanford 1 0 11 def. UC Davis 45 0 11. Texas AM 1 0 21 def. South Carolina 52 28 12. Ohio State 1 0 5 def. Navy 34 17 13. UCLA 1 0 7 def. Virginia 28 20 14. USC 1 0 15 def. Fresno State 52 13 15. Notre Dame 1 0 17 def. Rice 48 17 16. Ole Miss 1 0 18 def. Boise State 35 13 17. Arizona State 1 0 19 def. Weber State 45 14 18. Kansas State 1 0 20 def. Stephen F. Austin 55 16 19. Nebraska 1 0 21 def. Florida Atlantic 55 7 20. Wisconsin 0 1 14 loss vs. LSU 28 24 21. Clemson 0 1 16 loss vs. Georgia 45 21 22. South Carolina 0 1 9 loss vs. Texas AM 52 28 23. North Carolina 1 0 23 def. Liberty 56 29 24. Texas 1 0 NR def. North Texas 38 7 25. Missouri 1 0 24 def. South Dakota State 38 18Source Author's Prediction / AP.org
Note Rankings reflect a prediction of the Week 2 AP poll not how the author would rank the teams himself. Predictions made under assumption that all remaining Week 1 games finish as betting spread would indicate.
Fun Facts
South Carolina tumbles from the preseason top 10 to outside the top 20. Last year the lowest faller from the preseason top 10 was Florida to No. 12. In fact if South Carolina indeed falls below No. 20 it will be the first time that has happened to a preseason top 10 team since Michigan in 2007 the year it lost to Appalachian State.
Washington falls out of the poll despite starting 1 0 the result of a one point win at Hawaii. A 1 0 team hasn't dropped from the poll since Auburn (four point win over Utah State) and USC (two point win over Minnesota) in 2011. The Tigers finished that season 8 5 but the Trojans went 10 2 and finished No. 6 in the final AP rankings.
Teams Rising
Grant Halverson/Getty ImagesTexas AM Kenny Hill led the Aggies to a stunning upset of South Carolina in Williams Brice Stadium not just because if its occurrence but because of the way it occurred. Hill broke Johnny Manziel's single game passing record for an offense that hung 52 points (with ease).
According to Dan Wolken of USA Today head coach Kevin Sumlin credited a story calling Texas AM the most overrated team in the nation for giving his team the fuel it needed to come out and abuse the Gamecocks. Expect that the media has learned its lesson.
Now let the wild 10 hour rumpus start
Georgia Todd Gurley was out of control putting up roughly 300 all purpose yards and four touchdowns on 16 touches and the running game in general helped overcome a boring (if not safe and reliable) full time starting debut from quarterback Hutson Mason.
More than that the Bulldogs' defense held Clemson to 15 yards in the second half. Fifteen Despite the embattled secondary new defensive coordinator Jeremy Pruitt had his group looking good.
With Gurley carrying the offense and the best group of linebackers in the country (Leonard Floyd Jordan Jenkins Ramik Wilson and Amarlo Herrera) carrying the defense plus the apparent ineptness of South Carolina as a rival in the SEC East this team looks like a strong College Football Playoff contender.
Texas The only new addition to the poll this week is Texas which replaces a Washington team that struggled to beat Hawaii.
The Longhorns looked good in the first game of the Charlie Strong era holding North Texas to 94 total yards and coasting to a 38 7 win.
Defense is the staple of every Strong coached team and this group has the talent to rank among the best he's ever had. The offense though looked a little bit rough and things will only get rougher if center Domonic Espinosa is in fact out for the year with a broken ankle.
Teams Falling
Grant Halverson/Getty ImagesSouth Carolina Touched upon earlier but it would be remiss not to mention the Gamecocks again.
You can't get depantsed on your home field in front of a national audience and not free fall down the poll.
Clemson Things started well in Athens Georgia Saturday evening but Clemson's offense withered in the second half and eventually went AWOL. It was a profoudly un Chad Morris performance.
More concerning than that the defensive front seven supposedly one of the strongest in the country could not handle Gurley for the second consecutive season despite having another full summer to prepare.
The Tigers are probably not as bad as they looked in the second half Saturday but with a road trip to Florida State looming shortly that might not matter. Starting 1 2 is a recipe for falling out of the poll.
Ohio State Only part of this has to do with Ohio State's struggle against Navy. A big part of it also has to do with the Braxton Miller injury which happened after the release of the preseason AP poll.
Still the Buckeyes could have mitigated how far they fell with a more convincing Week 1 effort. Navy is a good team and there is no shame in beating it by 17 points but there was a long stretch of that game where it really looked like OSU would lose.
Urban Meyer's team still has some proving to do.
Wisconsin Of all the curious curiosities from the first weekend of the season Wisconsin's second half disappearing act stands out.
The Badgers were so so good in the first half and their first drive of the third quarter bolstered by a 63 yard run from Melvin Gordon went for a touchdown. They were rolling toward a program defining win.
Then all of a sudden everything changed. Gordon found himself on the bench because of something head coach Gary Andersen called a scenario that happened at halftime per Brian Bennett of ESPN.com. And from there things collapsed on both sides of the football.
And as a result Wisconsin is dropping.
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