It was a big weekend of upsets in the top 25 polls, and USF rose in most ranking systems as a result.
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1 Alabama 2 Penn St 3 Georgia 4 TCU 5 Wisconsin 6 Ohio St 7 Clemson 8 Miami FL 9 Oklahoma 10 Oklahoma St 11 USC 12 Washington 13 Notre Dame
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14 Virginia Tech 15 Washington St 16 NC State 16 South Florida 18 Michigan St 19 Michigan 20 UCF 21 Auburn 22 Stanford 23 West Virginia 24 LSU 25 Memphis |
The Bulls finally break out of the ranking funk with the AP, moving up to 16th after three straight weeks at 18. They’re not alone, though, as UCF moves up to 20 and Memphis joins the party at #25. There are eight undefeated teams in the nation and only two are ranked outside the top ten. They are USF and UCF, one of which will take a loss when they play in the final game of the season. As long as they can remain undefeated until then, it bodes well for them as well as the conference as they will continue to rise in the polls as others continue to lose. San Diego State, which had been a threat to USF’s Peach Bowl prospects, has dropped out of the rankings after losing to 4-2 Boise State, 31-14. Navy is the only other team from the American getting votes, an unofficial 36th.
The Coaches continue to like USF better than the media.
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1 Alabama 2 Penn St 3 Georgia 4 TCU 5 Wisconsin 6 Ohio St 7 Miami FL 8 Clemson 9 Oklahoma 10 USC 11 Oklahoma St 12 Washington 13 South Florida
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14 Virginia Tech 15 Michigan 16 Notre Dame 16 NC State 18 Washington St 19 Michigan St 20 UCF 21 Auburn 22 Stanford 23 West Virginia 24 Texas A&M 25 LSU
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USF rises to #13 from 15th during the bye week. They’re knocking on the door of the top ten and as was the case with the AP Poll, join only UCF as being undefeated and ranked lower than tenth. The Knights move up to 20th this week, up one spot from 21. Memphis is an unofficial 27th and Navy is unofficially 32nd. USF and UCF continue to carry the Florida state school banners in the rankings while Florida and Florida State struggle to rebuild. Miami is the only other school from the state ranked, and they are also undefeated.
USF has season high ranks in four of the seven ranking systems followed in this segment. They’re down in one and no change in one, compared to last week. Congrove, which ranks all teams, has them at ninth, best ranking of the group. ESPN FPI, the only loser for USF, has them at 41, which is hard to believe when considering the records of the teams ranked higher. Even Sagarin, which follows a similar model to FPI, has USF up six spots to 31. Ironically, the ESPN FPI ranks UCF 18th. The only logic that makes any sense to that is that the Knights are getting super extra special bonus points for embarrassing now 3-3 Maryland, who had beaten a then-ranked Texas team (23) who is now also 3-3. Statistically, the FPI has made itself a clear outlier on USF.
