The college football rankings as reported in the Associated Press Top 25 are out, and contains some interesting news. First, Stanford, previously ranked number 7, moves up to number 6, and joins Boise State and Florida in rising by one spot. Alabama moved from two to three, Oklahoma remained at one, and Oregon divided ten spots to 13 from 3, after being whipped by LSU, 40-21. LSU moves up to number 2.
Stanford globbered San Jose State 57 to 3, while Boise State beat Georgia 35-21 while Florida decimated the Florida Atlantic Ows 41 to 3. But the biggest news of all, revealed at Zennie62.com, is that for the first time in the history of the AP poll, both USC and Notre Dame are out of the AP Top 25 college football rankings.
As blogged earlier at Zennie62.com:
There are many examples where USC or Notre Dame has not been on the poll during a season, but this blogger has not found one year where USC and Notre Dame were both not on the AP Top 25 poll of college football rankings.
What happened is the result of two storied programs with a long history of success going in the same direction for different reasons. USC’s problem stem from not from NCAA sanctions, which were only recently applied, but from a more challenging recruiting environment, where non-traditional Pac-10 (now Pac-12) rivals have successfully challenged USC for talent nationwide.
Moreover, the rise in the use of the Internet to share information on college football strategies and tactics, has removed what advantage USC may have had in the past.
Today, anyone can look at game film from past USC contests online, whereas that was not true prior to 2006, which saw the establishment and growth of video-sharing sites like YouTube. And a number of websites devoted to football strategy have been installed over that time, like Coach Huey’s Forum, which I use. Additionally, a small market for the buying and selling of football playbooks has formed.
Now, I can get the entire playbook for Notre Dame or for a number of teams, some directly via online search, others through a small, informal coaches network that anyone can buy into.
Looking at the poll publication, the TCU Horned Frogs dived from 14 to 25 after being shocked by Baylor last Friday, and Texas and Penn State moved into the poll, after not being ranked in preseason.
Stay tuned.
More: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/specials/top25_front/standings.html?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME