October bountiful harvest edition:  in which we were not surprised but many were

The reaping was grim, but that’s what toldjasos™ are all about!  The hype that was:

 

Week Seven Most OverRated Football Program Results 

1          Wake Forest entered our list last week as All-Time Most OverRated Team of All-Time, fell to first-ever-university-owned-by-a-city Louisville, and then disappeared from the rankings

2          Minnesota shucked the team from Nebraska’s habeas-schmabeas campus

3          Memphis jumped into the rankings for some reason last week and promptly lost to “state-regulated” and possibly 80th best team in the nation Temple, so look for them in the footnotes of teams-receiving-votes now

4          Boise State allowed 37 by Hawai’I but won handily

5          Georgia passed quietly at home yesterday, surrounded by their loving family and close friends, from complications of the second-best team from South Carolina in 2OT . . . and fell seven places in the AP to 10.

6          Texas lost to Oklahoma in the annual tussle on the Trinity, but they are probably the best two-loss team in the country for whatever that is worth (which is, apparently, 15th in the AP, falling four spots, about right)

7          Oregon destroyed Colorado on Friday

8          Oklahoma steadily outpaced Texas in the annual Duel at Dallas

So what’s the bag limit for hype, anyway?!?  This week we collect Wake Forest, Memphis, Georgia, and Texas (for the second time this season:  that’s how stuck on Texas some people are).  The next time anyone extols the value of democracy, just remember that these teams were voted to their lofty rankings; they weren’t Citizens United into office, and no smoky backrooms were involved:  clear majorities agreed that UGA was top three, that Memphis and Wake belonged in the top 25 at all.  No facebook, no Russians:  just home-grown American idiocy delivered this quality.  To borrow from Steve Spurrier (motto:  don’t tell anyone I’m from Tennessee), you can’t spell crap without AP.

 

That said, Oklahoma gets better every week, and the grind past Texas (motto:  LSU was a good loss!) qualifies them to enjoy a well-earned last laugh.  Quarterback Hurts, an SEC refugee and Houston native, joins the very long list of Texas ex-pats who have carried the Crimson and Cream banner to victory over the Horns in the past century.  I didn’t think that the Sooners were this close; I thought the grand narrative of one of the greatest programs of all time (not arguing with that whatsoever) was getting in the way of a clear view of this year’s team.  And who doesn’t crave a chance to make fun of, as Randy Galloway called them, Zero U?  But they were, they are the real deal in 2019 and so we must admit that the Sooners were not over-ranked after all.  I was dead wrong on this one (cue sad trombone).

 

Good news:  The Committee (motto:  We Miss Condy!!!) will publish its rankings starting in November.  If you despise top men and credentialed experts, second-guessing color peaks in just a few weeks!

Meanwhile, where are we in our weekly idiocy?  Has the AP poll already stepped on every rake possible!?  Well, more less, yes:  it’s getting very quiet.

 

Newest Week N + 1 Post-Iowa Most OverRated Football Programs

1           SMU has shot up to a ridiculous 19th slot and so joins our list this week in time to take on Memphis dispatcher Temple

2          Minnesota plays pointless Rutgers, a week off compared to their run up hill Big 10.

3          Appalachian State should be catch and release size, but we’re running out of teams to make fun of, and they play South Carolina in a few weeks, so they step up to our list in time to play the U-La-Monroe Warhawks nee Indians.

4          Boise State travels to play there’s-just-too-much-to-get-into-here-so-let-it-go BYU.

5          Oregon travels to play the barely-ranked University of Starbucks  

Honorable mentions – LSU is great, but they’re probably not top two:  any such notion disrespects a continent of football, the mark of excited over-reaction after an admittedly big win.  Notre Dame is still not a top ten team, but suddenly they’re ranked ahead of Georgia which recently beat them.  We’ve already taken Utah down, but some folks are slow learners, so that stock is enjoying a dead cat bounce.  Florida isn’t ninth, but that’s close.  Enough!  So how many trophies do we have on the mantle now?

 

Year to Date Hides on the Wall

1          Georgia lost at home to the second-best team from South Carolina

2          Utah lost to an unrated USC but is still over-bought

2          Stanford was revealed by USC

2          Syracuse was unranked after Maryland

2          Michigan was blown out by Wisconsin

6          UCF was edged by an unranked Pitt

7          Iowa was no number 15 as Michigan proved, and they continue to be pantsed weekly

7          Wake Forest allowed Louisville to hang 62 on them

7          Cal was dumped from the AP after losing to Arizona State

10        Iowa State was dethroned before their decent showing against Iowa

10        Memphis lost to possibly 80th best team in the nation Temple and disappeared

10        Michigan State slowly fell out of the ratings, so I was right after all

13        Clemson was dethroned by Mack Brown retirement project UNC

14        Texas lost to the university of Texas at Norman (mid-season toldjasos™)

14        Texas probably over-paid for losing to titan LSU (early-season toldjasos™)

16        Auburn probably over-paid for losing to Florida

16        Texas A&M probably over-paid for quality losses against Clemson and Auburn

18        Washington State was de-ranked after becoming lowly UCLA’s first win

19        Virginia continues to lose after losing to can-play-with-UGA Notre Dame

 

Year to Date It-Would-Seem Blown Calls Because They’re Doing Okay Really Well

1          LSU

2          Oklahoma has gotten better all year and refused to lose to Texas

3          Florida seems to have earned their status by defeating top-ten Auburn

 

Let’s score this year 193-3 so far.  That is to say:  the voted-upon rankings of college football teams are rather wrong rather often.  So closes another week!

links to older opinions:                  2091-10-10                 2019-10-03                  2019-09-26                  2019-09-19                  2019-09-13                  2019-09-06
Disclosure of sources of bias:  your writer has attended the University of Tennessee, Memphis State and the University of Memphis, Christian Brothers College . . . and he sleeps with an alumna of Georgia whose parents met at Washington State . . . and his son went to Houston . . . and he never met anyone from TCU he didn’t like . . . and he irrationally hates Notre Dame, UCF, Clemson, and Notre Dame.