USF is a legitimate top five, as strange as it seems. Good ranking there. BC and Wisconsin are a little too highly ranked for my liking. I like that you didn’t drop WVU, Oklahoma, or Florida too far — those are still national championship contending teams.

I might switch Cincinnati and Rutgers, but overall, these rankings are defensible.

USF may have beat the team that beat Florida, but I don’t buy it yet.

JoeP, you might want to start saving your money now because the stock of USF is rising fast…Their QB was a two-time All-State Florida HS player, one of their RBs was on his way to Alabama before a last minute change of heart, the other was one of two RBs in the history of FLA HS FB to run for over 200 yards in 11 straight games. The rest of their roster has some similar stories of HS greatness. Many of them were recruited by FLA, FLA ST, MIA and LSU. Worse yet, they are a year away from really hitting their stride…Playing in a pro sports town, their situation is similar to Pitt’s: Win and the people will love you and pack the house (as 67,250 did so on Friday at RJ Stadium), lose and the fan base will find something else to do. Well, they are winning, and they will continue to do so. They are the best team in the BE, will likely be so next year, and appear to have established themselves as a “program” in the state of FLA and the country. At this point in the season, how can anybody deny that they are a Top 10 team?

Hawaii is the hardest team to rank. They play nobody. my instinct tells me they wouldnt beat most of the top 25. But there are so many bad teams out there, they are only going to keep moving up. I say they are therefore overrated

I agree with Frank to an extent, but I too am not ready to verbally fellate USF in quite the manner Frank did.

USF will always be something to contend with probably from here on out, at least in the Big East.

But in FL recruiting, I still can’t see them doing anything but getting the big three’s scraps, or snagging a guy or two that gets miffed at a bigger program (ala Ford and ‘bama).

Don’t get me wrong, those are some pretty damn good scraps! Hell, if there’s anyone’s scraps that I want it’s theirs! And FL scraps can keep you competitive in the Big East.

See, FL is where the speed is. Everyone knows that. They can counteract an offense like WVU’s with that speed.

But how do you beat a fast defense? You de-evolve and play an old school, power-running game. And, despite DW’s claim that Pitt will be a power-running team, not many teams in the Big East are doing that right now.

So therefore, I’m not going to sit here and say that the Bulls are the be-all and end-all like Frank is saying. They’re on a good run this year and USF is in the right place, at the right time for some big success.

Umm…i know you don’t care, but SC’s only loss is to LSU, and it was respectable. Georgia’s only loss is to SC. I thought to prevent this silliness was the reason the “blog poll” was invented.

I’d put KU above wisconsin – i’d like them in a head to head matchup, and until they lose, i think they deserve it.

And Oregon – they lose a game they’re supposed to lose against Cal by 7 points, and you cream them? How should they be ranked any differently then WVU? Their loss definitely wasn’t worse than Texas or Rutgers…

I am not trying to take credit away from USF. I am just not sold on them yet.

Any news on levance?

Isn’t his hearing tomorrow?

Nor am I trying to say that USF is USC…just that, right now, they are a legit Top 10 team and are the best team in the BE…And, by all appearances, they are not going away anytime soon.

And i can’t imagine Fields will be pleading to any of those charges – his lawyer is the same one that defends steelers, penguins, pirates, the scaifes, and ironically, the two police that attacked the one guy at the toby keith concert. He’s been around 25 years, and isn’t some free appointed attorney. I don’t think it gets much better in PGH. I guess we’ll know more tomorrow.

Remember, it’s not like USF has always been great or something. They’ve taken their lumps too.

They went from getting blown out against us in 04 with about 600 fans in RayJay (I live in Tampa, I was there), to a bowl game in 05 (which they lost), to another bowl game in 06 (which they won), to a top 10 ranking this year.

I think they’ve had some luck (ie Grothe being as good as he has been), and the FL scraps they get just happen to be fast enough to combat an attack like WVU’s.

But I saw them struggle offensively last year when Grothe went down. I don’t think they have the best O-line out there. And they’re smallish on defense.

But fortunately, those flaws aren’t as bad as they initially appear to be because they just match up well against a lot of the other BE teams.

So good team, yes. Right place at the right time, yes.

And for those of you that complain about OUR attendance, Friday was the first time they even opened the upper deck at RayJay for a Bulls game. Usually the lower bowl is about 2/3 full with most of the people there in the student section (student’s get free tix). That will probably change a little after Friday, but they’re still a “city school” just like us.

(sorry if that was longwinded, I just think that I’m the only one here that lives in Tampa and therefore am “blessed” with tons of useless Bulls knowledge).

BTW, am I the only one that thinks FSU should be ranked in the real polls?

Funny thing is none of this matters because at the end of the year there will be over 5 one loss teams and ZERO undefeated. That wouldn’t be a problem if we had a playoff, but since we don’t there will be a lot of teams deserving of the title shot that won’t get it. Last thing how crazy is it that in 5 weeks of the season UK and USF have gone form unranked to title contenders.

just wait until UCF gets USF in 2 weeks.
ok, wishful thinking…

Why is Rutgers still ranked? Because aside from preseason hype and last season’s results, I see no reason why they should currently be residing in the top 25. The beat up on three lifeless teams, and got smoked AT HOME when they finally played a team with a pulse. We’re talking complete domination, as in UM running the ball down their throats and even spotting them THREE missed field goals. That’s just a beatdown right there.

Any of the teams behind them should most certainly be in front, as they have better records or beat/lost to better teams. I understand this is a Big East blog, but c’mon.

In fact, you dropped Clemson 10 spots for losing to GT (right around the same level as Maryland, if not better)…however, they’ve also beaten FSU, another team actually IN your Top 25.

So one team is 4-1 and actually has a quality win, and the other is 3-1 without a quality win. Naturally, the second team is 9 (or more depending on how far outside the top 25 you think clemson really is) spots below the first. No offense, but that’s just outrageous and indefensible.

[…] Okay, a bit more tweaking from the initial draft. Thanks as always to Dennis for starting it and everyone who offered thoughts on it. […]