Ranking the Power 5 Conferences Through the First Quarter of the Season
Were through 3 weeks of the college football season with conference play starting this week for most teams. Here’s my breakdown of each Power 5 conference in order of weakest to strongest.
#5 - Big XII
What does Texas State, Ohio, South Alabama, and Miami of Ohio all have in common? They’d all be undefeated in conference play if they were in the Big XII this season as each one has already secured victories over a current Big XII team. Both Rice (win over Houston, loss to Texas) and Wyoming (win over Texas Tech, loss to Texas) would be 1-1 in the Big XII. This conference is bad this year. Five teams enter conference play undefeated in Texas, Oklahoma, BYU, UCF and Kansas, but only two teams, Texas at #3 and Oklahoma at #16, are ranked in the AP poll. Through the first quarter of the season, Texas looks to be the best team in the conference but even they have looked out of sync offensively in 2 of their 3 wins but have by far the best win of the season, on the road against Alabama. Oklahoma has played well and their offense has scored 167 points in the first 3 games. Kansas and UCF haven’t really played anyone decent yet but both have done what they needed to do against inferior opponents. BYU is the shocker to me as they barely beat Sam Houston State to start the year but then went into to Arkansas last week and upset the Razorbacks on their on turf. Of the 1 loss teams, TCU and Kansas State look solid to me as they both had close losses to quality opponents in Colorado and Missouri respectively. West Virginia is a surprising 2-1 with their only loss to #7 Penn State and a big home win last week against Pittsburgh. The Mountaineers were picked to finish dead last by the media in the preseason. Texas Tech is sitting at 1-2 entering conference play but my guess is they will be vastly improved in a month from now and could still factor into a conference championship appearance. My preseason prediction had Texas beating Kansas State in the Big 12 Championship. Today I would swap the Wildcats with the Sooners but I still think Texas wins this league come the first weekend in December.
#4 - SEC
It’s been a somewhat disappointing start to the season for the SEC. As a conference, they are 2-4 against the ACC and 1-2 against the Big XII. This ranking will probably change at the end of the season but right now it appears its Georgia and then a bunch of other teams that will lose multiple times and won’t come close to making the playoffs. Currently only 5 teams are still undefeated: Georgia, Ole Miss, Kentucky, Missouri, and Auburn. The West does appear to be wide open with Alabama struggling, which should make for an interesting division slate of games over the next several weeks. We’ll learn a little bit this week on who might can make it to Atlanta the first weekend in December as Alabama hosts Ole Miss and Texas A&M hosts Auburn. In the East it will almost certainly be Georgia and it’s hard to envision anyone taking the SEC crown away from the 2-time defending national champs at this point.
#3 - BIG TEN
The most top-heavy conference of the Power 5 is the BIG TEN. 6 teams are undefeated (Michigan, Ohio State, Penn State, Maryland, Rutgers, and Iowa) with three of them ranked in the top 7 (Michigan #2, Ohio State #6, and Penn State #7). The West is wide open with Iowa the only ranked team at #24 and only undefeated team, but can anyone realistically say they have confidence in Iowa? It won’t matter anyways because whoever wins the bloodbath in the East will win the conference championship. Michigan hasn’t played anybody with a pulse, but neither has Ohio State, Maryland or Rutgers. Penn State has two wins over Power 5 teams at least. The picture in the BIG TEN will be clearer this time next week as Michigan hosts Rutgers this week, Ohio State travels to Notre Dame, and Penn State hosts Iowa. Michigan was my preseason BIG TEN and National Champion, I’m sticking with that as of right now.
#2 - ACC
Yes, the ACC is my second-best conference as of right now. As mentioned above, they have a 4-2 record over the mighty SEC as Miami beat Texas A&M, North Carolina defeated South Carolina, Florida State beat LSU, and Wake Forest beat Vanderbilt. The only two losses were Virginia to Tennessee and Georgia Tech to Ole Miss, but both of those teams are at the bottom of this conference. Half the league (7 of 14 teams) is still undefeated. Florida State looked to be the class of the ACC after soundly defeating LSU to start the season but then back-tracked last week narrowly escaping with a 2-point win over Boston College who lost in week 1 to Northern Illinois. North Carolina, Duke, and Miami all look to be legit contenders and I think Louisville and Syracuse are teams that can make some noise. Clemson is 2-1 after losing to Duke handily in the opener, they host Florida State this week in a crucial game for the Tigers. My preseason pick for the ACC was Clemson, I do not feel confident about that but if they upset the Seminoles this week, we’re back on track.
#1 - Pac-12
The Pac-12 is the best conference in college football and it’s not really even close. 8 of the 12 teams are still undefeated and all 8 are ranked in the top 25. That’s a third of the rankings!!!! USC 3rd, Washington 8th, Oregon 10th, Utah 11th, Oregon State 14th, Colorado 19th, Washington State 21st, and UCLA 22nd. I think USC and Washington have looked the best, but a case could be made for all 8 teams. Colorado has definitely been the surprise of the conference and the nation, but my gut tells me that the Buffaloes hot start comes to screeching halt the next two weeks against Oregon and USC. I hope Coach Prime doesn't take that personally! Things begin to get real in the Pac-12 this week: #19 Colorado travels to #10 Oregon; #22 UCLA travels to #11 Utah where starting quarterback Cam Rising might make his season debut after recovering from ACL surgery last January; and #14 Oregon State travels to #21 Washington State as both teams try to play well enough to impress the Big XII and receive an invite for next season (please don’t make these two teams join the Mountain West next year!). My preseason pick was on USC and I’m sticking with that but it’s anyone's guess as to who wins this loaded conference. It’s going to be a bloodbath and must watch television that I can’t wait for it.
We’ll reassess the conference rankings in a few weeks at the halfway point of the season. Let me know in the comments your conference rankings so far. In a few days I’ll have an article on who I think is the best team in the country through 3 weeks and who I think is playoff worthy.