Smoking Musket Top 25: Alabama Still Number One, West Virginia Holding On

After a thorough dismantling of the Florida State Seminoles, the Alabama Crimson Tide have staked their claim as the team to beat in 2017. They remain the unanimous number one team in the Smoking Musket’s Top 25. Ohio State, who needed about 20 minutes to realize that a real football game was being played, are the first challengers to Alabama.

Florida State is the second biggest faller of the week. The Seminoles defensively stood toe-to-toe with the Crimson Tide, however, the special teams gifted Alabama two very short fields which helped turn the tide of the game. Adding insult to injury, sensational redshirt sophomore Deondre Francois was lost for the season to a knee injury suffered at the end of the game.

It wasn’t a good showing for Florida State, who struggled with the Crimson Tide’s defense. Florida State generated only 250 yards of total offense while turning the ball over three times.

Florida State can be forgiven for losing to Nick Saban and their drop in the rankings has more to do with the loss of Francois than it does with the showing against the Crimson Tide. Yet, the Seminoles were not the worst team in Florida this weekend. That trophy is handed to Jim McElwain and the Florida Gators. The Gators generated under 200 yards of offense against a Michigan team having to replace their entire secondary. In fact, Florida’s “offense” came from a pair of pick-sixes. Without those two interceptions, Florida scores 3 points and likely loses their game by 40+.

The staff and I kept West Virginia ranked because they played a ranked team, on a neutral field, in a rivalry game and lost on the last play. I refuse to drop a ranked team out of the rankings when they performed better than so many teams. Bud Foster and the Virginia Tech Hokies don’t give up nearly 600 yards of offense easily and the Mountaineers showed they could compete against a likely Top-15 defense.