Week 5 Recap and My Top 25

#1 Alabama Crimson Tide 56, Louisiana 14

Wake me up when Alabama plays a real college football team.

#2 Georgia Bulldogs 38, Tennessee Volunteers 12

The number two team in the land scored fewer points against Tennessee and allowed more points than West Virginia did in their season opening win.

#3 Clemson Tigers 27, Syracuse Orangemen 23

The Orange almost pulled off the upset of the year when freshman sensation Trevor Lawrence went down with concussion symptoms. Backup QB Chase Brice came in and won the game.

#4 Ohio State Buckeyes 27, #9 Penn State Nittany Lions 26

What a game, PSU in a stadium-wide white-out looked dominant for a while but Ohio State mounted a comeback that ended with a bubble screen. This was entertainment.

#5 LSU Tigers 45, Ole Miss Rebels 16

All that fawning over the Ole Miss offense after they handled Texas Tech has not really been good enough against teams with defenses.

#6 Oklahoma Sooners 66, Baylor Bears 33

Murray accounted for 7 total touchdowns and stayed in the game way too long.

#8 Notre Dame Fighting Irish 38, #7 Stanford Cardinal 17

Down only 17-14 at half, Stanford scored 3 points in the second half and watched this game get away from them. Notre Dame looks legit with Ian Book calling plays and should be favored in every game from here on out.

#10 Auburn Tigers 24, Southern Miss 13

Jarred Stidham was 19/33 for 245 yards and 2 touchdowns. He finished with a 36.6 QBR. :erm:

#11 Washington Huskies 35, #20 BYU Cougars 7

Jake Browning threw 2 incompletions all day in a rout of the #20 team.

#12 West Virginia Mountaineers 42, #25 Texas Tech Red Raiders 34

WVU got up early, took its foot off the gas, let Texas Tech get hope then picked off a pass and ended the game. Great, bad, good enough.

#13 UCF Black Knights 45, Pittsburgh Panthers 14

Pitt wore their version of the Gold/White/Gold combo. West Virginia improved to 4-1 in their combination while Pitt fell to 0-3. #ESP

#14 Michigan Wolverines 20, Northwestern Wildcats 17

Michigan has bounced back following their week one loss to Notre Dame. The schedule is about to get brutal though, after a home game against Maryland, they take on three ranked teams: Wisconsin, Penn State and Michigan State.

#16 Miami-Florida Hurricanes 47, North Carolina Tar Heels 16

You can probably go ahead and pencil in Miami and Clemson in the ACC Championship Game and the winner could be left out of the playoffs because the ACC is soooooo bad.

#17 Kentucky Wildcats 24, South Carolina Gamecocks 10

Kentucky is good for the first time since 1977. I am here for good Kentucky football.

#18 Texas Longhorns 19, Kansas State 14

Bill Snyder makes the most out of what little talent his teams have had but even the Purple Wizard can’t spin gold out of nothing.

#19 Oregon Ducks 42, #24 California Bears 24

Oregon proved to be good enough to not let last week’s meltdown against Stanford haunt them this week. Good teams don’t lose twice to the same team.

#21 Michigan State Spartans 31, Central Michigan 20

Ugh, by the time we reach week five, we should really be all-in on conference play. I hate these non-conference games now. Sparty wins.

Virginia Tech Hokies 31, #22 Duke Blue Devils 14

The Hokies will probably get back into the rankings because, Virginia Tech gets every g-d d*mn break despite being mediocre at life.

Florida Gators 13, #22 Mississippi State Bulldogs 6

The Dan Mullen Bowl goes to Dan Mullen. The SEC replaces one ranked team with another.

My Top 25

1. Alabama
2. Ohio State
3. Oklahoma
4. Georgia
5. LSU
6. Clemson
7. Notre Dame
8. Washington
9. Penn State
10. West Virginia
11. Auburn
12. UCF
13. Michigan
14. Wisconsin
15. Miami
16. Kentucky
17. Stanford
18. Texas
19. Oregon
20. Michigan State
21. Cincinnati
22. Colorado
23. NC State
24. South Florida
25. Boise State

I struggled on whether to put Stanford in the top 25. On the one hand, Stanford showed resiliency in coming from behind last week to beat Oregon, but this week they were absolutely blown out in what should be evenly matched teams. Ultimately, I chose not to pull them from the rankings but another bad showing this week would pull them out. The bottom of the rankings all lost (Duke, MS State, Cal and Texas Tech). Virginia Tech lost to ODU and I haven’t forgotten so you aren’t jumping back into the rankings. I like to reward teams that are undefeated this far into the season and Cincinnati, Colorado, NC State and South Florida are all unbeaten as of this morning.