after week 9 burner rankings
welcome back to the burner blog. i am just a normal guy who watches a ton of sports, i have a lot of takes and just looking for a place to let those takes get out there. i am not going to use capital letters so if you don’t like that i do not care.
spoiler: there won’t be a ton of movement in these rankings!
- ohio state (last week — 1)
they play the corpse of penn state next week off of a bye. i will be excited to see how many points they try to win by. maybe open up the offense after a full two weeks of prep? what do you say?!
2. indiana (last week — 2)
ucla is a horrible, horrible team still but they had won 3 in a row. coach cig and the boys felt it was their job to remind us all that ucla was horrible and had already fired their coach this year. it was not pretty.
3. alabama (last week — 3)
they almost lost at south carolina. the common man would move them down, but i’m not the common man. bama had just won 4 straight games against ranked teams and pulled off a really good comeback on the road in the sec (hard to do!). it was a classic letdown spot after they had gone on a really good run. they have a much deserved bye week before they get brian kelly fired on november 8th.
4. texas a&m (last week — 8)
i just want to remind everyone that i ranked texas a&m in the top 12 in the preseason. you don’t need to go back and read what i said about them back then, but i ranked them top 12. i thought they’d have a shot and enough talent. they have finally forced my hand. yes, i was disgusted by their performance against arkansas last week but that was clearly a look ahead spot. i should’ve known better. the aggies absolutely humiliated lsu at lsu. even if lsu stinks and brian kelly’s seat is scorching hot, it’s still really hard to win at death valley at night. the aggies remaining schedule is pretty easy and it’s looking like they basically punched their ticket to the playoff with this 8–0 start.
5. georgia (last week — 6)
didn’t play and didn’t score only 21 points against wisconsin.
6. miami (last week — 6)
destroyed stanford which was expected. felt like a get right game for the canes. they should beat smu next week, but that game will tell us a lot about not only miami, but the acc as a whole.
7. notre dame (last week — 7)
didn’t play, also didn’t only beat a putrid wisconsin team 21–7.
8. ole miss (last week — 10)
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lane kiffin made a few mistakes that kept oklahoma in the game and the rebels still pulled it out. oklahoma was overrated, but it was still a really good win for ole miss. on the road in the sec, never easy (sigh). unless they absolutely crap their pants down the stretch, lane kiffin punched his first ticket to the cfp.
9. oregon (last week — 4)
they drop back for a few obvious reasons. the teams ahead of them are probably better and likely have better paths to the playoff. add in that they didn’t necessarily incite a ton of confidence with their 21–7 win against one of the worst teams in the big ten. did i have them too high? probably. we need to #monitor oregon because there are a few potential losses left on their schedule. the ducks go to iowa in two weeks (burner will be in the house, really would love to see the hawkeyes take them down), then they play usc and finish up at washington (ignored minnesota on purpose). oregon is going to have to play a lot better if they want to win out. they would likely be on the outside looking in with a loss. have to win out to get back to the playoff.
10. vanderbilt (last week — 11)
diego pavia keeps doing it. clark lea just keeps winning. vanderbilt is a top 10 team — this is a fever dream. still a ton of work to do for the commodores to feel safely into the playoff, but they are one of the best 10 teams in the country. i didn’t think they would pull it out today, but they did. they might just be that team that keeps pulling it out even when we think they’re dead.
11. texas tech (last week — 9)
i think if i played quarterback for them this week they still would’ve won (credit to me). it probably would’ve been a good thing for them to use someone other than will hammond, because now they have their top two quarterbacks with serious injury concerns going down the stretch. i will use this time to once again remind everyone to watch the big 12 this year. we only have a few more weeks! if you haven’t tapped in, you’ve missed out. the big 12 is extremely competitive and a bunch of teams still have a realistic shot at the big 12 title. texas tech is the best team (my opinion, my rankings, my blog, you’re reading it) in the league and i want to make sure everyone taps in down the stretch.
you’re welcome.
(if they don’t have a healthy quarterback then you can forget what i said about them being the best team in the conference
12. byu (last week — honorable mention)
they did exactly what i asked. i asked a team to present itself as a team that i could rank. they did it. byu has some sort of weird mormon voodoo magic going on and i can’t really explain it. but they haven’t lost yet and they’re a good team. winning at iowa state wasn’t an easy task and they won by two touchdowns. also just want to give a shout out to kalani sitake. byu has won 8 games in 5 of the last 6 seasons (10 wins 3x). pretty good. once again, they just have some weird mojo going on and i don’t know if they’re capable of losing.
honorable mentions/monitoring:
georgia tech — sorry, byu got the spot. you tried hard and probably are deserving of it, but i don’t know if you have magic on your side. i also think the big 12 is better than your dogwater conference.
tennessee — i want to see you win out. that would be awesome. can you do it?
there are SO MANY other teams with a path to the playoff that i literally couldn’t mention them if i wanted to.
burner’s picks:
i suck. i was 9–13 (87–106–5 on the season) this weekend in college football. i am staying alive thanks to nba props. is that sustainable? let’s hope so, we have too many college football games left this season. if i can’t bet them then would they even play the games? probably not.
thanks for reading this edition of the #burnerrankings.
