Reminder: We’re not talking about which conference is the best. We’re talking about which conference had the best weekend.
College football conference rankings, Week 3: West coast the best coast
Your weekly look at which conference had the best Saturday. Conference USA is swimming in awful football teams, but they had a challenger for the worst week in college football. Conversely, the Pac-12 rolled again.
1. Pac-12
The Pac-12 couldn't have asked for a better week. The teams at the top won easily, Oregon gave Tennessee its worse loss since 1905, Arizona State scored a quality non-conference win over Wisconsin (albeit in controversial fashion), and nobody suffered an embarrassing defeat. Cal lost to Ohio State without Braxton Miller, but nobody's expecting too much from them in year one of Sonny Dykes.
2. SEC
Alabama gave up over 600 yards of total offense and still won against Texas A&M, both preserving the conference’s best title hope and removing any doubt the Aggies are one of the country’s most dangerous teams. Tennessee and Kentucky lost out of conference, but neither was expected to win. Ole Miss routing Texas made the top five teams in the SEC West 14-0 on the year.
3. ACC
So it turns out that Jameis Winston wasn't a one-hit wonder. The Noles crushed Nevada, Pittsburgh scored a blowout win over New Mexico, and Maryland is halfway to bowl eligibility after beating UConn. Again, nobody embarrassed themselves (except you, Wake Forest vs. ULM!), so it's a win as long as the teams at the top stay there.
4. Mountain West
Boise State won a shootout with Air Force, and Fresno State’s game with Colorado was postponed. Those two and Utah State are the only teams in the league that matter at this point, and they need to keep winning. Utah State cruised past Weber State.
5. MAC
I’m going to give Akron credit for playing fearlessly and nearly adding a sequel to The Horror in Ann Arbor. Ohio scored a decent non-conference win over rival Marshall. Beyond that? Not much doing.
6. Big Ten
Ohio State continues to roll. But Nebraska and Wisconsin both suffered non-conference losses to quality opponents, and it took a miracle for Michigan to avoid a terrible loss to Akron. Penn State also lost at home to UCF.
7. Sun Belt
ULM held on to break Wake Forest. That was the highlight. Bobby Petrino’s Western Kentucky team, a one-time BCS hopeful that looked so good in the opener against Kentucky, inexplicably lost to South Alabama.
8. Big 12
Oklahoma State won easily over Lamar, but spent the week being sullied by Sports Illustrated. That was the good news. TCU couldn’t complete a pass in a loss at Texas Tech, and for the love of God, Texas gave up 40 points for the third time in its last four games against BCS-quality opponents (if you include BYU). At the bottom, Charlie Weis lost to food (Rice) and Iowa State couldn’t rally to beat Iowa. Woof.
9. American
You might make an argument for moving them up just a little, since Louisville and UCF keep winning. However, USF lost at home to FAU. Temple became the third AAC team to lose to an FCS program this year, and SMU nearly became the fourth.
10. Conference USA
You know what will guarantee you the bottom spot in a conference ranking? When you have a member (FIU) that is an underdog to an FCS program (Bethune-Cookman). And that game is a home game for your team. And your team gets blown out by said FCS member. Skip Holtz also worked his magic on Louisiana Tech, as they lost to Tulane, and Southern Miss still can’t win games.
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