Amway College Football Poll 2014: Complete Week 7 Rankings Released
There are weeks with upsets. There are weeks with some moving and shaking in the polls. And then there was this weekend.
This week was crazy. This week was unimaginable. This week was brilliant and fun and exhilarating (well, depending on your allegiances, that is). This week was one we'll never forget.
Not surprisingly, the Amway Coaches Poll reflects the madness that was. Let's break down the poll and see if we can put this past weekend into perspective.
Poll Analysis
USA TODAY Sports
Chaos. This week in college football was absolute chaos. Not surprisingly, this week's Coaches Poll reflects just that.
Oregon? Lost. Alabama? Lost. Oklahoma? Lost. Texas A&M? Lost. UCLA? Lost. USC? Lost. BYU? Lost. Any semblance of sanity in the Top 25? Lost.
Some teams are sitting pretty, of course. After the weekend that was, Florida State should have some security atop the rankings. The Seminoles have beaten Oklahoma State and Clemson (with a backup quarterback), after all. One imagines the battle between who should be No. 1 throughout the season-Florida State and whichever SEC team is respectively atop the conference-will rage on.
Many other teams are left to contemplate their weaknesses, however. Is Oregon's offensive line good enough to keep the Ducks in the running for the playoff? Is Texas A&M's defense good enough to stop anyone? Can Oklahoma survive when Trevor Knight has to beat teams with his arm? Can Alabama rebound in the country's most stacked conference?
Tom Pennington/Getty Images
It won't be easy, because Auburn, Ole Miss and Mississippi are all legitimate contenders this season. The Ole Miss win over Alabama in particular shook things up in a major way.
'I don't know if this is the biggest win in program history,' Ole Miss coach Hugh Freeze told Dennis Dodd of CBSSports.com. 'I can't measure it next to the Archie [Manning] years. We've got to put it in the trash tomorrow.'
Indeed they do, because the SEC West is basically the Wild West at this point. Auburn, Ole Miss, Mississippi State, Alabama and Texas A&M all have a legitimate chance to win the division and, in turn, the SEC as a whole. As Dan Wolken of wrote, you don't win championships by lingering on victories over Alabama, however huge the moment was:
Under normal circumstances, what happened here Saturday is something that should be savored, not put under any sort of 24-hour rule. You can argue whether beating Alabama-something the Rebels hadn't done in the Nick Saban era-was the best win in modern program history or simply the best without someone named Manning at quarterback. In the end, it doesn't really matter. Moments like this haven't come often enough to be real picky about putting them in order.
But that's the whole point for Ole Miss and Freeze, who will find themselves hovering around the nation's top five this week. If there is going to be more to this season than one sun-splashed Saturday in The Grove, a visit from ESPN College GameDay and one glorious flooding of the field at Vaught-Hemingway, it's time to get serious because the big goals are suddenly very real and the road to reach them just as daunting as ever.
It's hard to imagine there won't be at least one playoff team from the SEC West. If Ole Miss wants to be in that conversation, it indeed better put this one in the trash.
Of course, it isn't the only team that wants to put this past week in the trash. Ole Miss is just one of the few that is trying to forget so it stays focused on the future, and not trying to forget because the past is a bit too painful.
Oregon, Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas A&M, UCLA, USC and BYU can attest to that.
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