NCAA College Football Scores, week 8

NCAA College Football Scores, week 8

Many changes this week.

#3 Clemson got destroyed by #5 Florida State (51-14).

#6 LSU lost to Ole Miss. Per Sagarin's computer analysis, Ole Miss has had the nation's hardest schedule, but their three losses will hurt them with the human voters.

#7 Texas A&M put up 41 points, but again had defensive lapses and lost 45-41 to #24 Auburn, thus ending their already diminished hopes for a national championship.

#8 Louisville lost Friday

#9 UCLA lost to #13 Stanford. Stanford has played impressively most of the year, and will re-enter the top ten, but will ultimately be doomed by that surprising loss to Utah. Their only hope for a championship bid is to defeat Oregon on November 7th and hope that some other teams falter.

#11 South Carolina lost to Tennessee

#15 Georgia lost to Vanderbilt. Georgia is in the same boat as Ole Miss. They have played the second-hardest schedule in the nation, and Sagarin still ranks them 17th, but the human voters are not likely to forgive their three losses, especially when the most recent one is to freakin' Vanderbilt, whose upset of Georgia is their only conference win.

#20 Washington was crushed by Arizona State (53-24)

#22 Florida lost to #14 Missouri

#2 Oregon did not lose. It's tough to lose when you score 62. But they did allow 557 passing yards. Washington State's Connor Halliday was 58 for 89. That's the record for most attempts in a major college game. He had 4 TDs, but also had 4 intercepted. Washington State's offense is not exactly balanced. They gained a whopping 2 yards rushing.

#16 Texas Tech did not lose, but required a furious fourth quarter rally to beat West Virginia.

The week's big gainers:

FSU won that huge game and will rise to #3 or #4. Sagarin now ranks them #2.

Missouri remained undefeated and won a big game. They'll be in the top ten, possibly as high as #5. Sagarin ranks them in the top five.

Undefeated #12 Baylor scored in the seventies again and will soar upward, thanks to losses from six of the teams above them. Their average margin of victory for the year is 48 points. They may rise as high as #5, but their joy may be short-lived. They have the most unbalanced schedule in college football, if measured by a comparison of who they have played in the past to whom they will play in the future. Sagarin ranks their "schedule difficulty" 100th in the nation. They have gone 7-0 against unranked teams, but after one more weak sister in Kansas, must then face Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Texas Tech, and the Texas Longhorns.

#10 Miami remained undefeated. Although their desperate comeback win against 1-5 North Carolina was unimpressive, they did win, and will probably move up several spots, given that numbers 6-9 all lost! I suppose they will be jockeying with Missouri and Baylor for the 5-6-7 spots.

#16 Texas Tech is in the same boat as Miami. Their win wasn't especially pretty, but they did claim a victory and seven of the teams above them could not make the same claim. They will make the top ten, and may even rise as high as #8, depending on the whims of the voters.

#24 Auburn will rise several places after kicking Johnny Football's cocky ass.

Two undefeated minor conference teams, #17 Fresno State and #23 Northern Illinois, won big and kept their bowl hopes alive. Both may finish the season undefeated, because neither of them will face a ranked opponent all year. Sagarin's computer calculations, taking their weak schedules into account, rank Fresno State #49 in the nation and Northern Illinois #52, but reality has never seemed to affect the human voters very much, so these two teams will both be ranked better than Georgia, and may eventually crash the top ten if they keep winning. Fresno State is headed for #15 this week!