Week 8 Rundown

And Ohio State suffers it's annual baffling road loss.  Last year it was a 31 point beatdown at Iowa, and this year it's a 29 point loss at Purdue.  Now there are stories coming out about all the discord within the Ohio State program and with Urban Meyer.  That escalated quickly.  I wouldn't say Ohio State's Playoff chances are dead yet.  Not this year with every week seemingly bringing another huge upset.  At this point the Big 10, Big 12, and PAC 12 are all guaranteed to have a conference champ with at least 1 loss.  The first Playoff rankings that come out after this weekend will be interesting.  Of course the committee does no projecting of teams' finishes when they put together their rankings.  But we will get the first glimpse into what the committee is valuing this year.

It looks like we are headed for another Alabama-Clemson Playoff meeting for the 12th year in a row.  Alabama looks unstoppable.  Clemson looks like they are rounding into form after some inconsistent first few weeks.  But haven't we learned our lesson?  Just as soon as we think we know something it all comes tumbling down.

Wisconsin versus Illinois was watchable for a while mostly because they were playing in some heavy snow for a little bit.  It's always mesmerizing to watch a snow game for some reason, regardless of the teams playing.  But maybe the Big 10 west team we should be focusing on is Iowa?  They shut out Maryland this weekend and are a Wisconsin loss away from being in control of the west.  Doesn't it seem like Iowa does this every few years?

The PAC 12 continues to eat each other alive.  The latest potential PAC 12 Playoff contender, Oregon, went to Pullman and got beat.  They were behind 27-0 at halftime.  It seems like every time a contender is about to emerge, they lose.  So it probably means Stanford will beat Washington State this week now that the Cougars are getting some buzz.  Wasn't Mike Leach on the way out of town at the beginning of the year?

It was a quiet week in the Big 12 as it appears there are clear contenders at this point with Oklahoma, Texas, and West Virginia.  Texas Tech is tied with them in the standings, but it just doesn't feel like they are as for-real as the other teams.  They might prove that sentiment wrong.  Texas has the biggest disparity between national ranking and what our power rankings show.  Our power rankings generally start to align with teams' performances and the national rankings of them around this time of year.  However, Texas is all the way up to a #6 ranking and they don't even crack the top 25 of our power rankings.  We will see if they are fools' gold or not.