College football top 25 should still have USC in top 5, exclude Oregon

Tim Prangley, Trojans Wire

No serious college football analyst can avoid giving USC football very high grades after Week 2 of the 2024 season. The Trojans have been a little sloppy on offense but have looked like a very good team in their first two games. The same cannot be said for the Oregon Ducks, who led the Idaho Vandals of the FCS by only three points early in the fourth quarter — at home — in Week 1. Oregon then was fortunate to squeak by Boise State, 37-34, on a last-play field goal in Week 2. Beating Boise State is a win which will probably look good later in the season, but Oregon was very, very shaky in the process of beating the Broncos. Oregon has not played well overall in either of its first two games. Is that a team which should be ranked in the college football top 25 after Week 2? It’s a discussion worth having, so let’s have it.

USC, we think, should be ranked as a top-five team, given how well it has played thus far. We thought USC deserved to be No. 3 in the country last week after it beat LSU. We thought that Georgia deserved to be No. 2 after hammering Clemson, and that Notre Dame should have been No. 1 after beating Texas A&M on the road. We valued a road game over a neutral-site game. In Week 2, plenty of changes to the power structure were warranted, given the results which emerged across the country. Here’s our own version of a top 25 which is based on actual results, not on future predictions or projections. Keep that in mind. This is not about which team would be favored on a neutral field. It’s about what teams have done against the competition they have played, nothing else. Here we go:

25 — TIE, OLE MISS REBELS AND MISSOURI TIGERS

Dec 29, 2023; Arlington, Texas, USA; Ohio State Buckeyes defensive end JT Tuimoloau (44) tackles Missouri Tigers running back Cody Schrader (7) on run in the…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/college-football-top-25-still-222120709.html

Author : Trojans Wire

Publish date : 2024-09-09 22:21:20

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