I agree, Putin, Oregon should be number one and no way OSU finishes the season in the top ten (perhaps the top twenty, but I say not even that, no more sneaking up on people and getting lucky wins, while The Ducks will get everyone's best shot every game and The Ducks will still win)...

How do you propose we determine who is better when both schools are undefeated? Fandom?

"I agree, Putin,"

I doubt it. The computers have Oregon right where they should be.

No one said anything about fault or talent. Talent doesn't matter. It's what you do with that talent that does. So far, Oregon hasn't done as much as the teams I ranked above them. A big part of that is a lack of opportunity, which will be corrected in the second half of the season.

But again, my rankings would be useless if I just assumed a bunch of future victories that haven't happened yet and ranked based on them. I can only fairly rank based on what has happened, and I have, and Oregon is below Oregon State. If Oregon wins out, then they'll definitely be above Oregon State.

And because I haven't stirred enough shit, top-25:

1. Florida (6-0)
2. Notre Dame (6-0)
3. Oregon State (5-0)
4. Oregon (6-0)
5. Kansas State (6-0)
6. Alabama (6-0)
7. Ohio State (7-0)
8. Rutgers (6-0)
9. LSU (6-1)
10. Oklahoma (4-1)
11. South Carolina (5-1)
12. Florida State (5-1)
13. Texas Tech (5-1)
14. Louisville (6-0)
15. Mississippi State (6-0)
16. Cincinnati (5-0)
17. West Virginia (5-1)
18. Southern Cal (5-1)
19. Georgia (5-1)
20. Texas A&M (5-1)
21. TCU (5-1)
22. Clemson (5-1)
23. Arizona State (5-1)
24. Northwestern (6-1)
25. Ohio (7-0)

Ohio State > everyone else.

O H

Draug, don't you mean THE Ohio State?

1-FLA
2-ND
3-KState
4-Bama
5-Oregon St
6-Oregon
7-Oklahoma
8-Texas Tech
9 -LSU
10 - TAMU
11 - So Carolina
12 - Ohio St
13 - Rutgers
14 - Miss St
15 - Louisville
16 -USC
17 - Ohio U.
18 - Iowa St
19 - Georgia
20 - Stanford
21 - Cincinnati
22- Boise St
23 - W Kentucky
24 - Florida St
25 - Northwestern

Oh I forgot WVU, put them 14th and move everyone down.

All I'm saying is that if Oregon and Oregon were to play this Saturday, at a neutral site, an overwhelming majority of the experts would predict The Ducks would win, because The Ducks are clearly a much better team, and it's not even close... Maybe you guys don't think rankings should reflect which teams are better than the others, but that rankings are merely a documentation of past performance, I've just never heard of that sort of thinking before and I can't wrap my head around it, it makes no sense...

Oregon and Oregon State, that is...

Maybe you guys are a bit too fixated on GR, that's a ranking based purely on past performance, but rankings don't work that way in sports, at least not until the season is over...

Your "gut", which is biased by your fandom for Oregon, is not a rational basis for rankings. I couldn't care less what pundits say, since they're notoriously crappy at picking games. Being good on paper is meaningless. On paper people thought Arkansas was a top ten team this year. How did that turn out?

Anything can happen on any given Sunday, or Saturday even! I'm not saying Yhe Ducks would beat OSU this Saturday on a neutral site, I'm just saying the odds would be seriously in UO's favor (at least a 20 point favorite) since they are *way* better than OSU, and my rankings would be based on which teams I think would beat which other teams, *not* based so much on win/loss record and schedule (though clearly that would influence my rankings)...

But the very statement that "anything can happen on any given day" should give more credence to this method. Instead of trying to imagine what will happen when, as acknowledged, anything can happen, it makes far more sense to look at what has happened, which is certain, and provides certain data for analysis.

I'm telling you, Oregon will get their chance. They've got four good opponents left on the schedule. Unless they just all collapse terribly, Oregon should have a really good resume to close out the year, for the one ranking that does matter - the final rankings before the BCS games.

But the better team doesn't always win, so to put such a high value on wins is dangerous... Some would argue that the officials gave OSU their win over Wisconsin, that Wisconsin actually recovered that on-side kick at the end of the game, some would say the officials stopped the Notre Dame / Stanford game too early, or whatever, one team is unusually up while one is unusually down, it's all a crapshoot, I'm just saying the odds will be on The Ducks' side every week, because they're the best team in college football, but I also understand that the best team in college football isn't always ranked #1 when the season is over.

As much fun as it has been to see "a Duck" get all riled up over people's opinions on Ducks vs. Beavers, I think it is fair to point out that you are arguing apples and oranges.

There are two methods of ranking college football in my experience. Resume based, and expectation/evaluation based. Different people favor one over the other and arguing which of those is better in one thing. But arguing how teams should be ranked when you're talking different ranking systems won't get anyone anywhere.

Right now the Beavers are a Cinderella team. Most Cinderella's don't make it to midnight. I believe MM's Ducks are better than my Beavers, but that doesn't mean we can't make it interesting.

Hey MM, any chance you are making it to Corvallis for the Civil War?

By the way, on that Wisconsin on-side kick, OSU's Zimmerman was blocked (a) before the ball had gone 9 yards, and (b) into the ball. So the fact that he physically touched it first was irrelevant. The refs didn't call it right, but they got the result right in the end at least.

err, 10 yards.

There are two methods, but having tried using both to make rankings for a while now (going back a few years), I've found it impossible to do anything meaningful with the expectations game. I still don't understand how anyone does preseason rankings, but I strongly suspect they're pretty much a crapshoot.

@MM: What do you mean the 'better team doesn't always win'? Better according to what standard? By definition the winning team was better than the losing team for one game. Since the entire objective of a football game is to win the game - and thus that a team's quality is determined by how many games they win - I find the notion that there's a flaw to using wins to decide which teams are better or worse to be completely nonsensical. Once again: talent is meaningless. It's what a person or team does with its talent that matters. Your team can have the most natural talent and best coaching in the country for winning games, but if it executes terribly and loses all of its games, it's not the best team. Potential does not matter. Results do. The only ranking system that can possibly matter is a system that looks at results.

I-O

The computers have spoken:

1. Florida
2. Notre Dame
3. Alabama
4. K State
5. Oregon State
6. Oregon
7. Texas Tech
8. South Carolina
9. LSU
10. Oklahoma

I am not a Ducks fan at all, but they are very impressive. If they play to the top of their ability, they will be in the NC game and ONLY Alabama could possibly stop that offense.

Ohio State is 7-0 and looking at 8-0. They are ranked #7 in the official rankings. How could you not include the winningest team in college Football this year in your top 10, uclabb?

Draug- My rankings are just what the BCS computers said, hence "The computers have spoken." Ohio State is disqualified from such things this year due to shenanigans.

due to tatoos you mean...lol Notice, that Cam newtons dad was auctioning his son off, but that got blown off...lol

@PE, "better" is a hard term to use in college football. One team can be overall better than another, but the match-ups between the two give the "lesser" team the edge they need to win. (This is why a single elimination tournament doesn't prove anything, but can still be a lot of fun which is really what it is all about.)

Plus there is a decent amount of randomness in this game. In Oregon State's victory over BYU, one of our touchdowns was a tipped pass that just happened to fall into the hands of our tight end who was surrounded by three BYU defenders. Now, he did make an excellent play on the ball using his hands and body to their fullest, but it was still damn lucky BYU didn't get that ball instead.

As another example, Colorado beat Washington State. WSU will most likely be winless in the Pac-12. But Colorado is the absolute worst team in the Pac-12. The sun shined on Colorado in the 4th quarter of that game and WSU had their worst performance while playing much better in other games.

Head to head comparisons, such as Oregon >>> Arizona while OSU > Arizona doesn't mean Oregon >> OSU. It may have just been Oregon matching up better against Arizona than OSU. (And again, I do think Oregon is better than OSU, but OSU definitely has a shot.)

Well the AP rankings put them in 7th. I would put more stock in the AP rankings than a ranking system which, by default, excludes teams that loss eligibility in the previous year just for their bowls. AP rankings are about what teams actually are the best.