It was an eventful week of college football, with 6 teams ranking in the top 16 falling in week 7:
- #2 Georgia was blown out by LSU, 36-16.
- #6 West Virginia lost to giant killer Iowa State; over the last 53 weeks, the Cyclones have beaten three Big 12 teams that ranked in the top 6: Oklahoma and TCU in 2017, and the Mountaineers 30-14 on Saturday.
- #7 Washington, which had a loss to Auburn in the season opener (and which only looks uglier in retrospect, as the Tigers have gone 2-3 against the rest of the FBS since then), had a perhaps fatal loss to Oregon on Saturday afternoon. The Huskies lost in overtime, 30-27, in Eugene.
- #8 Penn State, a week after a narrow home loss to Ohio State, was upset 21-17 at home against Michigan State.
- #15 Wisconsin was obliterated by Michigan in Ann Arbor, 38-13. The 25-point differential was the worst by the Badgers in a true road game in over a decade.
- #16 Miami lost to Virginia, 16-13.
In addition, Notre Dame narrowly beat Pittsburgh (19-14), Central Florida barely escaped Memphis (31-30), and Texas, Texas Tech, and Texas A&M all escaped with one-score wins.
Below are the results from every game in week 7. LSU had the best single-game score of the week, producing an SRS of 84 in the win over Georgia. That was, subjectively, the best performance by any team all season. [1]Objectively, Alabama’s 62-7 win over Ole Miss and Clemson’s 63-3 win over Wake Forest rate higher in the SRS. Alabama, Michigan, Iowa, and Iowa State round out the best 5 performances of the week.
And here are the updated week 7 college football ratings. As you can see, the Crimson Tide are now a touchdown better than every other team in college football. As always thanks to Dr. Peter R. Wolfe for providing the weekly game logs.
There are just 8 undefeated teams left, with three in the American conference, all in the Eastern division. But we are still a month away from any fun there: Cincinnati plays USF on November 10th and UCF on November 17th; South Florida plays Central Florida the next week. Clemson and N.C. State are both undefeated, and the two ACC Atlantic rivals will square off this weekend in Clemson.
Notre Dame is undefeated and on paper, has a pretty easy remaining schedule: Navy (112th in the SRS), Northwestern (51), Florida State (92), Syracuse (49), and USC (50). The Fighting Irish usually have a tough schedule, but the Seminoles and Trojans are down this year; the margin for error isn’t going to be high, but Notre Dame is in good shape to run the table and make the playoff.
The other two undefeated teams, unsurprisingly, are Ohio State and Alabama. The Buckeyes don’t have a big challenge on their schedule until the season finale in Michigan. As for Alabama? I don’t know if a big challenge in college football exists.
References
↑1 | Objectively, Alabama’s 62-7 win over Ole Miss and Clemson’s 63-3 win over Wake Forest rate higher in the SRS. |
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