Michigan stays steady at #2 in AP Poll and Coaches Poll
#1 Georgia
#2 Michigan
#3 Texas (+1)
#4 FSU (-1)
#5 USC
#6 Ohio State
#7 Penn State
#24 Iowa (+1)
#1 Georgia
#2 Michigan
#3 FSU
#4 Ohio State
#5 USC
#7 Penn State
#22 Iowa (+2)
September 17th, 2023 at 3:06 PM ^
My top 10 at this moment is -
1. Georgia
2. Washington
3. Penn State
4. FSU
5. Michigan
6. Texas
7. USC
8. Ohio
9. Oregon
10. Duke
It was important for me to post this because of how important my opinions are.
September 17th, 2023 at 3:36 PM ^
If you're basing this strictly on this season and not last (e.g., PSU over UM) why is Georgia your #1?
September 17th, 2023 at 5:41 PM ^
Georgia has earned the right to act bored.
September 17th, 2023 at 9:09 PM ^
I’m pretty sure Michigan has also earned the right to act bored. Our starters hadn’t played a minute of the 4th quarter until last night and we’ve managed to sleepwalk our way through non-conference play with three wins of 25+ points.
September 17th, 2023 at 5:57 PM ^
Florida state looked even more ass than we did yesterday.
September 17th, 2023 at 7:06 PM ^
They played a functional conference opponent and won on the road.
September 17th, 2023 at 8:13 PM ^
Boston College had two 1 point ACC wins and beat Maine last year. Every other game was a loss. They have already lost to NIU this year. If that is 'functional' then I would want dysfunction.
September 17th, 2023 at 9:12 PM ^
Calling BC a functional conference opponent might be a stretch…
They’re coming off a 3-9 season. They haven’t won more than 7 games in a season since 2009, and they haven’t finished above .500 on conference play since 2009.
A 2 point win over them on the road is not good.
September 17th, 2023 at 8:22 PM ^
FSU left the confines of home and played a p5. How would Michigan have looked vs @ Missouri or @ Stanford on the road yesterday ?
September 17th, 2023 at 11:06 PM ^
More silliness. BC is a bad team. They'll be lucky to finish 3-9 again. Their coach is probably on his way to being fired. BC had about 25k fans stands and maybe less, since many had clearly sold seats to Nole fans bloated with tasty clam chowder. Alumni is not an intimidating place for visitors when BC is a good team...which is pretty rare. FSU only won because BC had 18 fucking penalties a program record. Missouri and Stanford are better programs right now. BC is on Vanderbilt's level.
September 18th, 2023 at 8:01 AM ^
FSU always tends to struggle with BC for some reason. A few points worth considering in this one:
- BC always shows up different for their bandana game.
- FSU had a flu rage it’s way through the team.
- BC started a different QB (who actually appears to be good and highly mobile) that was unexpected and made a difference.
- Same sleepwalking thing applies.
- FSU should have lost this game. And I say that as a fan. They got as lucky as you can get.
September 18th, 2023 at 11:00 AM ^
And FSU already housed LSU. That matters for something.
September 17th, 2023 at 3:10 PM ^
Surprise, nonetheless a pleasant one.
September 17th, 2023 at 3:10 PM ^
Surprise, nonetheless a pleasant one.
September 17th, 2023 at 3:26 PM ^
PSU and ND are is ranked top ten every year early just because fan base. Always end up with 3 losses. This was the case with Michigan a few years ago.
The thing that skews OSU's ranking is Harrison Jr. If you don't have a couple of top notch (1st rounders) corners and safetys then it's just chuck it in his general direction for easy 28 points a game. When he hits Michigan and Georgia he's locked down.
September 17th, 2023 at 3:39 PM ^
PSU's pre-season ranking is pretty predictable, honestly. If they finish in the Top 10 year the year prior, they get ranked in the next year's Top 10. If not, they aren't.
That's been true for PSU every single year since 2007 - 17 years running! (2006 was ranked #19 to start, after finishing 2005 #3).
Net: I'm not sure the data fully supports your theory. PSU is more of an "inertia from last year" team as regards September rankings.
September 18th, 2023 at 10:41 AM ^
Had Illinois not turned the ball over 4 times they couldve had a shot at beating PSU.
September 18th, 2023 at 3:45 PM ^
Sounds like 2022 OSU @ PSU.
Or not ....... in both those games, I think the same team wins even if the turnover margin was equal.
September 17th, 2023 at 3:31 PM ^
Texas and Wyoming were tied at 10 going into the fourth quarter in Austin. Maybe it was a hangover from the Bama game…
September 17th, 2023 at 3:59 PM ^
Top 10 had a rough stretch of the road; if a less-than-knowledgeable person is filing out their ballot, we look like an easy W.
September 17th, 2023 at 5:23 PM ^
Michigan stands pat at #2 because the defense has been stellar and the offense has shown flashes of brilliance but has been mostly inconsistent so far. However, the O just has so much potential and I think voters recognize that. Also, the rest of the top 4 -- UGA, FSU and Texas -- had meh/mediocre games as well.
Move on and get better.
September 17th, 2023 at 5:29 PM ^
I think Washington is the best team in the nation followed by Georgia. And it’s really not even close. We are not as good as we think we are or want to be, sadly
September 17th, 2023 at 5:49 PM ^
No idea how you could come to those conclusions this early in the season. Texas and FSU have the best wins so far. But teams like Michigan and Georgia really haven’t played anyone to truly gauge how good they are.
September 17th, 2023 at 6:07 PM ^
We'll see. Michigan sleep walked the entire 2nd half against ECU and UNLV.
We then sleepwalked every quarter against BGSU except the 3rd.
We'll get better and we'll show up for 4 quarters in conference games.
September 17th, 2023 at 6:01 PM ^
The top 4 looked less than stellar.
Georgia was trailing South Carolina at the half.
Texas struggled against Wyoming until pulling away.
Florida State should have lost to BC.
September 17th, 2023 at 6:27 PM ^
Has anyone watched a Rutgers game yet? Just from their scores against teams that are not totally bottom of the barrel, I feel they might be decent and are getting overlooked a bit
September 17th, 2023 at 7:47 PM ^
I looked at the stats for their games.
Against Northwestern, both teams were pretty mediocre on offense. Rutgers outgained them 285-201. But they held NU to 12 rushing yards. Northwestern also had two turnovers.
They were able to run all over Temple with 254 yards on the ground. The game was never close.
Virginia Tech is a mess of a squad and they were playing without their QB and best running back, yet they were able to come back from 21-3 halftime deficit to make it 21-16 in the 4th quarter. But Rutgers got two TD's late in the 4th quarter.
We're at the point where we know not to overlook Rutgers. Last year, they led us at halftime thanks to a blocked punt for a TD. Two years ago, they held us scoreless in the entire second half and that game ended up being more stressful than it needed to be. And we all know how that game went during the covid season.
To take them lightly would be kind of stupid at this point. I just hope their extremely underwhelming performance against Bowling Green motivates them to play 4 strong quarters.
September 17th, 2023 at 9:17 PM ^
Have they played anybody that isn’t bottom of the barrel? NW, Temple and VT are all pretty bad. This isn’t the VT from 10 years ago.
NW is a dumpster fire with an interim coach. Temple is coming off a 3-9 year. VT is coming off a 3-8 year. Their opponents went a combined 7-28 last season…
September 17th, 2023 at 8:03 PM ^
Just did a quick check on sports-reference.com and we've been in the AP top 10 for like 29 straight weeks. We haven't had this sustained spell of success since '91-'93, so in 30 years. Before that we also had '85-'87
Bo had 1-2 of these streaks during his 70s run - which was top 10 from 1973 to the end of 1978, with only ONE week dropping to #12 in that six year stretch.
Seems like the only other stretch of 20-30 straight games in the top 10 was the Mad Magicians era
September 17th, 2023 at 8:59 PM ^
Became a die hard fan as an undergrad- class of '93, so it's been a long time coming to see that streak again.
September 17th, 2023 at 11:58 PM ^
* yawn *
September 18th, 2023 at 5:41 AM ^
No reason to move Michigan down in the polls. I would move OSU up to 4. Their offense really improved this past week.
September 18th, 2023 at 7:20 AM ^
Meh, beat ohio win the Conference Championship. None of this ranking stuff matters to us.
September 18th, 2023 at 7:52 AM ^
Iowa, pffft
September 18th, 2023 at 8:50 AM ^
This is the main take away from this poll - the only non-UM/OSU/PSU B10 team in top 25 is Iowa? Yeesh.
September 18th, 2023 at 10:48 AM ^
We currently look like the 3rd best team in the Big Ten behind OSU and Penn State.
5th is about as high as I would have us right now.
September 20th, 2023 at 1:56 AM ^
All of this stuff sorts itself out over the season.
Things that surprised me on the upside:
-- Defense being more impressive than I thought it would be early on.
-- JJ's passing and receivers in 1st two games.
Things that surprised me on downside:
-- Running game and offensive line in 1st two games didn't look as good as I was thinking.
-- JJ's passing in 3rd game.
-- Not having more points against our 1st three opponents (was thinking 40+ range).
-- How uncoordinated things looked once we rotated deep into the roster in Q4 (even after expecting a big drop off).
-- Number of key injuries early on.
Things change over a season, as folks get a lot more game experience. It is turning out that teams I thought might be quite good or at least decent (Minnesota, Nebraska, MSU, Purdue) have not looked so good so far. So Michigan might get a forgiving amount of time to get things worked out.