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Daily Blog • Sunday, October 11th

I wasn’t too thrilled with some of yesterday’s results as far as the magazine goes but I still have an excellent shot at being the most accurate magazine in the country this year. Naturally a lot depends on how the rest of the season goes.

The last two weeks I have put up the average rankings’ top teams each Saturday but I will try to do that earlier this week, perhaps on Wednesday or Thursday. I hope that you checked out the Saturday News and Notes for a lot of interesting things I read throughout the week and as I get more and more caught up this football season, I will continue to put more into those News and Notes each Saturday as well. I may even have my overall power play rankings and add in some other rankings beside the +/- this week. Let’s take a look at this past weekend’s performances.

The top performance, in my mind, was probably Alabama’s domination of Mississippi where they outgained them 142 yards on the road and won 22-3.

The computer liked Texas Tech’s performance and did not even factor in that it was a backup QB that helped them dominate Kansas St. I went through the play-by-play of that game and Texas Tech easily scored every time they had the ball and Kansas St struggled to get a FD. The 66-14 sore had them +455 in total yards.

Tennessee’s domination of Georgia was also impressive and earned the computer’s #3 grade. They outgained the Bulldogs by 231 yards with Georgia getting KR and IR TD’s in the game.

Virginia Tech continues to rebound after an abysmal opener vs Alabama where they were outgained 498-155. Since edging Nebraska in a game they probably should have lost have them dominated and they outgained BC by 278 yards with Boston College having 3 yards offense in the first half.

Florida’s victory over LSU saw them outgain a Top 5 team by 165 yards in Death Valley where LSU had won 32 straight Saturday night home games. Very impressive and the computer’s #5 performance of the week.

Keep an eye on this Virginia team, they keep sneaking into these Top 25 performances and this week snuck into the Top 10 beating Indiana 47-7 at home.

Arkansas knocked off a previously unbeaten Auburn at home and outgained them by 120 yards to earn this week’s #8 performance.

Duke played an NC State team that came into the week 3-2 and outgained them by 164 yards. The amazing thing here is that the last 5:00 of the game were played before an almost empty stadium as Duke won by 21.

Central Michigan had actually lost to Eastern Michigan each of the last two years and four of the last five but they made sure there was no upset here in a 56-8 win which earned them the #10 spot.

BYU always takes a lot of fans to Vegas and they dominated UNLV outgaining them by 274 yards in their 59-21 win for the #11 spot.

The #12 spot is surprising as Texas was actually down at the half vs Colorado but they outgained them by 186 yards and won by 24 and the computer awarded them the #12 spot.

Navy went on the road to Rice. Navy has a lot of Texas players on the team and they always play well when they travel to that state and they throttled the Owls 63-14 on the road.

Oregon, without their QB, did outgain UCLA by 92 yards but also had the benefit of a KR TD, IR TD and a fumble which set up a short TD drive in the first 4:00 of the 3Q but the computer still awarded them the #14 performance because it was done on the road.

Wisconsin lost the game to Ohio St but the computer says they played the better game than did Ohio St. They took on the stronger team, on the road and outgained the Buckeyes by 184 yards. Three return TD’s were the only reason the Buckeyes won by 31-13 and keep in mind the computer does weigh the final score of the game, but also weighs the stats of the game and Wisconsin’s impressive performance, even in a loss, earns them the #17 spot for the week.

Arizona went into Washington and flat out dominated with a 205 yard edge. An IR TD on a pass that bounced off the receiver’s foot in the final minute gave UW the win. Arizona’s the second losing team to make this week’s Top 25 performance list.

LSU did play the top team in the country and only lost by 10 and that earns the computer’s #20 performance of the week, once again, even though they lost.

Pittsburgh dominated Connecticut with a 489-303 yard edge and it could have been much worse as they just missed out on 3 TD’s and settled for a couple of short FG’s including one at the end at the inch line but the computer still gave them the #21 performance of the week.

Western Michigan had not been playing well but rebounded for a win in the Glass Bowl over Toledo in a game they dominated from start to finish.

There you have the Top 25 individual performances for the week and once again I will have the season-to-date rankings for the averages perhaps on the website as early as Wednesday or Thursday this week as opposed to posting them on Saturday and I’ll give you a little more time to go through them. I can tell you that the Top 2 teams in the average power rankings poll are Florida and Alabama....which one do you think the computer has #1?

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