In a very eventual week six, we learned a lot about some of the nation’s top teams.

Top Five Teams Ousted: With Alabama on the bye, Oregon was the only team in the AP top five to win this past weekend.  Scoring over 50 points again Oregon took care of business against Washington to stay at two in the new poll.  Elsewhere in the top five, without a doubt the biggest surprise of the three teams that lost was Florida State losing a 16-point halftime lead in Raleigh against NC State in a 17-16 loss.  The Seminoles seemed to have control of the game, and despite a lackluster second half looked like they might escape with a victory, but Mike Glennon’s touchdown pass to Bryan Underwood on fourth and goal with 16 seconds left capped the comeback for the Wolfpack.  After beating Clemson I thought Florida State had survived their toughest test in conference but NC State coming up to bite them this weekend may have cost them a shot at playing for the National Championship.  I expected the other two top five teams to lose as Florida moved into this week’s AP top five after their 14-6 win against LSU.  Like Florida State, LSU did all their scoring in the 1^st half and led 6-0 only to see the Gators storm back with two touchdowns in the second half and hand LSU their first loss of the season.  LSU showed very little in their SEC opener against Auburn so this one wasn’t that big of a surprise.  Lastly was Georgia’s loss to South Carolina.  I was expecting South Carolina to win, but I wasn’t expecting it to be as convincing as it was and all you need to do is look at the 31-7 final score and you’ll know what I mean.  I think it’s safe to say South Carolina is the second best team in the SEC, but keep an eye on Florida.

West Virginia, Kansas State, Notre Dame, Ohio State move up: These four teams were probably the ones that benefitted the most from the three top five teams losing on Saturday.  All four remained undefeated over the weekend and K-State, Notre Dame, and Ohio State all won convincingly.  West Virginia had the toughest opponent of the four teams as they had to travel to Austin for a conference game against Texas and survived 48-45 led once again by quarterback Geno Smith.  All four teams moved ahead LSU, FSU, and Georgia in the new poll.

Five Teams drop out of AP Poll: It wasn’t a good week for some of the nation’s top teams in the AP Poll, and it also wasn’t a good week for some of the teams towards the bottom of the AP Poll.  TCU, Nebraska, Washington, Northwestern, and UCLA all fell out of the top 25 this week.  Granted Washington and Nebraska had very tough conference games losing to Ohio State and Oregon respectively, so maybe that was to be expected.  But TCU, Northwestern, and UCLA all lost by double digits to unranked teams.  I don’t think that was expected coming into week six.

Updated Top 10:

1. Alabama: Coming out of the bye, they stay at the top and play at Missouri next.
2. Oregon: Another blowout win for the Ducks, as they’ve won all their games this season by at least two possessions.  They travel to Arizona State in week seven.
3. South Carolina: Not much of a question as to who would fill in here for LSU, they looked really good against Georgia.  Now we’ll see if they can maintain this spot as they hit the road for LSU next.
4. West Virginia: Pulled out a nail biter and have Texas Tech next in what shouldn’t be a nail biter.
5. Florida: Thought about going K-State here but changed my mind as I think Florida may be for real.  I had them trending up earlier this year and after their win against LSU they may continue in that direction.  At Vanderbilt on Saturday.
6. Kansas State: Dismantled in-state rival Kansas 56-16 in their week six game to get to 5-0.  They’ll travel to Iowa State next week trying to avoid their first loss of the season as a certain Big 12 team that had a shot at the National Championship last year couldn’t do so.  Paging Oklahoma State.
7. Notre Dame: Another top ten team that won big in week six as they took care of Miami 41-3.  They play host to Stanford next week.
8. Ohio State: Real convincing win against Nebraska, a team that entered the game against Ohio State in the top 25. Urban Meyer’s got everybody on board and they only play one more ranked team the rest of the way.  Rose Bowl? There’s a chance.  In order to maintain that chance they’ll have to beat Indiana on Saturday.
9. Oregon State: Fourth Pac 12 team to make at least one top ten in an AP Poll this year.  Had them trending up earlier this year and it looks like I might be onto something as the Beavers are 4-0.  They’ll look for 5-0 Saturday against BYU.
10. USC: They’re back!!! Well…not really.  But since the loss to Stanford, the Trojans have won two straight by double digits and with some of the teams ranked ahead of them losing USC makes it back in my top ten.  They travel to Washington next and if they can keep winning they could really shake things up if they can beat Oregon on November 3^rd.

Trending Up:

Mississippi State:  A 5-0 team in the SEC that we haven’t heard much about? Surprise you? Well, upon first hearing that, I’m sure it did, but when you look at their schedule and see five wins against Jackson State, Auburn, Troy, South Alabama and Kentucky, you’ll understand why.  That said, with their next two games against Tennessee and Middle Tennessee, they should be sitting at 7-0 and continuing to climb in the polls.  Their next three after that are Alabama, Texas A&M and LSU.  If they pull an upset or two, remember I had them on the way up right here. 

Trending Down:

Georgia: You might have thought I was going Florida State here, but they can still rebound in what remains to be a weak ACC.  So while Jimbo Fisher’s team might not be able to make the National Championship anyway, they can still make it to the BCS via the ACC’s automatic bid to the Orange Bowl.  Georgia, on the other hand, was throttled by a team they were supposed to be right up there with in terms of the nation’s best.  They’ve slipped all the way to 14^th in the AP Poll, and with a game against Florida coming up, could continue to fall.  They’ll have to right the ship against Kentucky this weekend and then beat Florida for me to start thinking highly of them the way I did before they lost badly to South Carolina.