Iowa Football: Pollsters Not Convinced by Hawkeye Win

The AP released their new weekly poll Sunday afternoon and let’s cut right to the chase: If you’re looking for an Iowa-related angle, there isn’t one. Despite the double digit win last night they received no votes from the media and I’m not surprised. They still have a lot of work to do if they want to get back into consideration. Losing their starting QB certainly won’t help the national perception of the offense, which was already the butt of every joke, and the defense has it’s own share of issues it needs to work out. With no nationally impactful games outside of the October 14th trip to Madison the Iowa Hawkeyes don’t have many opportunities to make a convincing case, unless they somehow find the secret stuff and win every other game by three scores. Iowa isn’t getting back in for the foreseeable future.

With that out of the way let’s take a look at who does get a number next to their name this week.

Schools Dropping Out: Kansas, Florida

New Schools In: #25 Louisville

Biggest Mover: #23 LSU (-10)

Big Ten Teams: #2 Michigan, #4 Ohio State, #6 Penn State

Not much movement in the top quarter of the poll. Teams in the 1-7 slots all remain where they were last week while Oregon and USC swapped places. Notre Dame rejoined the top 10 after their win at Duke while Oklahoma and Washington State rose two and three spots, respectively.

I’d have put Oregon State above North Carolina. While the Tar Heels are a perfect 4-0 on the year, they moved up one spot despite not playing yesterday, while the Beaver’s knocked off Utah on Friday night. The Beavs did move up four spots, and an unblemished record does work in North Carolina’s favor. But to me Oregon State has been more impressive thus far even with their 3-point loss to Washington State, who just so happens to be ranked one spot above the Tar Heels. A small nit pick perhaps, but nit picking has always been a favorite pastime when the rankings come out. Speaking of Utah, they dropped to #18, the second biggest change in this week’s poll.

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The biggest change: LSU dropping ten spots to #23 after losing to Ole Miss despite leading deep into the fourth quarter. The Tigers now have two losses and if they were in any other conference than the SEC they’d be out. Between getting their doors blown off in week 1 against Florida State and blowing the game last night in Oxford that’d be enough to drop any other team out. You didn’t ask, but if it were me I’d toss the Tigers from the poll and put in Maryland, who’s a perfect 5-0 and have been convincing in each of their wins.

Rounding out the bottom of the poll is #19 Duke who only fell two spots after losing to Notre Dame. Not surprisingly given it was only a one score loss and the Blue Devil’s have been impressive so far this year. The Kentucky Wildcats, despite owning Florida stayed put at #20 and Missouri continues their unbeaten run and move up two spots to #21. The newcomer this week at #25 are the Louisville Cardinals who sit at 5-0 with four of those wins over power 5 competition.

There really aren’t a lot of story lines coming out of this week’s poll. Again, there was no movement in the first seven spots, the real meat of what people look to the polls for. Auburn was oh so close to dethroning Georgia but couldn’t stop stud tight end Brock Bowers. While the Dawgs are still at the top they’ve looked vulnerable at times this year, and enough teams are left on their schedule that could give them a scare.

Also Washington needs to be ranked higher!

What are your thoughts, Hawkeye fans?