Alabama Football: Week One College Football Power Rankings

Another year another game where the Irish just seem like they are overrated. I would place them lower than 10th but I think that Florida State might turn out to be a top 25 team by the end of the year. It was a back and forth struggle but the Irish did find a way to win. The schedule gets significantly harder in just 3 weeks when Notre Dame faces Wisconsin, Cincinnati, Va Tech, USC, and North Carolina in consecutive weeks. That is rough for any team and Notre Dame may consider itself lucky to escape with only two losses. By virtue of the lack of impressive teams this week I had to leave Notre Dame at 10.

The defense is championship quality. The offense is having some growing pains and it didn’t help that they faced what might be the best defense in college football this year week 1. DJ Uiagalelei looked indecisive and confused at times in the face of a relentless pass rush and stellar secondary. It didn’t help that he only got 24 yards rushing from the running backs. Take into account DJ’s -22 yards rushing and that leaves Clemson with a grand total of 2 yards on the ground. Not really a recipe for success. They still have a relatively clear path to the CFP given that they currently have exactly ZERO ranked teams on the rest of the schedule. The next chance they have for a loss might be the ACC title game.

Texas beat a ranked team and they looked pretty good for most of the game. The rush defense was solid, but they have room for improvement in other areas. They were very efficient on offense as you might expect from a Steve Sarkisian-coached team so that might carry them in the BIG 12. I won’t be saying Texas is back, but I will say Texas is looking pretty good right now.

Iowa controlled the game from start to finish against what was many people’s trendy pick to win the BIG10 this season. The passing game needs improvement, but if they can control the clock with the run game they will be tough to beat.