altgeld88
- Arlington, Virginia
FWIW they're #29 in Sagarin.
Week 4 Polls - Illinois #9 in AP Poll
- Status
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
Some games of teams in front of us this week...
Sam Houston at #8 Texas
Kent State at #7 Florida State
Oregon State at #6 Oregon
#5 Georgia on bye week
Florida at #4 Miami (FL)
I have a very hard time seeing any of these ranked teams losing (especially Georgia!), but if we get an impressive road win at #19 Indiana under the lights, I would expect us to jump at least one, given who they are playing.
Sam Houston at #8 Texas
Kent State at #7 Florida State
Oregon State at #6 Oregon
#5 Georgia on bye week
Florida at #4 Miami (FL)
I have a very hard time seeing any of these ranked teams losing (especially Georgia!), but if we get an impressive road win at #19 Indiana under the lights, I would expect us to jump at least one, given who they are playing.
If we weren't able to figure out how to do it under Beckman or Lovie, I don't think anyone else will either!
Illini2010-11
- Sugar Grove
The margin of vote point difference among Florida State, Texas, Illinois, and Texas A&M is extremely small. The margin between FSU and A&M is 22 points. Illinois is only 1 point behind Texas, 13 points below FSU, and 9 points above A&M. The gap from #6 Oregon to #7 FSU is 300 points!
A&M got a huge bounce winning in South Bend, but are on bye this week. If Illini impress on Saturday, it is very possible for Illini to jump both Texas and Florida State. I believe a top 25 road win would mean the Illini get ranked #7 going into Homecoming.
Huge game for the Illini Saturday night!
Bill Connelly (@espnbillc.bsky.social)
Current SP+ rankings if based solely on 2025: 1 Texas Tech 2 Oregon 3 Penn State 4 BYU 5 Indiana 6 USC 7 Washington 8 Utah 9 Missouri 10 TCU 11 OU 12 Florida St 13 Illinois 14 Nebraska 15 Miss St Is this the CFB world in which I want to live? I can't say no!
bsky.app
Current SP+ rankings if based solely on 2025:
1 Texas Tech
2 Oregon
3 Penn State
4 BYU
5 Indiana
6 USC
7 Washington
8 Utah
9 Missouri
10 TCU
11 OU
12 Florida St
13 Illinois
14 Nebraska
15 Miss St
First thought: wow, the B1G has played really well to start the year. 3 SEC teams, 4 Big 12 teams, one ACC team and 7 B1G teams in that top 15.
lstewart53x3
- Scottsdale, Arizona
Our schedule is tough.Bill Connelly (@espnbillc.bsky.social)
Current SP+ rankings if based solely on 2025: 1 Texas Tech 2 Oregon 3 Penn State 4 BYU 5 Indiana 6 USC 7 Washington 8 Utah 9 Missouri 10 TCU 11 OU 12 Florida St 13 Illinois 14 Nebraska 15 Miss St Is this the CFB world in which I want to live? I can't say no!
Current SP+ rankings if based solely on 2025:
1 Texas Tech
2 Oregon
3 Penn State
4 BYU
5 Indiana
6 USC
7 Washington
8 Utah
9 Missouri
10 TCU
11 OU
12 Florida St
13 Illinois
14 Nebraska
15 Miss St
First thought: wow, the B1G has played really well to start the year. 3 SEC teams, 4 Big 12 teams, one ACC team and 7 B1G teams in that top 15.
@5
6
@7
And that doesn’t even include Ohio St.
Joel Goodson
- how was I to know, she was with the Russians too?
Fighter of the Nightman
- Chicago, IL
^ Yeah, it's honestly unbearable. Say what you will about FOX (who is obviously, at least at some level, a propaganda network for the Big Ten and to a lesser extent Big XII), but their Big Ten bias is just simply nowhere near as shameless or obvious as ESPN's for the SEC.
Yes. ESPN is SEC propaganda.
That being said, I also think GT hasn't proven anything yet. LSU started out the season #9 and probably jumped way too far off of that Clemson win but Clemson was #4 in the preseason poll, and is now up 6 spots to #3. At the time it seemed justified. Georgia Tech was essentially #31 (6th team in others receiving votes), and has moved up to #18 - a moving up 13 spots. That's not nothing. Unfortunately these polls have a kind of inertia, so if you beat a team ranked high it moves you up, but you stay up even if it turns out that team was way over-ranked and actually sucks. I actively hate that about how these polls work, but that's always been a part of it. To put it another way, if you could simulate a situation where two teams who start out at opposite ends of the rankings and have the exact same resume, lose games to similar opponents the same weeks and and win games against similar opponents the same weeks, I think we all know what would happen. The team that started out ranked higher would end the season ranked higher, despite having the same results.
All of this is why I think preseason polls are not just dumb, but actually bad. I think there should be zero polls until at least week 4 or 5. If the very first AP poll came out today, without the preseason rankings having any psychological effect on voters, I am very confident these rankings would look different. There is no way 0-2 ND would be in the poll. LSU would probably be lower. Texas would probably be lower. FSU would probably be lower (I don't think that Alabama win would be evaluated the same way if you were filling out your first ballot and saw that Alabama was 2-1 and were also asked to consider where Alabama belongs based on their resume at this time).
Another thing that might be good is to not have the same people submitting ballots every week. Rotate it. This would result in less consistency across the season, but maybe that's good? A different set of eyes each week would force those who submit a ballot to evaluate the resumes on their merits at the time of the poll, and not based on their resumes in relation to their prior ranking (which I am convinced most do now).
- Status