NCAAF & NFL Power Rankings: Oct 20

WE KNOW WHAT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT...WE THINK

Another week of football in the books, and we learned a lot about who’s legit and who’s just pretending.  Here’s how things shake out in our 2nd power rankings.

College Football

1. Solid win this week in beating South Carolina 20-6.  They’re leaning heavily on sophomore RB Mark Ingram and will need more out of QB Greg McElroy if they want to win it all. The defense, though, is just nasty. Best in football.

 

2. Needed a last minute drive to beat Arkansas at home, but when you’re the #1 team in the country and have a target on your back every week, all that matters is that you walk away with a W at the end of the day.

 

3. The defense has issues (which is no surprise after losing 8 players to the NFL draft), but they stepped up when it mattered most and stopped Notre Dame’s high powered offense on 2 plays from the 4 yard line.  Much-hyped freshman QB Matt Barkley had his best performance of the year finishing with 380 yards and 2 TD.

 

4. You might not have realized it with so many good games this week, but the Canes actually played on Saturday too.  Nothing impressive in a 27-7 win over Central Florida, but that doesn’t take away from their full body of work.

 

5. Texas is probably better, but Oklahoma was their first good win.  After wins at Penn State, at Wisconsin and at home against Michigan, Iowa has better wins than the Longhorns.  Texas has Missouri and Oklahoma State the next 2 weeks so this could change quickly.

 

Pro Football

 

1. Wow. The Giants were supposed to have the best defense in the NFL.  Someone forgot to tell Drew Brees.  Being in NY, I got to watch New Orleans just absolutely dominate the G-Men from start to finish.  If you think Drew Brees is the NFL’s best QB, there are no arguments here. He and Peyton are 1A and 1B.

 

2. Colts bye week combined with the Broncos road win against rival San Diego results in Denver jumping Indy.  Denver is 6-0 for the first time since 1998 when they started 13-0 and won the Super Bowl.  We never doubted Josh McDaniels.  Not even for a minute.

 

3. The Colts are on the road in St. Louis this week.  We think they started scoring already.

 
 

4. Squeaked one out at home against a good Baltimore squad. Adrian Peterson broke 100 yards for the first time in 3 weeks. When he’s doing that, they’re tough to beat.

 

5. Despite Sunday’s ugly loss to the Saints, I still think the Giants are one of the NFC’s top teams.  The secondary sorely missed Aaron Ross and Kenny Phillips.  With Phillips gone for the season, the G-Men need to find a solution if they want to avoid a repeat performance in the playoffs.