Oklahoma State Drops In AP Poll After 54-Point Win

Oh boy.

After committing a felony (a Mixon, I suppose) against Southeastern Louisiana on Saturday, Oklahoma State … dropped a spot in the Week 2 AP Poll. From No. 21 to No. 22. Do what? It’s true. OSU was jumped by Texas A&M, Texas and Wisconsin in this week’s poll as USC and UCLA fell out of the top 25 (rough week for Los Angeles).

I feel no outrage. It’s impossible to judge the difference between OSU torching a D4 team, OU losing to a legit Houston team and Texas beating a Notre Dame team with a potential future top 10 NFL draft pick. I actually like how much movement there was in the AP poll this week (Texas is up to No. 11 after being unranked in the preseason!) I think it shows that media members are willing to sort of throw out the preseason ranking and slot teams based more on how they played in Week 1 than anything else.

The preseason rankings will always be some sort of anchor (see: LSU still being ranked), but at least there was a major shake-up after real games were played. I suspect if OSU takes care of business to the tune of double-digit wins, it will be in the top 15 heading to Waco. That’s all I really care about. Plus OSU moved from No. 19 to No. 17 in the Coaches Poll (ahead of Texas and Notre Dame).

Also, I’m not a CFP committee truther either. I think these polls do actually matter. They almost can’t not matter. Bias is strong in humans, and even the views of the CFP committee members are shaped by what the public generally thinks (even if it’s only slightly).

So this ranking does matter. But it doesn’t matter until later, and it definitely doesn’t matter after games against Southeastern Louisiana. Here are some of OSU’s Week 2 rankings. You can view S&P and FEI here, FPI here and Sagarin here.