CFR week eight top teams list

Week Eight Top Teams List (10/26/2005):

1. USC-They actually get to play a home game this weekend.  Survived the early-season ambushes; still have rival UCLA and persistant gnat Cal on the schedule.  Their defense is sure getting a lot of experience this year facing tremendous offenses (Hawai'i, Oregon, Arizona State, Notre Dame, Washington State, Cal, Fresno State, UCLA).
2. Virginia Tech-Played the Maryland game almost exactly as I expected.  They have a fairly tough schedule remaining.  They should be able to handle it.
3. Texas-Crushed Texas Tech and surged to #1 in the first BCS rankings.
4. Notre Dame-Dismantled BYU.  Supreme confidence.
5. UCLA-Can't stop the run, but their offense has remained outstanding.
6. Georgia-Unknown how good they are with a backup quarterback.  Beat a bad Arkansas squad, but they were barely in control of that game.  Defense up the middle is hurting as well.

Booted:

• Michigan State-They've given up on their season.
• Arizona State-See above.
• Oregon-They may return.  Lost starting quarterback Kellen Clemens for the season.  Athletic Dennis Dixon will start, but I wouldn't be surprised to see some shuffling going on between him and Brady Leaf.
• Auburn-Couldn't dismiss a shaky LSU team after kicker went 1/5.  Showing signs of distraction, coach went on a non-hash driven paranoid rant against ESPN and the BCS. 

Others:

• Alabama-When does winning close, low-scoring games transition from luck to a knack?
• Miami-Haven't quite put it all together.  I'm not sure they will, but they've been competent.
• Louisville-Recovered nicely from the OT loss to West Virginia.
• Cal-Like UCLA the week before, survived a tremendous offensive surge from Washington State.
• Ohio State-Ted Ginn might have finally been freed up in a big offensive display against Indiana.

Comments

[k]

You only have six teams up (as of 10/26/05). Are you saying that there are only six teams worthy of being part of your top 8 list, or is this a typo. Assuming it's not a type, which two teams would you add to the top 6 to make them a top 8? For that matter, I'm curious as to which teams would you consider the top 10 teams (forgive me, I like nice round numbers).

[k]

Ooops. My bad. It's week 8, not the top 8. But again, if forced to make a top 10 list, which teams would you have? (please, don't include Louisville!!!)

[CFR]

Hard to tell, it's really a bit of a Pick-'Em, which is why I've unhappily gone from 10 teams to 7 to 6 the last few weeks.

With a pencil, I'd make them Cal, Miami, Alabama, Ohio State. Miami can't run and is playing a freshman quarterback, but their defense is pretty good, Cal keeps having mid game breakdowns, and is a little soft on defense, but would scorch most of these teams anyway, Bama's gritty and would probably make a game of it against a lesser offense such as Ohio State or a less talented overall team like Louisville. Ohio State just has no desire to put good teams away. Louisville could probably upset any of them, but they're also psychologically frail and the easiest to collapse under pressure.