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Some familiar names are starting to inch up the standings in my second weekly poll of the 2022 college football season.
Some surprises are lurking, too. The 5-0 Kansas Jayhawks are now at #4 while the unbeaten 4-0 James Madison Dukes (in their first year in the BCS major college division) show up at #15.
Perhaps the biggest story of this week is that big “THUD” being heard around college football from a couple of the media’s favorite teams, Oklahoma and Texas A&M.
Last year’s head coach at Oklahoma, Lincoln Riley, bolted for the University of Southern California after the 2021 season. Many believe that Coach Riley didn’t like OU’s announcement to move from the cozy Big 12 Conference into the rough and tumble SEC in just a few years. Perhaps Lincoln Riley prefers less competition which USC faces every season in the Pac-12 Conference – at least for the time being.
The Boomer Sooners hired long-time Clemson defensive coordinator, Brent Venables, to become their next head football coach. Through five weeks of this season, the jury is still out.
On Saturday, Oklahoma’s defense allowed 55 points to TCU (now 4-0) after giving up 41 points during last week’s loss to Kansas State (now 4-1). With the Sooner Schooner rambling toward the halfway point of this season with a mediocre 3-2 record, this weekend doesn’t look much easier.
Saturday’s annual OU vs. Texas State Fair Shootout game is played in Dallas. Texas and Oklahoma are both 3-2 this season. OU football fans are hoping that their new head coach will be spending a lot more time working with his defensive unit starting this week.
As for Texas A&M, the chest thumping coming out of Aggie fans last year was a bit hard to take. Yes, they ambushed Alabama in College Station last season as Coach Jimbo Fisher became the first Nick Saban assistant to beat him. Things got a bit hotter between the two programs during the offseason. Coach Fisher and Alabama’s Nick Saban got into a public spat last winter about whether the Aggies had spent millions to “buy” 5-star high school recruits using a Texas sized pile of cash disguised as NIL payments.
The media had Texas A&M as a top-ten program in preseason. The Ags lost to feisty Appalachian State (now 3-2) in College Station a few weeks ago. On Saturday, Texas A&M went to Stark Vegas, Mississippi and was soundly thumped by Mississippi State 42-24.
This Saturday night, the 3-2 Aggies will limp into Tuscaloosa to play 5-0 Alabama. CBS had hoped for this game to be a top-ten rematch this season. Another question mark is Alabama’s Heisman quarterback Bryce Young. He went out of Saturday’s game at Arkansas with an apparent shoulder injury. Even if Bryce Young cannot play this weekend, Alabama’s players, coaches, and rowdy fans are looking for a bit of revenge on Saturday.
Finally, this has been a really tough start to the season if you are a college football fan in the state of Colorado.
On Saturday, Georgia State of the Sunbelt Conference won their first game by going to West Point and defeating the Army 31-14.
That leaves Colorado State (0-4) and Colorado (0-5) as the only two major college programs without a win in 2022.
Ranked as #131 (out of 131) teams in the SwamSwamiSports.com College Football poll this week, the winless Colorado Buffaloes have decided to make a few changes.
On Sunday, Colorado’s head coach, Karl Dorrell, and defensive coordinator, Chris Wilson, were dismissed after the Buff’s 0-5 start. Ironically, Saturday’s 23-point loss to the Arizona Wildcats was the closest losing margin in the first five games of the season for the struggling Buffs.
Calling Ed Orgeron! I think that former LSU head football coach Ed Orgeron should go into business as a designated interim head coach. For a tidy sum, Coach O (who is still being paid handsomely by LSU after being fired last year) has proven himself as a successful interim leader at both USC and LSU. He would bring stability, experience, and a whole lot more fun to the football program in Boulder, Colorado.
Geaux, Buffs!
This week’s new Top 25 features a whopping seven teams from the SEC. There are five teams coming from the ACC, four from the Big 12, three each from the Big Ten and Pac 12, two from the Sunbelt, and one out of the American Athletics Conference.
Let’s now reveal the SwampSwamiSports.com College Football Top 25 teams for the week ending Saturday, October 1, 2022:
