Hokies rise to #23 after beating Pitt on the road and maintaining lead in the Coastal Division, having entered last week at #25.
OSU jumps into the poll at #22. UNC moves up three spots to #18 on the bye week. 5-3 FSU falls to 19, one spot behind the Heels. Utah moves up one spot in a loss.
SEC, ACC and B1G each have 5 teams in top 25. Top 6 remains unchanged.
AP College Football Poll
UPDATE:
Tech is #21 in the Coaches Poll, one spot ahead of the Cowboys. UNC is #17.
Forums:
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Comments
Thanks for ruining our strength of schedule, Tennessee...
Cant put it all on Tennessee. Off our schedule, Tenn, Miami, Pitt, Boston College, LOLUVA and Duke all lost. UNC didnt play. Syracuse beat BC, GT beat Duke, ND beat Miami. ECU managed its first win in six weeks against UConn and Liberty beat some second tier school.
Thats more than half our schedule with losses this week.
I wish I were upset about this, but I'm not.
Is there any chance we break top 10 this year?
Win our next 4 games and beat Clemson in the ACCCG
ESPN Power Index gives us a 5.5% chance of doing exactly that.
We don't feel like a 4-0 finish team to me. Feels like a 3-1 finish.
Let's just hope that one loss is out of conference. Even though it would be nice to win at South Bend.
We don't feel like a 4-0 finish team to me, either. Feels like a 6-0 finish team.
I think you misspelled 7-0.
As much as I would love to see this. I promise if we win out and beat Clemson in the acc title game, then we get snubbed for the playoff in lieu of Louisville.
Sure. UNC was 21st at this point last year and 8th by the CG week.
Nobody likes you when you're 23.
What's my age again?
That's about the time the AP walked away from me
No one should take the polls so seriously.
What the hell is #goACC?
Maybe you should act your age.
What's my age again?
What's my age again?!
One of the many AP absurdities.
If we win out and go to ACC championship and UNC wins out too they will still be ranked ahead of us.
Polls suck.
It would be doubtful they stay above us if both of those things occur, which just shows the silliness of these polls sometimes
We'll jump them if we beat Notre Dame, even though Notre Dame is trash
The AP is pretty meaningless once they come out with the playoff rankings. It's nice to be ranked but unless your top 15 it really means little as far as actually being considered.
No they wouldn't...I mean they might but they might not...it's possible to jump teams in the polls without the other team losing, happens literally every week
When do they post the AP vote by voter full guide?
You can scroll to the bottom of the website and click "by voter" and click on names. That's all I can tell from my phone, site is full of ads.
Scott Wolff is a moron
Why would you say...oh, haha.
"Quick, do the sad UVA fan...is the camera on us yet?"
He's the asshole at the M&M factory that kept throwing away all the Es, 3s & Ws. Not sure how he became a beat writer.
I'm not sure as to why you focused on him. Robert Gagliardi, Matt Galloway and Jeff Miller don't have VT on their ballots at all. They have a larger number of G5 teams than most voters, which I can respect if they truly feel that way.
Because Wolf has Mich at #1 ahead of Bama
Meh. If they are top 4 they are in the play off and have a shot.
Mandy Mitchell knows what's up, though.
VT at #14 ahead of UNC at #15 AND FSU at #16?
Same with Eric Hansen
The number of voters who have UNC 4-7 spots ahead of the Hokies is a joke.
But...but...losing to UGA and VT is better than losing to Tenn and Syracuse...
Except Tenn has a better in-conference and overall record than UGA. And Syracuse beat VT, who beat UNC, so by transitive property of victories...
If it was one or even two spots I could see the argument but that many spots even to the point Hokies got left off a ballot.
Most 128s now have 4-4 Syracuse and 4-4 UGA very similar.
But don't you know that UGA is in the SEC? That's gotta be worth at least five spots in the poll /s
Love that we are ranked this year, much sooner than I would have ever guessed. I'm upset about Utah and FSU and UNC, but like CJF said after the first time we were ranked earlier this year. Nobody cares who was 23 in the AP poll last year at this time. Keep winning, keep it at 1-0 every week and we will keep moving up. Then, maybe next year, we will get some more respect.
If we close strong and Jrod stays we will be Top 15 easy. But again, the most useless poll (next to presidential) is preseason AP.
Unc at # 18 is a bit of a head scratcher.
We are ahead of both teams that beat us. I know what you mean though, 34-3 was not exactly close.
We also have better records than both teams that beat us.
True. I was replying to the line (I believe it has been edited out) that North Carolina being ranked highly was weird because they were ranked ahead of both teams that beat them (VT and Georgia). I pointed out that we were ranked ahead of both teams that beat us (Tenn and Syracuse).
When you have to rank 128 teams based on 9 or so games they've played, head to head matchups lose their meaning. Other metrics are used so you can compare so many teams with such a small sample size and you end up ranking based on that. You end up with situations like VT and UNC because the team who is better based on whatever variables won't win against a team who has been worse in the same variables 100% of the time. There is definitely an argument to be made based on each team's resume that UNC is currently the better team. The fact of the matter is that the loss at Syracuse will haunt this team for the rest of year. All we can do is deal with it and win.
They shouldn't. Yes, if a 4-4 team has a home W over a 6-2 team it does lose some meaning, since it's likely a "on any given day" kind of thing. Two 6-2 teams where the loser of H-H was at home and lost by 4 TD's or more, should still have some weight. As a minimum, the two teams should be close on the ballot.
I see what you're saying and I agree. But most poll voters don't watch every game and don't follow VT as closely as we do, I bet a lot forget that we won by as much as we did. And UNC has a road win at FSU which is pretty sexy in poll voters eyes, whereas a loss to Syracuse, regardless of their solidness, is pretty ghastly. If we win out we will be ahead of them which is all that matters. I also bet we will be ahead in the playoff rankings this week
It's not a should or should not, if you put too much stock into head to head you are literally just ranking based on transitive property. Us and unc and about 20 other teams have very similar resumes. If you went by head to head you could organize 20-40 in hundreds of different configurations and every one would violate someone's head to head matchup. Fact is UNC is our sole good win, we should just enjoy being ranked and keep winning
I'm not advocating "ranking by transitive property" in any way. I'm saying if two teams have equal records and comparable schedules (which UNC and VT have), then a head to head road win by 4 TD's or more, should carry meaningful weight (though not be the exclusive criteria), which is the reason that I say VT should be close to UNC, if not ahead of UNC.
On the other hand Syracuse doesn't have a comparable record to VT and UGA doesn't have a comparable record to UNC, so neither should be even close to VT or UNC in rankings.
Edit; the odd part in all of this is that if VT had lost to Syracuse in the 1st 4 weeks of the season, it's likely that VT would be ranked ahead of UNC right now. Timing of losses is critical in these poll numbers.
More rankings..
Total Offense: 40
Total Defense: 15
TOP: 24
3rd Down Defense: 4
Should I value time of possession?
someone asked last week, so i included this week.
Like any other metric, it tells the story of the game. You can win with less and you can win with more. Just like passing yards, turnovers, first downs, ect.
13th S&P. 41/8/19 o/d/st.
Actually fell this week, although our offense has jumped like 50 spots in the past 2 weeks. S&P+ has been super high on us all year
I didn't know they were rating us on our Halo-playing ability now too.
/s
Wasn't LOLUVA crowing about their rank in this stat a few years ago?
My point is let's not put more meaning into these things than is truly due.
In 2013, they played a bad BYU week 1 and 2nd ranked Oregon in week 2. BYU was bad and terrible on offense, and struggled on 3rd downs. Oregon was good, amazing on offense, and had virtually no 3rd downs in the game. From what I remember, they were boasting about their 3rd down defense being top in the country (maybe top 5? top 10?). It was comical.
I always made the point that when your opponents score before 3rd down, it's easy to have a good percentage.
I think you're just agreeing with his point at this point
I was always agreeing with his point - that taken on its face without context, any statistic is meaningless.
This is right up there with the GT fans bragging that they had the best CB in the country, in week 3, because the CB had 2 picks vs a very bad FCS team, in week 1. Said CB ended the season with 2 picks (and his pics per game tanked).
I'm not convinced anyone from the Big 12 conference should be ranked ahead of us. I don't think that conference is very good.
I think the same about OSU, Wisconsin, and Nebraska.
Mehhh I think Wisconsin and OSU are legit top 15 teams. I have no idea what to think of Michigan, but I don't think they're top 2.
Top 15 sure, but not top 10 I don't think. Michigan...I don't love that ranking but I think they could go out and beat just about anyone on a given Saturday except Alabama. At this point I view Nebraska, OSU, and Wisconsin as living vicariously off of each others' preseason rankings.
But since there only appear to be about 6 teams worth thinking highly of, who even knows anymore.
Nebraska and Wisky weren't even ranked to begin the season were they?
No, they were receiving votes.
I guess I should say that Wisconsin got fat on beating LSU (preseason #5, total hot garbage in game 1 vs Wisconsin up until Orgeron took over) and Michigan State (preseason 12, ranked 8 when they played Wisconsin after their win over ND, now 0-5 in Big Ten play, on a 6-game losing streak, unlikely to go bowling). But according to the pundits, Wisconsin now has 'three wins over top ten teams'. Ugh.
Nebraska got fat on beating up on unranked teams, the highlight of which was Oregon (preseason 24, now 3-5 and unranked, may not bowl).
I still don't know how good Neb, Wisc, or OSU are.
If 1 is average, then all 3 aren't far from average. Neb and Wisc played to OT on Saturday. Neither looked great. OSU on the road beat Wisc in OT. The 3 teams seem to be relatively comparable. OSU's loss to PSU combined with a pedestrian win over 4-3 Northwestern (losses to Ill St and WMU), hints that they aren't as good as their Top 10 ranking.
Yep, this is what I was kinda getting at. They very well could be top ten teams, but since their big early season games all look worse in retrospect, I'm questioning all of them being ranked there. I'd be a bit happier if they were sprinkled amongst 10-15 instead of 6-9.
For as much as this weeks poll had some head scratching decisions, we have to remember that starting this week these two polls matter little to nothing. I think when the rankings come out on Tuesday, we will be sitting at 20 or 21 and unc certainly wont be at 18.
It will be interesting to see what Tuesday's poll does with WMU
Interesting that we only trail OK State by 10 points but Boise State trails us by 142. Seems like we are the last team that there is a consensus that we belong in the top 25.
I know it doesn't matter much, but I don't understand how we're ranked behind UNC. Both teams have 1 bad loss, no signature wins, but we beat them by 30 points...
Let me try to figure this one out.
First, we've played 2 common Coastal opponents in Pitt and Miami. UNC and VT beat both.
UNC's other ACC games were VT (big loss), UVA (3 TD win), and FSU (close win), which they went 2-1. Our other ACC games were UNC (big win), BC (big win), and Syracuse (2 TD loss), where we went 2-1.
We both have an SEC East loss - Tennessee or Georgia.
They have JMU to compare with Liberty. They have Illinois to compare to ECU.
Up to now, we should be close together in the polls, not five spots ahead. I also don't know why they were able to jump 3 spots while idle, while we only jumped 2 spots by winning.
But...UNC has another FCS team on their schedule where we have Notre Dame, so things should adjust out in November.
Their win over FSU as well as the fact that Illinois (P5) vs ECU (G5) is probably what does it. Both UNC and us play GT and Duke next, so I think you're right that it'll have to wait until the Citadel/ND weekend before anything makes a major shift.
Forgot that Illinois was Big Ten for a second...
So did the B10
So did Illinois
Really it has a lot to do with timing. Both UNC's losses were relatively early in the season. If we had loss to Syracuse week 3 or 4 and UNC had just lost to UGA then our positions would be reversed.
Same reason why losses at in September are preferable to losses in November.
Which is why the BCS poll may correct VT/UNC. Releasing it the first week of November was done specifically to weed out all these timing patterns in the traditional polls.
Be waiting a long time for a BCS poll....
Make the BCS great again?
If only we beat Syracuse...
Tech #21 in Coaches, OSU #22, UNC #17 for comparison.
Why even Coaches Poll any longer?
There is just way too much bias in these polls and most of the AP guys are lazy and will do their homework.
Oh well, #BeatDuke and continue the run of going 1-0 versus the Coastal. Then when we get the opportunity to play ACCCG (Clemson), we can shove that ranking up UNCheat's rump.
These polls will take a back seat come Tuesday when the playoff rankings are released.
Wish UNC was 17 in AP Poll.
To be honest, I can't care about the polls before Thanksgiving. After the last week of the season is the only time the polls are actually going to be used for anything.
If the team keeps winning, the poll votes will take care of themselves.
This isn't entirely relevant, but apparently the #17 team has lost 6 weeks in a row now. So maybe it's not that our team dropped the ball, there was just extra dark magic going against us from the start at the dome.
Week 4 - #17 Arkansas loses to #10 Texas A&M 45-24
Week 5 - #17 Michigan State loses to Indiana 24-21
Week 6 - #17 North Carolina loses to #25 Virginia Tech 34-3
Week 7 - #17 Virginia Tech loses to Syracuse 31-17
Week 8 - #17 Arkansas loses to #21 Auburn 56-3
Week 9 - #17 Utah loses to #4 Washington 31-24
Week 10 - #17 Western Michigan vs Ball State (Tue, Nov 1st, ESPN2)
(found this on r/cfb c/o memw85)
yes and yes.
ah
I like it. My Key Players Club number. Gotta be a good thing. Worked for MJ.
Just imagine if we didn't lose to Cuse
