The Associated Press pollsters finally wised up and moved the LSU Tigers up to No. 1. The coaches are still married to their notion of Oklahoma as the nation's top team, because while mowing down three ranked teams in your first four games is nice and everything, you haven't really proved your mettle until you've had to come back from a 14-3 deficit against unranked Missouri at home.
The coaches are gradually coming around, though. The one who really deserves some dirt kicked in his eye here is College Football Pundit, who attracted a heaping helping of richly deserved scorn during the summer for putting LSU coach Les Miles at No. 1 with a bullet on his list of the 10 Worst Coaches in College Football. I've already laid into that bizarre judgment here, but let's update that skewering with a review of what LSU's silly "potted plant" of a coach has accomplished: He's started the season 4-0, with three wins against ranked teams, away from Baton Rouge no less -- and two of those wins came against guys who made CFP's Best Coaches list. OWWW IT TASTES LIKE BURNING.
Now that we've enjoyed that little bit of mirth, here's this week's Power Poll ballot, with the results being tallied up at Team Speed Kills later on this week:
1. LSU -- There are defenses that play good fundamentals and keep you from scoring points, and then there are defenses that want to make sure your bones are aching as you walk off the field. We've got a pretty good idea which one LSU is.
2. Alabama -- Something tells me Arkansas will be only the first of several high-octane offenses that the Crimson Tide defense makes look very, very pedestrian.
3. Florida -- Dominant Florida team has terrible Kentucky team burned to the ground by the end of the first quarter. Takes me back to the Spurrier years, except the passing/rushing yardage split (115/405) would've been reversed.
4. South Carolina -- I'm really starting to think Stephen Garcia (16-of-30, one TD, four picks against Vanderbilt) is doing this on purpose to punish Steve Spurrier.
5. Arkansas -- The good news, Razorbacks, is that at most you're only gonna face a couple more defenses like that this season. The bad news is we now know you're really not an elite offense without Knile Davis in the lineup.
6. Georgia -- Managed to unload on Ole Miss for 475 yards in a game in which they pretty much stopped caring after a half or so. Which is all well and good, but now is probably a good point in the season to start caring for the full 60 minutes.
7. Auburn -- Heading into a stretch where they have to play four straight top-20 teams, all but one away from home. If the Tigers keep playing like they did against Utah State and FAU, it's going to be one ugly October.
8. Tennessee -- Scheduling Buffalo immediately following a bye week is so dumb it pretty much had to be Mike Hamilton's idea. Unless it was Lane Kiffin's. "Got the idea after reading that Malcolm Gladwell book. Last thing they'll be expecting, bro."
9. Mississippi State -- Hard to figure out why the Bizarro Bulldogs look so mediocre after a breakout season in 2010. Could it be as simple as the fact they aren't sneaking up on anybody anymore?
10. Vanderbilt -- Playing the Commodores is like getting into an argument with an Internet troll: Even when you win, you still look stupid, and you feel bad about it afterward.
11. Kentucky -- I'm almost running out of ways to describe how bad they are, but I have a feeling I'll have some new metaphors by the time they finish getting blown up in Baton Rouge next week.
12. Ole Miss -- Houston Nutt is a better coach than he's looked like the last two seasons, but how do you let your quarterback situation get this bad when you're signing 63 players in each recruiting class?