My guess is that there are a number of Big Ten and SEC teams ranked higher than they should be right now. Michigan at 15 also feels like a reach.
Indiana will have the chance to prove they belong against Oregon this weekend. What will be interesting is to see how they are handled if they get blown out because looking at the rest of their schedule they have a chance to run the table over the rest of their schedule with PSU not looking so good now after losing to UCLA.
I disagree. There is no comparison between SEC and B1G bias. Nebraska has a win over a very good Cincinnati team and their only loss is by 3 points to Michigan. They should be ranked. Cincinnati is basically ranked 26 right now, above Nebraska. Washington should also be ranked with their win over Maryland. Maryland and USC also have arguments for being ranked. USC's only loss is by 2 points to Illinois. Maryland, Michigan and Alabama all beat Wisconsin handily and all have one loss. Only Maryland is unranked.
The SEC teams continue to benefit from being ranked in the original top 25 and historical bias. When they beat each other they only fall a few spots instead of out of the top 25. When Maryland (4-0) plays Washington (3-1) and one wins, they don't get much of a bump because they just beat an unranked team. Most of the non-P2 teams have no good wins against quality competition, but are still ranked. If anything they are getting the benefit of the doubt. BYU has no top 50 wins and is ranked 18. Their best win is over 2-3 Stanford. At least they are undefeated. Memphis has a best win by ONE point over 2-3 Arkansas. Again, at least they are undefeated, but they haven't played anyone. How many B1G teams are undefeated with these schedules? South Florida's best win is over 2-3 Florida. Not only is their SEC bias, but teams that beat bad SEC teams also get the benefit of the bias.
Vanderbilt lost by three scores to Alabama, has no good wins, and only fell four spots to 20. I think most SEC teams should be several spots lower and a couple more B1G teams should be in the later half of the top 25 (Nebraska, Washington, USC, and Maryland should be considered, maybe next week if they get another win). We'll see if this corrects itself as the year goes on.
The B1G won the last two national championships and is stronger across the board. I think we're being underestimated outside of our traditional top three teams.
PS - I am glad Texas and Penn State fell out of the Top 25. Congrats AP voters! I also think they'll both be back in shortly because they are top 25 caliber teams.
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