Tigers move to No. 1 in one ESPN ranking, down in another |
Rankings are going to be an interesting exercise this season and only more so starting next week when the Big Ten comes back.
Clemson and Alabama both posted impressive performances on Saturday and both earned some recognition for that from ESPN. The Tigers returned to the top spot in the Football Power Index (30.9), after starting there preseason, ahead of Ohio State (30), Alabama (28.3), Wisconsin (23.7) and Georgia (23.6). After briefly having Clemson No. 1, the ESPN power rankings returned Alabama to the top after a win over No. 3 Georgia Saturday. Clemson is No. 2, Ohio State No. 3, Georgia still No. 4 and Penn State No. 5 there now. "The Tigers did nothing Saturday in a 73-7 thrashing of Georgia Tech to relinquish their crown as one of the most complete, if not the most complete, teams in college football," ESPN's Chris Low wrote. "Clemson has yet to be pushed this season in the ACC and has won 26 straight games against league foes. The Tigers have scored more than 40 points in each of their past four games, and with home games against Syracuse and Boston College the next two weeks, they will likely be unbeaten going into their road game at Notre Dame on Nov. 7." In ESPN's SP+ metric, Clemson and Alabama stayed No. 2 (27.8) and No. 3 (26.3) respectively to Ohio State at No. 1 before their debut next weekend (30.2) versus Nebraska. Clemson has top-4 rankings with the SP+ on offense (3) and defense (4) and top-20 on special teams (20), while Alabama paces the nation offensively (1) and is higher with this metric than traditional measures on defense (22).
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