Well the first AP Polls have come out and it does appear that there will be a continuum of the pattern we witnessed near the end of last year, where there are severe penalties for not only losing but “winning ugly”, which all things being considered is how it should be. Example 1 is Auburn who was just lambasted after their overtime win against Jackson State, falling a jaw-opening 18 spots from 6 to 18, completely taking them out of the picture for now. In all fairness, the Tigers are not first time offenders, as they didn’t look good in their opening game against Louisville where they also squeaked out a win, but they were given probation because it was a quality opponent and perhaps there were some opening day growing-pains.

It also appears that a loss is going to be treated like a loss even if its to a higher ranked team. The Oregon Ducks dropped 5 spots to number 12 even though they lost to the higher ranked Michigan State Spartans on the road. It wasn’t a blowout, and the Ducks were still in it in the 4^th quarter but they are still now the 3^rd highest ranked team in their own conference, not #7 in country.

Lastly, the early returns on the SEC have been disappointing thus far and the conference stock is dropping. We’ve already discussed the Auburn Tigers whom sent to Siberia after two lack-luster weeks, but that may not have been the conference headline of the weekend as Arkansas had a bad loss to Toledo at home, and Tennessee blew a 14-point lead in the fourth quarter to lose to Oklahoma in double overtime. Even the SEC wins were unspectacular as Florida let East Carolina stay in the game well into the 2^nd half, Missouri struggled with Arkansas State, and Georgia did not look like a top-10 school against Vanderbilt. I knows SEC faithful, they did go 6-2 in the end, and the season doesn’t start for “US” until league play, but what has been the status quo in the past doesn’t hold true this year as it won’t be considered a bias opinion any longer that the SEC may still be among the best in the nation but it certainly has company and Saturday proved it’s certainly not the best.