HTR's Top 25: Week 6

Previous dubious assertions: HTR's Official Meaningless Preseason Top 25, Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5

With most of college football having exited the realm of Cupcake City, we were treated to our first weekend of mostly good football. This past Saturday was rife with upsets, derailed hype trains, and general shenanigans. 

"Stop it with the dumb penalties, fergodsakes!" 

(HT: Mike DeSimone)

Rank	Team
1	Alabama
2	Oregon
3	South Carolina
4	West Virginia
5	Florida
6	Notre Dame
7	Ohio State
8	Kansas State
9	LSU
10	Oregon State
11	USC
12	Florida State
13	Texas
14	Oklahoma
15	Georgia
16	Louisville
17	Stanford
18	Texas A&M
19	Rutgers
20	Cincinnati
21	Mississippi State
22	Iowa State
23	TCU
24	Michigan
25	Louisiana Tech

Out: Northwestern, Nebraska, UCLA, Washington, Texas Tech

• Northwestern...no longer undefeated. All of you that predicted an Alabama-Northwestern national title game, I'm sorry. The dream season is over. No completely unironic--no, really--Northwestern fight song linking this week. 

• This year in college football insanity: Oregon State, in the top 10. This is "expectations exceeded" personified. I'm not sure how Mike Riley has navigated this team to a 4-0 record a season after losing to Sacramento State, but he has and is clearly a graduate of the Bill Snyder School of Sorcery. On the not so bright side, Oregon State QB Sean Mannion is out indefinitely after sustaining a knee injury against the Washington State Pirates. Luckily, OSU has a manageable slate throughout the rest of this month (@BYU, Utah, @Washington, Arizona State). If Oregon State can somehow get through that stretch without a loss, Riley has to be the coach of the year, right? 

• Other dreams vanquished. Texas Tech finally fell this past weekend after surprising basically everyone by playing this thing called "defense" during its first four contests. Unfortunately, the Fightin' Tubervilles fell to the Sooners in Lubbock. The Red Raiders gave up 17 points in each of the second and third quarters. With that said, the TTU defense still did okay, giving up a relatively okay 4.2 YPC and under 400 yards of total offense. An Oklahoma pick 6 essentially ended the game midway through the 3rd quarter, taking the score to 38-13, putting it out of reach even for a pass-happy offense like TTU's. 

• Michigan: back! Not back as in "returning to glory" back, but hey, Michigan's schedule has been tough and a thumping on the road against what figures to be a bowl team of some sort is enough to vault the Wolverines back into the top 25 for now. It means literally nothing but hey, being ranked 24th feels much better than being a "receiving votes" team. 

• This week in my unrealistic and/or irrational preseason conjecturing. Virginia continues to plummet, making me look like a fool after spending the offseason hyping up Mike London. The Cavs lost at Duke, 42-17, putting them at 2-4 halfway through this 2012 season. Everything about that last sentence is really, really bad. 

• Speaking of ACC failings...the Seminoles Florida Stated it up this weekend, losing to an NC State team that got destroyed by Tennessee. Virginia Tech continues to slide, adding a loss to UNC to its resume. Boston College lost to Army, Miami didn't even put up any sort of fight against Notre Dame in Chicago, and Georgia Tech lost again (also dropping them to 2-4). To make matters worse, the Ramblin' Wreck also relieved defensive coordinator Al Groh of his duties on Monday. Times are not good in Atlanta these days, and I'm not even talking about the Braves. Oh, by the way, Duke is 5-1. DUKE IS 5-1. 

• West Virginia: legit. Okay, that defense is still very, uh, shaky, but a win in Austin is a win in Austin. It's fairly clear that, unlike Missouri, West Virginia will be perfectly fine in its new conference.