Baylor Bears keep No. 4 spot in SI's college football Power Rankings
As a college English major always looking for independent studies in order to spend more time off campus covering the football and basketball teams, the idea of an honors thesis appeared to be the perfect plan. I was already writing, so what damage could more writing do? Plus I was getting a bunch of credits and never had to step in a classroom!
Like many college kids, I didn’t quite think things through. My thesis was on paranoia in Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, and after immersing in the text on the third or fourth reading, I started to get paranoid myself. Somewhere in between a rambling essay written after about 13 PBRs at the Blue Moon Diner in Charlottesville and wandering around Little Havana in a haze after Wake Forest was upset by Cleveland State at the NCAA tournament in March, I lost myself a little bit. Okay, I lost myself a lot.
That’s how I’ve started to feel this late in the season.
(O Brave New World.,
That Has Such Playoffs In’t)
So my mind drifted back to that spring and honed in on a quote from Gravity’s Rainbow that sums up we college football fans in the first year of the College Football Playoff better than anything I can write. “Paranoids are not paranoids because they’re paranoid,” Pynchon writes, “but because they keep putting themselves, f****** idiots, deliberately into paranoid situations.”
We asked for this. We got exactly what we asked for. Now it’s time to see what hath college football wrought.
• ELLIS: Bowl Projections: Who's likely to make the playoff, all bowls?
1. Alabama Crimson Tide
PREVIOUS: 1
RECORD: 11-1
Last game: Beat Auburn, 55-44Next game: Saturday vs. Missouri (SEC Championship)
2. Florida State Seminoles
PREVIOUS: 2
RECORD: 12-0
Last game: Beat Florida, 24-19Next game: Saturday vs. Georgia Tech (ACC championship)
3. Oregon Ducks
PREVIOUS: 3
RECORD: 11-1
Last game: Beat Oregon State, 47-19Next game: Friday vs. Arizona (Pac-12 championship)
4. Baylor Bears
PREVIOUS: 4
RECORD: 10-1
Last game: Beat Texas Tech, 48-46Next game: Saturday vs. Kansas State
5. TCU Horned Frogs
PREVIOUS: 6
RECORD: 10-1
Last game: Beat Texas, 48-10Next game: Saturday vs. Iowa State
6. Ohio State Buckeyes
PREVIOUS: 7
RECORD: 11-1
Last game: Beat Michigan, 42-28Next game: Saturday vs. Wisconsin (Big Ten championship)
7. Arizona Wildcats
PREVIOUS: 13
RECORD: 10-2
Next game: Friday vs. Oregon (Pac-12 championship)
8. Michigan State Spartans
PREVIOUS: 8
RECORD: 10-2
Last game: Beat Penn State, 34-10Next game: Regular season complete
9. Kansas State Wildcats
PREVIOUS: 10
RECORD: 9-2
Last game: Beat Kansas, 51-13Next game: Saturday at Baylor
10. Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
PREVIOUS: 17
RECORD: 10-2
Last game: Beat Georgia, 30-24 (OT)Next game: Saturday vs. Florida State (ACC championship)
11. Wisconsin Badgers
PREVIOUS: 14
RECORD: 10-2
Last game: Beat Minnesota, 34-24Next game: Saturday vs. Ohio State (Big Ten championship)
12. Missouri Tigers
PREVIOUS: 19
RECORD: 10-2
Last game: Beat Arkansas, 21-14Next game: Saturday vs. Alabama (SEC Championship)
13. Ole Miss Rebels
PREVIOUS: 21
RECORD: 9-3
Last game: Beat Mississippi State, 31-17Next game: Regular season complete
14. Mississippi State Bulldogs
PREVIOUS: 5
RECORD: 10-2
Last game: Lost to Ole Miss, 31-17Next game: Regular season complete
15. Georgia Bulldogs
PREVIOUS: 9
RECORD: 9-3
Last game: Lost to Georgia Tech, 30-24 (OT)Next game: Regular season complete
16. UCLA Bruins
PREVIOUS: 11
RECORD: 9-3
Last game: Lost to Stanford, 31-10Next game: Regular season complete
17. Arizona State Sun Devils
PREVIOUS: 12
RECORD: 9-3
Last game: Lost to Arizona, 42-35Next game: Regular season complete
18. Oklahoma Sooners
PREVIOUS: 20
RECORD: 8-3
Last game: Beat Kansas, 44-7Next game: Saturday vs. Oklahoma State
19. Clemson Tigers
PREVIOUS: 22
RECORD: 9-3
Last game: Beat South Carolina, 35-17Next game: Regular season complete
20. Louisville Cardinals
PREVIOUS: 23
RECORD: 9-3
Last game: Beat Kentucky, 44-40Next game: Regular season complete
21. Boise State Broncos
PREVIOUS: 24
RECORD: 10-2
Last game: Beat Utah State, 50-19Next game: Saturday vs. Fresno State (Mountain West championship)
22. Auburn Tigers
PREVIOUS: 15
RECORD: 8-4
Last game: Lost to Alabama, 55-44Next game: Regular season complete
23. LSU Tigers
RECORD: 8-4
Last game: Beat Texas A&M, 23-17Next game: Regular season complete
24. Memphis Tigers
RECORD: 9-3
Last game: Beat UConn, 41-10Next game: Regular season complete
25. Marshall Thundering Herd
PREVIOUS: 18
RECORD: 11-1
Last game: Lost to Western Kentucky, 67-66 (OT)Next game: Saturday vs. Louisiana Tech (Conference USA championship)
Next five: Utah, Minnesota, Nebraska, USC, Duke
