Mississippi teams soar in college football Power Rankings after Week 6
I couldn’t help thinking about Jeff Goldblum after pausing to reflect on the madness of Week 6. Although admittedly I think about Jeff Goldblum a lot. No, not the Jeff Goldblum currently hawking smart light bulbs in this surrealist Tim & Eric-directed commercial. Rather I was thinking about Ian Malcolm, the character Jeff Goldblum played in "Jurassic Park."
Malcolm is obsessed with chaos theory, which he explains as “unpredictability in complex systems.” He demonstrates this “butterfly effect” by showing that it’s impossible to predict which way a drop of water will roll off a hand. His theory is ultimately proven right thanks in part to Wayne Knight and Barbasol as the dinosaurs make a mess of things.
We may think we have a general idea of what will happen over the course of the football season, but we don’t. We can crunch numbers, break down film, parse quotes, look at historical data, heck, even analyze the weather report, but chaos ultimately rules all.
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Chaos is what breaks fans hearts. Chaos allows a Hail Mary to drop conveniently into the arms of a receiver strolling into the end zone. Chaos drags one foot in bounds. Chaos makes college football great.
As Malcolm says in the movie, “God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God. Man creates dinosaurs.”
There was plenty of creation and destruction in Week 6, and the Power Rankings show no one is above chaos.
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1. Florida State Seminoles
PREVIOUS: 4
RECORD: 5-0
Next game: Saturday at Syracuse
2. Auburn Tigers
PREVIOUS: 5
RECORD: 5-0
Next game: Saturday at Mississippi State
3. Ole Miss Rebels
PREVIOUS: 14
RECORD: 5-0
Next game: Saturday at Texas A&M
4. Mississippi State Bulldogs
PREVIOUS: 12
RECORD: 5-0
Next game: Saturday vs. Auburn
5. TCU Horned Frogs
PREVIOUS: 24
RECORD: 4-0
Next game: Saturday at Baylor
6. Notre Dame Fighting Irish
PREVIOUS: 10
RECORD: 5-0
Next game: Saturday vs. North Carolina
7. Baylor Bears
PREVIOUS: 9
RECORD: 5-0
Next game: Saturday vs. TCU
8. Arizona Wildcats
RECORD: 5-0
Next game: Saturday vs. USC
9. Alabama Crimson Tide
PREVIOUS: 1
RECORD: 4-1
Next game: Saturday at Arkansas
10. Oregon Ducks
PREVIOUS: 3
RECORD: 4-1
Next game: Saturday at UCLA
11. Michigan State Spartans
PREVIOUS: 4
RECORD: 8
Next game: Saturday at Purdue
12. Oklahoma Sooners
PREVIOUS: 2
RECORD: 4-1
Next game: Saturday vs. Texas (at the Cotton Bowl)
13. Georgia Bulldogs
PREVIOUS: 15
RECORD: 4-1
Next game: Saturday at Missouri
14. Kansas State Wildcats
PREVIOUS: 22
RECORD: 4-1
Next game: Oct. 18 vs. Oklahoma
15. Texas A&M Aggies
PREVIOUS: 6
RECORD: 4-1
Next game: Saturday vs. Ole Miss
16. East Carolina Pirates
PREVIOUS: 17
RECORD: 4-1
Next game: Saturday at South Florida
17. Ohio State Buckeyes
PREVIOUS: 19
RECORD: 4-1
Next game: Oct. 18 vs. Rutgers
18. Oklahoma State Cowboys
PREVIOUS: 23
RECORD: 4-1
Next game: Saturday at Kansas
19. Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets
RECORD: 5-0
Next game: Saturday vs. Duke
20. UCLA Bruins
PREVIOUS: 7
RECORD: 4-1
Next game: Saturday vs. Oregon
21. Arizona State Sun Devils
RECORD: 4-1
Next game: Oct. 18 vs. Stanford
22. Nebraska Cornhuskers
PREVIOUS: 16
RECORD: 4-1
Next game: Oct. 18 at Northwestern
23. Clemson Tigers
RECORD: 3-2
Next game: Saturday vs. Louisville
24. Missouri Tigers
RECORD: 4-1
Next game: Saturday vs. Georgia
25. Marshall Thundering Herd
PREVIOUS: 25
RECORD: 5-0
Next game: Saturday vs. Middle Tennessee State
Next five: Stanford, Utah, Louisville, USC, Katy Perry
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