Crazy two extremes the media goes in regards to the University of Miami and this football program. No program gets kicked more when they’re down, yet right now The U is the new flavor of the month in college football.
Truth be told, who is playing like the top flight team in the land?
Florida? Hardly. You can’t bump your gums about how Tennessee is going to get rolled… only to deliver a lackluster performance, while complaining afterwards that your boys had the sniffles.
Southern Cal? Upended at Washington. Next.
Ohio State? Same ol’, same ol’. Beat up the nobodies and fall to any quality opponent – home or away.
Texas? Too early to tell, but a dogfight with an unranked Texas Tech team didn’t help their cause.
Alabama? Definitely up there after a win over Virginia Tech, but wins over Florida International and North Texas don’t really mean much.
Ole Miss? Penn State? Cal? LSU? Undefeated, but also lacking quality wins… which brings you to Miami.
In today’s Forde Yard Dash on ESPN.com, columnist Pat Forde ranked Miami No. 1 in his ‘power rankings’, sating:
“The Dash sent in the weekly ESPN.com power rankings with Miami ranked No. 1. This was not caused by drinking turpentine while filling out the Top 25, or by losing a bet with Melvin Bratton. It was caused by using results-based appraisals instead of being influenced by August guesswork or rigid adherence to a slot-voting mentality.
The Dash went with the Hurricanes because they’ve done the best work to date in this young season, beating two ranked opponents.”
Of course some of Forde’s counterparts didn’t feel the same – Tim Griffin (Big XII Blogger), Chris Low (SEC Blogger) and Ivan Maisel (ESPN.com Senior Writer) all kept Florida at No. 1 and had Miami 11th, 9th and 11th, respectively.
Forde hits the nail on the head, reminding folks that ESPN.com power rankings are “truly for entertainment purposes only”. A nice disclaimer, giving him a reason to get some site traffic with his over the top prediction.
Miami isn’t the top-flight team in the country (…yet), but it’s nice to see the Canes garner some early respect after taking n Florida State and Georgia Tech back-to-back weeks. Of course the proof will be in Virginia Tech and Oklahoma. Win those two and even Forde’s counterparts have to come around.