Rankings: 'Bama, Wisconsin, Ohio State, Notre Dame Are Top 4

November 8, 2020 by Staff

The story of the weekend was Notre Dame's 47-40 win in double-overtime over Clemson, but upsets in the Big Ten have been the story ever since that conference began play.

The latest Big Ten upsets saw Indiana end a 24-game losing streak to Michigan and improve to 3-0 with the 38-21 victory, and Maryland knock off Penn State 35-19 for just their third win in 44 meetings.

Another huge story in the Big Ten was the need for Wisconsin to cancel its game for the second straight week due to Covid issues. Their canceled game against Nebraska two weeks ago and Purdue on Saturday can not be made up, putting the Badgers in jeopardy of failing to play the requisite 6 games to be eligible for the Big Ten championship game. That requirement would be lowered if, and only if, the average number of regular-season games played by all conference teams falls below six.

Currently, Wisconsin ranks 2nd in the Congrove Computer Rankings, just behind Alabama and one spot ahead of Ohio State.

Notre Dame rose from 5th to 4th while Clemson dropped from 3rd to 8th.

Indiana moves into the No. 5 spot, giving the Big Ten 3 schools in the top 5.

Oregon, which opened its season with a 35-14 romp over Stanford, ranks 6th. The Ducks are just ahead of fellow PAC-12 member USC which rallied late to edge Arizona State 28-27.

Two other PAC-12 schools, Cal and Utah, are ranked 9th and 10th, respectively. Both teams had to cancel their openers due to their own Covid issues. Utah was slated to host Arizona, and Cal was scheduled to welcome Washington.

SEC members Texas A&M and Florida are 11th and 12th. The Aggies blew out South Carolina 48-3, and Florida dropped Georgia 44-28. The 'Dawgs tumbled from 11th to 22nd.

Top-ranked Alabama was idle.

The top-ranked school from a Group Of Five conference is still Cincinnati (American conference) which rises from 18th to 14th after a 38-10 win over Houston. Independent BYU is No. 20 and Conference USA's Marshall ranks 25th.

See the latest CCR Top 127.