Week Four, Or The Reason Why Polls Shouldn't Be Released Until October

If this college football season doesn't remind you of 2007, in which there were big upsets on a weekly basis, then you must have been living in a cave for the past few years. In Week Four, there were four AP Top-10 teams that lost, and another one nearly lost (LSU to Mississippi State). Three more ranked teams from 11 through 25 on the AP Poll also fell, meaning that nearly a third of the nation's top teams fell on Saturday.

Week Four just may need to be called the week of the upset.

It also just goes to show you why the official BCS rankings have the right idea - not being released until about halfway through the season. The preseason rankings are a joke, they rate some teams way too high, and others way too low, and if certain teams are starting closer to the finish line than others, that just seems like an unfair advantage. Plus, the giants that fell in week four got penalized harshly for their losses. California dropped 18 spots from #6 to #24 after getting throttled by Oregon. Ole Miss fell 17 spots from #4 to #21 after barely losing on the road to a tough South Carolina squad. Miami fell 8 spots from #9 to #17 after losing handily to Virginia Tech in Blacksburg. And Penn State fell 10 spots from #5 to #15 after getting upset by Iowa...again.

I think that after teams have played about 5 to 6 games (around Week 6), you should have enough information to rank the teams in a relatively fair fashion. These massive fluctuations show that the pollsters have no idea how to properly rank teams, and they don't have a clue how to penalize teams for losses, or reward teams for victories. Case in point? Undefeated Iowa is still behind Penn State, whom they beat soundly on the road, in both the Harris and USA Today/Coaches polls - the two polls that matter for BCS rankings. By the way, OU opens at #9 in the Harris Poll behind both USC and Ohio State.

More about Week Four after the jump!

Bests and Worsts

• Best Undefeated Team Sitting Outside The Top 10:  I've got to think that the pollsters got this one right and go with Cincinnati. I talked about them in my Week Three recap, and I think they're for real. They struggled at home against Fresno State, but have otherwise looked great. Plus, they play in the Big East.
• Worst Undefeated Team Sitting Outside The Top 10:  Tough one. I considered Auburn and Texas A&M, but I'll have to go with Wisconsin who has struggled against Northern Illinois, Fresno State and Michigan State. All of those games were at home, and they didn't win any of them by more than 8 points. Their one blowout? Against Wofford.
• Best Team That Pulled Off An Upset Of A Top 10 Team This Week:  Sorry Virginia Tech, you should win this title, but I'm not counting that as an upset. This leaves my choices as Iowa, South Carolina and Oregon. Iowa is scrappy, but they should have lost to Northern Iowa, so no thanks. I'll go with the Gamecocks because they are 4 points away from being undefeated and their only loss was on the road to Georgia.
• Best Team In College Football RIGHT NOW:  I think the team that's playing the best ball right now is Alabama. Florida's seemed a little off their game the past two weeks. Texas is a close second, but they beat up on UTEP after looking beatable against Texas Tech. Alabama beat a very good Virginia Tech team and then rolled off three straight laughers. They are clicking right now.

Nick Saban has the Tide rolling.