Wrap Up: 2012 Week 1

The first week of the college football season is always a bit odd. You don't really expect any big stories because you expect the top 25 teams to roll their opponents, but there is always that anticipation of something unique happening. Of course this week all the build up was for the Alabama, Michigan game. Could the SEC dominance continue or would Michigan be able to represent the Big 10 and show that they were a conference worth watching. Well we got the answer in a blowout win for the Tide and so we are left to assume that the SEC will have at least one team at the end of the season playing in the BCS title game.  Now the focus starts to narrow on who will be there in the end.

One of my favorite college football ranking sites is Massey Ratings.  It is a meta rating site where he ranks the teams based on their ranking across many ranking systems.  It was interesting to see the shift at Massey after the opening week.  Here are the preseason rankings.

1. Alabama
2. LSU
3. Oklahoma
4. Oregon
5. USC
6. Oklahoma St
7. Arkansas
8. Stanford
9. Michigan
10. Wisconsin

Here are the rankings after week 1

1. Alabama
2. LSU
3. Oregon
4. USC
5. Oklahoma
6. Oklahoma St
7. Arkansas
8. Florida St
9. Michigan St
10. South Carolina

The Michigan loss hurt the big 10 and USC and Oregon are now up there as the 3 and 4 team behind Alabama and LSU.  I would imagine this will be the image we see for quite some time and of course what's intersting is to think that as we move toward a four team playoff system we are currently in a situation where the majority believe the four best teams represent only two conferences.

With the UCFC title holders off next week we look to see what big matchups lay ahead. 

Here are the games I'll be interested in.

Western Kentucky at Alabama 
     Growing up in Kentucky I'm keeping hope that WKU can pull one of the greatest upsets in college football history.

Georgia at Missouri
     There is a lot of hype of Georgia, but they always seem to blow games early in the season, so this might be an upset.

Eastern Washington at Washington State
     It would be fantastic if Eastern could pull off the Idaho, WSU double.
 
Vanderbilt at Northwestern
     I always find this to be a fun game.