Sports Cognition's Top 10 (Week 10)

Here are my Top 10 teams in college football for week 10:

1. Michigan

2. Washington

3. Alabama

4. Western Michigan

5. Clemson

6. Ohio State

7. Louisville

8. Baylor

9. Texas A&M

10. Troy

I understand that this doesn't resemble the rest of the Top 10 lists of the majority of Top 10 lists. That is because everyone else thinks safely tucked into their little boxes, where they won't be scrutinized for having an original thought. For starters, to me Michigan is the best team that I've seen all year, and until something happens to make me think otherwise I won't be changing their status as the #1 team. Everyone thinks that Alabama should be the #1 ranked team because they won the national championship last year. Well, that is partially true. Alabama, the school, the name, the head coach, and even some of the players, won the national championship last year, but this isn't the same team as last year. They aren't really defending the championship, as a team. As a team, they are starting over. They have new players coming in, and some of last year's players have left, so in reality, this isn't the defending national championship team. 

I know everyone wants to give me grief about having Western Michigan ranked #4, but that's because I see things differently. I take the records of a team into account first and for most. Out of 128 teams, only five of them are undefeated. To be one of the five is pretty impressive, I don't care what conference you're playing in. There aren't any teams from Conference USA that are undefeated, nor are there any teams from the Sun Belt Conference, or the American Athletic Conference. So the argument against Western Michigan being in a non-power five conference is invalid. Western Michigan has been blowing up their opponents, and I truly believe they could give any of these teams a run for their money. Of course this is my opinion and they only way to find this out is to have them play one of the Top 10 ranked teams. 

Clemson has had too many close games for me to put them ahead of Western Michigan, one of those close games came against the team I have ranked #10, Troy. That's right, I have Troy as the #10 team in the country. A team from the Sun Belt Conference, a team that lost to Clemson by only six points, and has destroyed the rest of their opponents.

Unfortunately only the most popular teams that are household names in power five conferences tend to get ranked high by the voters. Unfortunately, nobody tends to look at some of the smaller schools that also have really good programs because they aren't well known, Those small schools that aren't as well known don't do anything for ratings. Ratings for the playoff games, bowl games, or the big sport networks like ESPN and Fox Sports come from the fans of the bigger schools, schools that have a bigger number of enrollment, and have historically larger fan bases. This is what tends to drive the rankings for college football, it's all about the ratings more than it is actually being objective and having original thoughts. 

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