East Carolina Ranked 14 ?

The new rankings came out today and the East Carolina Pirates have moved all the way up to #14. They did have back to back wins over Va Tech (#17) and West Virginia (#8).

Here's my problem. East Carolina played 2 great games, now they are going to finish their schedule against Tulane, NC State, Houston, Virginia, Memphis, UCF, Marshall, S Miss, UAB and UTEP. If they can win all these games, which they should, they could go undefeated and end up in the top 5 -10. Are they really the #14 team in the country? Right behind them in the rankings are Arizona State, Oregon, Penn State and BYU. If East Carolina was hosting any of those teams would you bet on them? I wouldn't.

Some of these teams in the weaker conferences get past 1 or 2 decent games and play cupcakes the rest of the way. After Arizona State plays UNLV next week they will play #2 Georgia (home), # 23 Cal (away), #1 USC (away) and #16 Oregon (home). 4 Straight weeks, 4 ranked opponents. They also will play home against UCLA who just dropped out of the rankings for inactivity this weekend. Oregon has 3 ranked opponents coming up + UCLA. All ranked opponents will be road games. Penn State, 3 ranked opponents.

UCLA, who just dropped out of the rankings is scheduled to play 7 ranked opponents this season, they have a hell of a schedule. Their out of conference games are TN, BYU, Fresno State. After that they will deal with Oregon, Cal, USC and Arizona State.

I don't think I need to mention that pretty much any SEC team will be facing their fair share of top ranked opponents. Kudos to GA, AL and TN for going out of conference and facing some ranked competition. GA scheduled for 5 ranked opponents, TN has 4, AL has 4. Maybe TN would have been better suited to take a page out of LSU's book and play Troy, Tulane, North Texas and App State for thier out of conference games and they'd more than likely still be in the top 15. They took a risk and will pay the price. Last year they were able to crawl back in to the SEC championship. GA has taken a bigger risk in Arizona State, I think they will win but that is a big road game.

Last but not least the #1 team in the nation, USC. Out of conference they choose #5 Ohio State, Notre Dame and Virginia. Of course all these schedules are picked a few years in advance but no one on USC's out of conference schedule is a cupcake.

I aplaud East Carolina for thier great start, I just don't think they are the #14 team and I sure don't want to see them in a big bowl game if they win out.