Where's The Southern Love?

I have to admit, I'm a little shocked with the latest polls of week 4 of this 2009 college football season. There was a little bit of some shaking up in the top 10 from the week before, and I was expecting some teams to enter into the top 25 this week that never ended up happening. We had the #4 team in the nation, Ole Miss, losing to a 3-1 South Carolina, whose only loss was to Georgia. Now, Georgia, who has the same record as the Gamecocks, are ranked in the top 20 playing a difficult non-conference schedule (especially for an SEC team). They traveled to Oklahoma State and gave up their only loss, and they played a tight one at home against Arizona State; nevertheless, they still have Georgia Tech to play for a non-conference game. Similarly, South Carolina has chosen to play another BCS school besides their annual match-up against Clemson, by starting the season against North Carolina State. Of their four games, half of them were ranked. They lost to Georgia, but beat Mississippi. I figured, unless your record is below .500, you should be put in the top 25 after beating the #4 team in the nation. This brings up some questions about the voters. Did they realize that Ole Miss was extremely over-rated, or do they still really like Ole Miss that much better than South Carolina (even though the Rebels have played such a horrible schedule so far)? The Rebels are still ranked in the top 20, yet South Carolina is not yet ranked and not considered a better team than that one they just beat a week ago on a Thursday night with the same amount of losses. Am I the only person scracthing their head after these facts have pooled around for a while?

On another note, a 4-0 Auburn team isn't ranked either. What if Auburn goes 13-0 this season, along with Texas and a 12-0 Michigan team? Will Auburn re-live their last undefeated season and not get a chance to play in the national title game because they were so far back in the rankings that they couldn't catch up to the other undefeated teams? Of course, right now, it doesn't seem possible; however, it IS college football.

Another Southern team that isn't getting any love right now, who I feel deserves a little, is the South Florida Bulls. They came into Florida State after their huge win over then ranked #7 BYU, and stunned the Seminoles 17-7 without their starting quarterback who has been the starter for what seems like 6 years now. With Matt Grothe on the bench, the back-up, B.J. Daniels comes in and makes Bulls' fans forget about the injury to Grothe. That shows great depth and coaching! I don't know how voters can overlook that. I'm just blown away.

It seems that Oregon has gotten the better end of the deal than South Carolina. Two very similar situations with each having one loss to a ranked team coming into week 4 as an unranked team, then beating a top 10 team; however, that's where the similarities end. Oregon is now in the top 20 and the Gamecocks are not ranked at all. This just seems really backwards to me. I'm not sure if it's because Oregon beat the crap out of Cal and South Carolina squeaked one out or what, but it sure seems that by history's sake, the rankings of the two teams would have been flipped. Trust me, I love how it looks now, but I have my suspicions about the voters. Are they really paying attention to the whole nation? So, the love that I'm familiar with that hovers over the Southeastern part of the nation is eluded for a week and it has me freaking out a bit. How is the Pac-10 suppose to "earn" its way into the rankings if the South isn't getting that love? Well, I don't have to look far - I just think about a good friend's alma mater, UCLA, who is 3-0 and traveled a long ways to play an SEC team to beat them. They have yet to be ranked. Oh well, not all can be perfect in a week with West Coast love.