Watching The Polls: Baylor Cracks The Top 10 of the Coaches and AP Polls

After clobbering the Kansas Jayhawks 60-14 yesterday, your Baylor Bears are back in the Top 10 of the Coaches Poll. [UPDATE]: The AP poll is out and has now been updated, and Baylor is ranked #10 in both polls. TCU is still the highest-ranked Big 12 team in both polls, coming in at 6 in the AP and 7 in the Coaches. Kansas State is 9 in both. Oklahoma, fresh off its shellacking of Iowa State, is #16 in both polls. West Virginia remains in both polls at #24 in the AP and #25 in the Coaches, probably owing to the fact that TCU required a last-second field goal to beat the Mountaineers.

This week of the polls was particularly interesting to see, given the release of the College Football Playoff Top 25 ranking last Tuesday. Questions loomed for both polls: Would the polls reshuffle the rankings to match the CFP Top 25 and try to project what the Selection Committee's rankings will look like after yesterday's slate of games, or would the writers and coaches differentiate themselves from the Selection Committee? It does not appear that the polls are allowing the Committee's rankings to guide them, but the polls are showing some movement. TCU hopped over both Michigan State and Notre Dame, moving from 10 to 6 in this week's AP after their close scrape with West Virginia. The Coaches kept Michigan State ahead of TCU for the moment. Baylor moved up two spots in both polls, on account of Ole Miss and Georgia losses.

The Coaches and AP also feature the same Top 4: Mississippi State, Florida State, Auburn and Alabama. Despite the fact that Oregon dispatched its conference rival Stanford with style, Alabama leapfrogged the Ducks after having beaten absolutely no one at all yesterday. The voters of both polls were so impressed Alabama's play in their win over OFF that they saw fit to move them ahead of Oregon and into the Top 4. This makes virtually no sense to me.

The Selection Committee's next Top 25 Ranking will be released on Tuesday evening.