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Watching the Polls: Baylor Bounces Back to #7 in Coaches, AP

It's getting interesting out there in CFB land.

Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports

Things Happened yesterday, friends and ODB commentariat.  And those things have Baylor firmly back in the Top 10 and jockeying with a couple of B1G schools for position.  Here's the full rankings courtesy of the Mothership:

AP Coaches S&P+ Massey
1 Clemson (55) Clemson (58) Clemson Alabama
2 Alabama (6) Alabama (5) Alabama Clemson
3 Iowa Iowa (1) Michigan Oklahoma
4 Notre Dame Notre Dame Oklahoma Ohio State
5 Oklahoma Oklahoma Ohio State Notre Dame
6 Michigan State Michigan State Baylor Baylor
7 Baylor Baylor Florida State Michigan State
8 Ohio State Ohio State Ole Miss Iowa
9 Oklahoma State Florida Notre Dame Stanford
10 Florida Oklahoma State Florida Michigan
11 North Carolina North Carolina Navy Oklahoma State
12 Michigan Stanford (T-12) Stanford Florida
13 Stanford Michigan (T-12) LSU North Carolina
14 Florida State Florida State Michigan State Navy
15 TCU Navy West Virginia TCU
16 Navy TCU Western Kentucky Ole Miss
17 Northwestern Northwestern UCLA Florida State
18 Oregon Oregon TCU Oregon
19 Ole Miss Ole Miss Oklahoma State Mississippi State
20 Washington State Washington State Arkansas Utah
21 Houston Houston Toledo LSU
22 UCLA Mississippi State Bowling Green Northwestern
23 Mississippi State UCLA Mississippi State USC
24 Toledo Temple Tennessee Houston
25 Temple Utah USC Toledo

Sooooo, yeah. Four Big 12 teams are ranked once again in the Top 25, led by Oklahoma.  Baylor and Oklahoma State basically switched positions with the Bears going to #7 and the Cowboys dropping to 9/10, something that could be a good thing for both Baylor and Oklahoma going forward.

One thing I want to point out that I talked about on Twitter a few minutes ago: based on these AP rankings, Alabama has played just 2 ranked teams this season and lost to one of them.  That's the same record as Baylor and actually a worse record than Oklahoma (who now has wins over TCU and Baylor).  Alabama's best win, rankings wise, is now #23 Mississippi State, winners of a shootout over Arkansas.  The only other ranked team the Tide have played is Ole Miss, who beat them.

But we're supposed to just believe they're the second-best team in the country despite having a worse loss than any of the one-loss teams around them save Oklahoma and a worse best win?  Ok.

I don't know how things are going to play out ahead of us, but I do know that at least 5 of the 6 teams sitting up there have tough contests remaining this season.  Clemson is going to pull UNC in the ACC Championship Game; Iowa will get one of Michigan State, Michigan, or Ohio State and could probably lose to all three in the Big Ten Championship Game; Notre Dame has to go to Stanford this coming Saturday and then won't play on the last weekend of the season; Oklahoma has Bedlam in what looks like it's going to be awful weather (which might actually favor them considering their running game); and Michigan State could get Iowa if it gets past Penn State (which it should).