Watching the Polls: Baylor Matches Highest AP Rank Ever at 3, #4 in Coaches

After a dominant win over Texas Tech yesterday, the Baylor Bears are rising in the AP poll, if holding pat in the Coaches Poll at this point. In the Coaches Poll, TCU leapfrogged Michigan State after a dominant performance by the Frogs over Texas. Michigan State struggled, and ended up third in the poll, just one point ahead of Baylor. Again.

That said, the Bears match their best-ever ranking in the AP poll at 3rd. Michigan State drops to fifth. The Bears are a mere 7 points behind TCU, who occupies the #2 spot. Here are the full polls, including the Massey and the S&P+ rankings, courtesy of The Mothership.

Don't ask me what's going on with S&P+, because I don't know. I'm assuming that Bill Connelly has removed all of the preseason projections this week, which only comprised 10% of this past week's rankings. I'm not sure that 10% of the projections would drop us from 18 to 39. Bill's said he's going to write about it this week, so we may see an explanation.

Going back to the rankings that don't matter that we "really" care about for the purposes of this post, interesting to me that Baylor, at #3 in the AP and #4 in the Coaches, received the second most first-place votes in both polls. They received 10 votes in the AP and 5 in the Coaches poll. People are starting to take notice of the Bears and how they're playing.

Also from the Big 12, Oklahoma moves into the Top Ten in both polls after a solid defeat of a West Virginia team whose hype train was just gearing up to leave the station.  Oklahoma State survived some serious Bill Snyder sorcery (he had his fifth string QB, a wide receiver, playing for more than a half) and remain in the high teens/low 20s in both polls.

Thoughts about the Bears' rankings in these polls? Let's talk about it!