Amway College Football Poll 2016: Week 5 Top 25 Rankings Announced
Tony Gutierrez/Associated Press
The Amway Coaches Poll was always likely to see some major shifts on Sunday after a wild Week 4, with a number of upsets and close calls affecting the rankings.
Here's how the new poll looks along with Bleacher Report's poll based on this week's play:
Below, we'll break down the Coaches Poll and analyze the weekend's play.
It's hard to decide on Saturday's most impressive performance.
Was it Wisconsin going into East Lansing and coming away with a 30-6 win behind Alex Hornibrook, making his first start? Was it Tennessee erasing a 21-3 halftime deficit to Florida? How about Ole Miss racing out to a huge lead against Georgia and actually holding it this time? Or was it Texas A&M smoking Arkansas?
Take your pick.
Wisconsin, a week after barely beating Georgia State, throttled the much more talented Michigan State. The Spartans didn't look like the same team that beat Notre Dame the week before, a fact that Drew Sharp of the Detroit Free Press noted:
The Spartans looked emotionally flat the entire game. Where was the juice? Where was the energy evident last weekend at Notre Dame? They looked like a complacent team, confident that they would somehow find a way to win despite mental errors and flawed execution.
And when the burly Badgers smacked them in the mouth early, the Spartans couldn’t respond.
“I don’t think we were complacent,” said senior safety Demetrious Cox. “We were coming off a game (at Notre Dame) that we had two weeks to prepare for. Nobody’s making excuses and nobody came into this game thinking that all we had to do was show up. We knew this game was going to be a tough fight. But we just made too many mistakes.”
Where Michigan State looked flat early and couldn't recover, Tennessee found a way. For the first half, Tennessee looked outmatched and overwhelmed. In the second, they looked like the best team in the SEC East, outscoring the Gators 35-7.
"I didn't see anybody blink," Tennessee coach Butch Jones told the Associated Press (via ESPN) about his team's response to the early deficit. "Nobody flinched. They just kept playing."
It was a different message on the other sideline.
"They came in and took it to us," Florida coach Jim McElwain said. "It's disappointing. We've got a bunch of guys hurting in the locker room... These are life lessons. Not every day does everything go just like you wanted. I think the key is what you learn from it and how you're going to respond."
Both Wisconsin and Tennessee will have to remain focused after big wins, however. Wisconsin next travels to Michigan. Tennessee is off to Georgia. Wins for each will leave each in excellent positions in their conferences. Losses will return them to the proverbial drawing board.
Georgia, in particular, will be smarting from a 45-14 loss to Ole Miss. The Rebels, meanwhile, are probably quite relieved to have the monkey off their back after previously blowing big leads to ranked teams Florida State and Alabama.
Hugh Freeze acknowledged as much, per the Daily Mississippian:
And in the SEC's third huge game of the day, Texas A&M looked excellent, handling Arkansas, 45-24. Bleacher Report's Barrett Sallee was certainly impressed:
Chasing Alabama is never easy. The teams will meet on Oct. 22 in a matchup that will likely have huge implications for not just the SEC, but also the national championship. But the Aggies still have to get past Tennessee in a huge matchup next week.
Other games of note in Week 5 include Stanford facing Washington and Louisville facing Clemson in a battle of top-five teams.
You can follow Timothy Rapp on Twitter.
No comments