The Top 25 Teams in College Football, Week 6

Let's list and then discuss:

1. Ohio State

2. Michigan

3. Florida

4. USC

5. West Virginia

6. Louisville

7. Texas

8. Tennessee

9. California

10. Clemson

11. Notre Dame

12. Arkansas

13. Auburn

14. Boise State

15. Missouri

16. LSU

17. Georgia Tech

18. Iowa

19. Georgia

20. Oregon

21. Oklahoma

22. Virginia Tech

23. Rutgers

24. Wisconsin

25. Boston College

After some thought, I'm keeping Michigan as my #2 team, if only because I think Michigan has a better chance of going unbeaten than Florida does. The Top 25 is starting to separate itself into tiers more clearly after the events of last weekend. What makes is it easier is that nearly all the big games provided statement victories for the winning team. The top 6 teams right now, in my mind, are the true national championship contenders. I'm unconvinced by West Virginia and Louisville to some extent, but if the winner of their contest goes undefeated throughout the regular season, they would have to make it to the title game in my mind, assuming there weren't 2 or more other undefeated teams.
The second tier of teams (7-13) are one-loss teams, most on the upswing, and one of them reeling (Auburn). Should I have included Arkansas this highly? Well, why not? I didn't have them ranked at all last week, but they beat Auburn handily enough that they ought to be ranked ahead of them. And do I really feel like I'm injusticing teams like Georgia Tech and Iowa? The short answer is no. I'm trying to provide more of a 'power poll' approach, so there's bound to be some fluctuation.
Along those lines, I want to give credit to teams that may not have name value, thus relatively high rankings for undefeated Boise State and Missouri. 6-0 is good enough for the Top 15 in my book. In fact, I'm more worried about not ranking them 7th and 8th. But the fact is, I suspect they are worse than many one-loss teams (as do most observers, I imagine), and I don't consider either to be legitimate championship contenders. This all goes doubly for Rutgers, who is going to linger at the bottom of this list forever unless they go and beat West Virginia or something.

I think it's time to retire TEAMS TO WATCH and replace it with UPSET OF THE WEEK!!!
This week's upset of the week is:

Syracuse 27, West Virginia 21

Do I really think Syracuse will win? Maybe not. Do I think they can put in a scare? Sure!