Who has Michigan St beaten that they deserve to be 5th? They haven't played any of Michgian, Indiana, Penn St, or Ohio St yet. Their crossover games were NW and Nebraska.
Oklahoma St hasn't played any of the Top teams, no Iowa State, Oklahoma, Texas yet.
But yeah, both of those programs definitely deserve to be ranked above a team with a Top 10 road victory and a win over the #3 team.
Pure comedy on here sometimes.
To the bolded parts. Ummm Indiana is complete garbage this year, so not sure why you throw them in and Oklahoma State I'm pretty sure beat/controlled that same Baylor team that Iowa State couldn't beat. And Baylor is still 5-1.
The Hawks got a boost from getting wins over preseason-ranked teams that have since proven to not be that good. Indiana is a bad football team and we (Iowa State) haven't proven anything yet as our three wins are against two of the worst programs in FBS and a FCS team. Penn State is a good team, so Iowa gets credit for that at home, but why is their resume so much better than Oklahoma State's for example? And in the end Penn State was controlling that game until their QB went out. Hawks may have still won, but I will take what I saw from Penn State before and after their QB left the game.
Cowboys have a top-25 win (at the time) against Baylor and went to Boise and won. Boise just beat top-10 BYU, so honestly I would take Oklahoma State's resume over Iowa's and at worst it's a push and they should be side by side in the rankings.
This is the problem with preseason rankings, as teams get elevated too quickly because of wins over teams that are perceived to be good. Iowa is a top-10 team, but I wouldn't rank them top-5. Mine would be as follows based on a combination of resume and just who I flat out think is better (Ex. Bama):
1. Georgia (resume and how they have looked)
2. Cincinnati (At ND is a nice win and they have looked the part)
3. Oklahoma (This one was tough but basing it on resume and mostly how they look with their new QB)
4. Alabama (Solid resume with wins over Florida and Ole Miss. Winning at A&M isn't easy, but does anyone think there are four teams better than Bama? They still need another loss imo)
5. Oklahoma State (Resume is better than you think and the defense is salty)
6. Ohio State (This team is gelling. Tough schedule to navigate, but they just dismantled that same Maryland team worse than Iowa did)
7. Iowa (Just a sound football team. Incredible defense and special teams. Offense is still troublesome)
8. Kentucky (People need to watch this team. They get their chance at Georgia next week, but they are solid)
9. Michigan (Unbeaten, so tossed them here. Still unsure of how good they are)
10. Michigan State (Almost the same as Michigan)
Oregon would be next in line due to that win at Ohio State, and I think that Stanford loss was so weird, as they owned that game. Should probably move them up a bit the more I look at it.