After starting the season ranked 9th in the country and climbing up to 6th, the Cards have kind of hit a stand-still around the 7th spot in the polls. With the lack of quality opponents combined with some of the top teams playing good competition, it has become increasingly difficult for the Louisville Cardinals to continue to climb up the rankings. But just as I have done every week so far, I will give you the schedule for the Top 10 teams so you know who to cheer for and so you can see what teams have legit chances of falling so the Cards can move up. As always, I will use the USA Today/Coaches poll since that factors into the BCS rankings. Here you go…
(1) Alabama (4-0) vs Georgia State (0-4) 12:21 ESPN3
(2) Oregon (4-0) @ Colorado (2-1) 6:00 Pac-12 Network
(3) Ohio State (5-0) @ (15) Northwestern (4-0) 8:00 ABC
(4) Clemson (4-0) @ Syracuse (2-2) 3:30 ABC/ESPN2
(5) Stanford (4-0) vs (18) Washington (4-0) 10:30 ESPN
(6) Georgia (3-1) @ Tennessee (3-2) 3:30 CBS
(7) Louisville (4-0) @ Temple (0-4) 12:00 WHAS
(8) Florida State (4-0) vs Maryland (4-0) 12:00 ESPN
(9) Texas A&M (4-1) is off this week
(10) Oklahoma (4-0) vs TCU (2-2) 7:00 FOX
I think it is safe to say the top 2 teams won’t be losing this week. They won’t even be challenged, so let’s move on past them. #3 Ohio State looked good last week against Wisconsin. This week they will be on the road at Northwestern, where ESPN College Gameday will be. So there will surely be a fired up crowd looking for a major upset. There are not many potential losses on Ohio State’s schedule, so let’s hope that Northwestern can have a little magic that night.
I don’t see Syracuse as a threat at all to 4th ranked Clemson. Stanford actually plays a ranked team, but it is at home and Stanford has looked great so far this season. The only way I see Georgia stumbling in Knoxville is if they are still too excited about that amazing game against LSU. If they celebrated that win for a little bit too long, maybe the Volunteers can sneak up on them. It’s the SEC where anything can happen, but I just would not count on that. Georgia has looked really good this season.
Florida State is right behind us in the polls, and I mean very close to us points-wise. A win over a 4-0 Maryland team, who is actually ranked 25th in the AP poll and just outside the Top 25 in the Coaches Poll, could very well put Florida State ahead of Louisville. A win over Temple will likely do nothing for the Cards when it comes to the polls. We saw what the 72-0 win over FIU did when we dropped from 6th to 7th. We could very well see the same thing. Louisville could beat Temple by about 35-40 points (or more) and drop back to 8th if Florida State gets the win.
Here is a look at the Top 10 so you can see how close Florida State is to Louisville. But you will also notice how close Louisville is to Georgia.
| USA Today Poll | |||
| RK | TEAM | RECORD | PTS |
| 1 | Alabama (59) | 4-0 | 1546 |
| 2 | Oregon (2) | 4-0 | 1479 |
| 3 | Ohio State | 5-0 | 1397 |
| 4 | Clemson (1) | 4-0 | 1352 |
| 5 | Stanford | 4-0 | 1325 |
| 6 | Georgia | 3-1 | 1148 |
| 7 | Louisville | 4-0 | 1147 |
| 8 | Florida State | 4-0 | 1129 |
| 9 | Texas A&M | 4-1 | 1072 |
| 10 | Oklahoma | 4-0 | 964 |
