Power Polling: Arizona climbs into top eight
Arizona is up there with TCU among the most surprising teams in the country. (Image courtesy: abc15.com)
This week's ballot for the Athlon Sports mock playoff poll:
1. Florida State
2. Alabama
3. Oregon
4. TCU
5. Ohio State
6. Baylor
7. Mississippi State
8. Arizona
Notes:
*Gone from last week's ballot: UCLA. New this week: Arizona.
*Count me among the legions waiting all season for the Wildcats to come back to earth. They never really did. Instead, a solid win over Arizona State capped off the regular season for the Pac-12 South champs. If 'Zona can upset Oregon for the third straight time on Friday night, Rich Rodriguez's team has an outside shot of slipping into the final four.
*Frankly, I was tempted to vault 'Zona ahead of Mississippi St. The Bulldogs generated all their momentum during a stretch in which they beat LSU, Texas A&M and Auburn, teams that were ranked eigth, sixth and second, respectively, at the time they played. Those three finished the regular season 8-4, 7-5 and 8-4, respectively, so the wins don't look so sweet in hindsight.
Factor in a junk non-conference schedule, and MSU's body of work is somewhat blah.
*We've reached the point where I predict how I would set the field should the rest of the season play out the way I'm projecting that it will:
- Rose Bowl: No. 2 Alabama vs. No. 3 Oregon
- Sugar Bowl: No. 1 Florida St. vs. No. 4 TCU
Yet again, no change for me from a week ago. I do expect Georgia Tech to give FSU a scare in the ACC title game, though. If the Yellow Jackets do manage to pull off the upset, I'm not sure if it would even knock FSU out of my top four.