Who Needs A Blog Poll 2020: Week 6 — Does anyone want to play defense?

If you hate defense (and yourself), then yesterday was your jam, a full barn-burner of shootouts: from the opening bell at the Red River Shootout to the nightcap in Oxford and at all points in between.

Here’s this week’s Blog Poll. But first, a few observations

• Miami is the Texas of the ACC. Every year we scream “Are the Canes back,” only for them to get their teeth kicked in at the first decent team they meet. Last night’s 42-17 loss to Clemson wasn’t as close as it looked. See also, Tennessee.
• NC State has been reborn hard. The 3-1 Pack is leaps and bounds better than they were a few weeks month ago. Back-to-back road wins at Pitt and UVA may not be exciting, but they’re solid wins over bowl teams. Welcome to the blog poll.
• There is, in fact, not a good team in Starkville. The Bulldogs had 6 turnovers after two games...they had 6 yesterday alone. Costello is lost and Kylin Hill may have had 15 catches, but that guy needs to run the ball. The defense has played well enough for this group to be undefeated. What a waste. Again.
• Auburn is the worst damn 2-1 team you’ve ever seen...but, they do seem to have finally found a feature back, and with it, they have an identity. I regret to inform you, this team will probably be good when the Iron Bowl rolls around.
• Remember when Farmageddon was a joke? Keep laughing — the winner of Iowa State-Kansas State will have the inside track on a Big 12 Championship Game appearance. There’s no clear number on in the flyover. There are, however, about five pretty good teams that win a variety of ways and can lose to one another in any given week. Texas and Oklahoma are not among those five, by the way.
• BYU was bound to run into a challenge eventually. And though I told you UTSA was a much improved defense, squeaking one out at home is no way to go through life if you have playoff aspirations (or, at a minimum, New Year Six bowl money on the line).
• Notre Dame also had their lifeless, flat home game that BK has come to be known for. Take heart, despite how crappy the Irish were against FSU — they ordinarily usually lose these.
• Marshall is sneaky good. See also, Coastal Carolina — the Chanticleers get a serious test this week when they travel to play Billy Napier’s ULL Ragin’ Cajuns.
• Sure, it took Va. Tech being without its coach and 13 players, but UNC finally lived up their hype when the Tarheels dismantled the Hokies in Chapel Hill. No one is really talking about the ‘Heels, and that’s probably for the best; this may be the most incognito Top 10 team in ACC history.
• App State is just sitting back waiting on the bloodbath to unfold as Georgia State travels to Arkansas State, and Coastal heads to Lafayette. You get the feeling the Mountaineers may still wind up being the best of the bunch. And that says something: This is top-to-bottom the Sun Beast has ever been.
• I’m still not convinced that Georgia is very good overall. Very good lines? Absolutely. Great team speed on defense? You bet. Great at capitalizing on mistakes? Amen. But a good team? I’m kinda’ iffy on that proposition. We’ll see how good this week when the Dawgs play the first offense with a pulse they’ve seen all season.
• Jimbo and Dan tried repeatedly to give that game away yesterday. And in the end, Clownshoes came through with that big game loss we’ve come to expect from the almost-but-not-quite guy he’s always been.