Who Needs A Blog Poll 2021: Week 7 — Oklahoma, Alabama finally looked like playoff teams

Oh, sure, Alabama had its moment against Ole Miss. And Oklahoma has at various times leaned on its offense, then its defense. But on Saturday, these two CFP favorites finally put it all together against solid conference teams, with veteran coaches, in must-win affairs: offense, defense, and special teams — the Tide and Sooners finally looked the part. In that respect, they join the Ohio State Buckeyes, who have remembered over the last month that they can just line up and outscore anyone on the schedule.

Georgia remains one of the more suspect No. 1 teams we’ve seen lately. Their secondary still hasn’t faced anyone above 80th in passing rankings. And that’s probably good: the vaunted defense didn’t get to Will Levis as expected, and each of those “big wins” is looking sketchier each week: Clemson is just a team this season, the Wildcats are still a one-dimensional program overranked from a hot mess SEC East and easy OOC schedule, while the Hogs went from the toast of the town to a .500 team in the space of three weeks.

Iowa decided it was going to take this week’s dreaded Top 10 bad loss, and Mario Cristobal’s Ducks very much decided that they wanted to join them. Talent eventually won out in Eugene, but Arizona State was not so lucky. The Sun Devils have committed 33 penalties on the road in two losses to Utah and BYU. The same can be said of Appalachian State and Liberty, two programs that would go undefeated if they didn’t have to ever play on the road.

Meanwhile, teams that had a rough early start that we thought may be good are finally turning out to be pretty decent: Texas A&M, ULL, and Utah among among them. They are joined by legitimate surprises in Michigan State, Wake Forest, UTSA, NC State, Pitt, Houston, Baylor, SMU — fellas, take a bow. Then there are the quiet-good: with Michigan, Penn State, Oklahoma State, Air Force, San Diego State, and SMU filling out out this category.

Finally, we end with the inexorable force; the team that has played one bad quarter of football all season, and if it were in a bigger conference would be a near-unanimous No. 1 — the Cincinnati Bearcats trying to kick in the door of the College Football Playoffs.

Here’s your Blog Poll for Week 7. Enjoy!