Deseret News | East Carolina Pirates storm Top 25; BYU drops and Utes stay at 22

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East Carolina Pirates storm Top 25; BYU drops and Utes stay at 22

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In the Stands | 12:23 a.m. Sept. 8, 2008

RE: Information

BYU should be ranked, but not at 7 or 8. It has just been too long since BYU has had a quality win against a ranked program. Wins at Mississippi State 7 years ago, or Miami 20 year ago just don't quality.

If BYU defeats UCLA and Utah - they have a shot at 9 to 12. That might be good enough to win an invitation to a BCS bowl, depending on how badly the Big-12, Pac-10, and SEC schools beat each other up. The ACC, Big-East, and Big-10 are not goint to send more than 1 school each to BCS bowls this year unless Wisconsin holds its ranking.

With the weakness in the bottom three BCS conferences there might be room for two non-BCS teams. Fresno State will not go undefeated, although it is the only one of the four possibles at this point that could get an invitation with a single loss.

I am hoping that we have an undefeated Big-12 champion, that USC runs the table, and that there are two SEC teams undefeated heading into the conference championship game. That would create significant pressure for a play-off system.

Re: Steve 3:57 | 12:24 a.m. Sept. 8, 2008

Really Steve-o? The Utes held UNLV to 129 yards rushing for the game, nine of that in the second half.

Apparently the Utes made an adjustment at halftime. Which, of course, is what good teams do.

Besides, if I'm reading right the tenor of the Kuugur posts here it is that the only thing that should matter to fans or BCS voters is that the Kuugurs won.

Fair enough.

But what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, Steve.

JThomas | 12:34 a.m. Sept. 8, 2008

I find it interesting that both #19 South Florida and #20 Wake Forest did not drop in the polls and get passed by Fresno St. and maybe Utah. USF won in overtime against Univ. of Central Florida (a team they beat 64-12 last year who they are taking off their future schedules because they feel they are superior). Wake won at home with a last minute field goal against a very mediocre (3-9 last year) Ole Miss team. Everything should play out in the end but it's too bad the rankings don't start after the first full month of the season. All of this jumping and dropping by some teams while other teams with similar results stay the same is too hard to judge this early in the season.

Comments continue below

Locker a class act! | 12:35 a.m. Sept. 8, 2008

Class act even with the call. Didn't whine and even apologized to Washington fans.

Had Lockers passes been lower and or on target, the Cougs would have lost by double digits.

Cougar secondary is going to be shredded by UCLA. Norm Chow is lickin his chops!

UCLA has an incredible defense so BYU could be in for a long day! Go Bruins- end the quest.

OregonCoug14 | 12:47 a.m. Sept. 8, 2008

I had a couple of revelations last Saturday during the game. First, i'm gonna take a deep breath and just let this season play out. I think that BYU has a legitimate shot at going undefeated so i'm just going to ride the roller coaster and not get worked up over rankings or the media anymore. The bottom line is despite the fact that we got an ugly win and we are not a media darling, we'll be a hard team to overlook if we go undefeated because we have been good for the past couple of seasons. Second, this may not even be our year. I was just taking a look at the roster and we are still a pretty young football team. Despite losing some starters on the O-line next year we are absolutely STACKED on both offense and defense. I think us fans have a BCS or bust mentality this year but quite frankly next year might be our year. I'm gonna let everything play out and expect good things to happen. We've got a good football team in Provo and it looks like it is only going to get better.

Idaho Cougar Fan | 12:59 a.m. Sept. 8, 2008

We shouldn't worry about the drop in the polls, Cougar fans. We still have 10 more regular season games to play and so does every other team in the nation. That means there are still over 1000 games left to be played involving division I teams. Alot could happen between now and then. If BYU handles buisness every week they will be right there for a BCS bowl game. UCLA will play BYU tough, but I am less worried about that game then I was about UW. UCLA is better than we thought, but now a little overrated and to much weight put on the Tenn. victory. If they would have played Tenn. 10 times in the same situation, they probably only beat them 1 out of 10 or 2 out of 10 times tops.

JThomas | 1:11 a.m. Sept. 8, 2008

I was mistaken in saying that USF was #19 and stayed the same. I was going off this article which stated that, but the AP poll actually showed they were #17 and dropped two spots.

GoodGuyGary | 3:10 a.m. Sept. 8, 2008

I am not worrying about BYU dropping on the ranking. At the end, like everyone was saying, non-BCS team has to go undefeated to be in the BCS bowl games.

props to ECU | 3:32 a.m. Sept. 8, 2008

I'll say one thing for the Pirates - since the early 80's they've never been scared to schedule tough nonconference games ( actually they were an independent for most of that time) I grew up in Greenville and it was neat to watch FSU and Miami come to town ( and crush the Pirates of course but still fun)
I wouldn't worry about ECU busting the BCS as they usually stumble and they're lucky they aren't playing a SEC schedule but I hope they continue their run. The UCF away game might be a killer - Florida always produces athletes

Sad Cougar fan | 5:50 a.m. Sept. 8, 2008

East Carolina's well-deserved rise to the top practically ensures that BYU cannot make the BCS as no time two non-BCS schools have never been allowed in during the same year.

Unck42 | 9:57 a.m. Sept. 8, 2008

I don't even know why I bother reading comments on these articles. I hate fans, seriously. It isn't enough that you have a love for your team, you gotta be a blind idiot and dis the other team. That goes for both BYU and Utah fans. Freak. BYU had to do better, they do not look like a top 25 team, they really gotta shape up. As for Utah, they gave up way too many points against UNLV, and they don't know how to put points on the board after the third quarter. BYU didn't deserve to go up in rankings, they got lucky with a bad call from a dumb rule to begin with. Utah is lucky that Michigan isn't where they were four years ago, and uh-oh, they have Utah State next week when BYU has UCLA, I wonder how the boards will turn out next week. BYU barely scraping by, that is if they are lucky and can actually pull off a win, which is a lot to ask at this point, and when the heck has Utah State been a challenge in the past ten years? Everyone needs to realize the teams we love are mediocre.

AP doesn't matter | 10:14 a.m. Sept. 8, 2008

Don't forget that we stayed at #15 in the USA Today poll which, unlike the AP poll, goes into the BCS rankings. We are all getting worked up over a media opinion poll that doesn't matter when the poll the mattered kept us at a solid #15 and only had Eastern Carolina at #20. All is well - now we just need to handle UCLA by 2-3 tds so the USA Today voters don't start to reconsider.

USC | 1:01 p.m. Sept. 8, 2008

GO TROJANS!!!

Who cares? | 6:37 p.m. Sept. 8, 2008

Why is everyone fretting about the second game of the year? A ton of teams have done mediocre in the beginning, learned from their mistakes and got good. I'm a senior attending BYU right now, but hey a drop from 15 to 18? Whats the problem? Its still the top 20. To be honest, we're lucky we're in the top 20 or even 25. Lets let the season play out. There's a lot of ball left to play this year.
As for the game: 1.BYU needs to get going on D. The D looks terrible, yeah their young, but polls don't care about that. 2. The call by the refs was according to the rules. 2a. The rule sucks. 3.I think that celebrating is one of the greatest things about football. Don't take that away from the game . 4. If BYU doesn't win (dominantly) against UCLA, I don't think we belong in the top 25. 5. Then again, who cares about rankings right now. Talk all you want about BCS and all that but lets face it, to get that kind of recognition takes time. It takes years. Lets just enjoy the game. Go cougs. Go MWC.

Quit Worrying. | 5:13 p.m. Sept. 9, 2008

Don't worry about the AP poll...start worrying about UCLA. If you trounce UCLA it will shut everybody up for a few minutes and you will probably move up in the polls. I hope the team isn't worried about the rank and is working their rears off for UCLA... because they are going to bring it with a vengeance.

Remember BYU fans...NCAAF is much bigger than Provo and Utah and the MWC.

ECU was dominant...which is good for the case to move to a playoff system. UTAH, BYU, Fresno, ECU and all the other teams etc...can badger the BCS and push for a playoff system. That's my hope...that and the hope that BYU and UTAH are undefeated in November...Utah by 5.

what it should | 6:59 p.m. Sept. 10, 2008

Little brother Blue drops 3 spots by not beating a team with a comfortable margin as was expected; Utes stay where they were because they handily beat a team they were supposed to beat handily; East Carolina jumps up because they just beat their second consecutive team ranked in top 15 as they should have; but WHAT THE HECK is Ohio State still doing in top 5????? The AP ranking has lost almost all respect I may have pretended to have because of that. That smells so strongly of biased favoritism. What a stench, [hold on, I need to open the window to breathe... there, now I can continue]
They deserve to have been dropped to the low 20s. And there was some imbecile who still gave them a first place vote. HINT TO IDIOT, they can't be the first place team unless you also vote Wyoming as a top 5 team and guess what, Wyoming didn't get one vote.
It's as shameful as letting the opinion of a Hollywood starlet who lives in a make-believe studio world convince you of who you should vote for.
God bless the AP pollsters and may college football recover its dignity

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