Culture

Ranking 134 college football teams after Week 8: BYU can no longer be ignored

Published

12 months ago

October 21, 2024

Press Room

Ranking 134 college football teams after Week 8: BYU can no longer be ignored

Editor’s note: The Athletic 134 is a weekly ranking of all FBS college football teams.

It’s time to take notice of BYU.

The Cougars are undefeated and have delivered Kansas State and SMU their only losses of the season. Yet BYU remains outside the top 10 in both the AP and Coaches polls. But not here. BYU is up to No. 7 in this week’s edition of The Athletic 134.

I’m surprised the Cougars haven’t gotten more love. They’re undefeated at 7-0 and have two really good wins, both of which are better than the best wins of Iowa State (Iowa) and several other teams around their place in the polls. They’ve actually been in my top 10 for weeks.

Perhaps it’s because BYU has twice played on Friday nights, or because its 38-9 win against Kansas State was a 10:30 p.m. kickoff on a Saturday. Yes, the Cougars have played some close games and needed a late touchdown to beat Oklahoma State, but this team and especially this defense looks legit, now 13th in yards per play allowed.

You should also take notice because the second half of the schedule is manageable. BYU and Iowa State don’t play each other in the regular season. The Cougars already beat K-State and won’t play 5-2 Colorado. If the Big 12 wants to get two teams into the College Football Playoff, BYU would likely be one of them.

GO DEEPER

AP Top 25: Oregon new No. 1; Vandy ends poll drought

We’re more than halfway through the season, and we’re still getting surprise results that shake up the rankings. Here is this week’s edition of The Athletic 134.

1-10

Rank	Record	Prev
1	7-0	1
2	6-1 Advertisement	3
3	6-0	4
4 Advertisement	7-0	6
5	5-1	5 Advertisement
6	6-1	2
7	7-0 Advertisement	8
8	6-1	12
9 Advertisement	6-1	11
10	6-1	9 Advertisement

Georgia slides up to No. 2 after its win at Texas, while the Longhorns fall to No. 6 because their best win at this point is a sliding Michigan team or a sliding Oklahoma. The Bulldogs’ loss to Alabama keeps them from the top spot, especially after the Tide lost again and are now ranked next to Boise State, which Oregon beat.

Miami jumps Ohio State after its win at Louisville, but the Ohio State-Penn State game in two weeks will be another shakeup game.

Tennessee and LSU jump into the top 10 after the Vols beat Alabama and the Tigers beat Arkansas 34-10. Tennessee and LSU’s resumes are incredibly even, but Tennessee has the better Best Win, so the Vols get the slight edge.

GO DEEPER

Tennessee proved against Alabama it’s not a one-hit wonder under Josh Heupel

11-25

I’d been a little skeptical of Indiana’s ceiling after beating up on bad teams, but Saturday’s 56-7 demotion of Nebraska has turned me into a believer, moving the Hoosiers to No. 11. The bad news: Quarterback Kurtis Rourke is out indefinitely with a thumb injury. But the path to 10 or even 11 wins is there. Iowa State slips two spots mostly due to the performances turned in by Tennessee, LSU and Indiana on the same day that the Cyclones needed to rally late to survive UCF.

Illinois is the only newcomer to the top 25, back after a 21-7 win against Michigan to move to 6-1.

GO DEEPER

Stewart Mandel’s 12-team Playoff projections after Week 8

26-50

Teams just outside the top 25 took all kind of losses this week. As a result, Syracuse, UNLV, South Carolina, Memphis, Army, Duke and Cincinnati make big jumps into the top 35. Michigan State also jumps to No. 39 after a 32-20 win against Iowa. Next up is a Michigan-MSU game that could have major bowl implications for both.

Is it weird that we’ve stopped talking about Colorado right as the Buffs became a solid team? Colorado is 5-2 and No. 38 after a 34-7 win against Arizona, which comes after a last-minute loss to Kansas State and a win against UCF. It’d be a shocker if Colorado didn’t go bowling, which is another improvement for coach Deion Sanders.

No. 46 Florida and No. 47 Virginia Tech also move into the top 50 after handling Kentucky and Boston College, respectively. Utah continues to slide and is now just hanging onto No. 50 after losing to TCU.

GO DEEPER

Mandel’s Final Thoughts: Georgia’s defensive havoc takes down Texas and more from Week 8

51-75

USC has tumbled to No. 52 after blowing another 14-point lead and losing at Maryland to drop to 1-4 in Big Ten play. No. 53 Rutgers lost a shocker to UCLA and dropped out of the top 50.

Louisiana continues to sneak around the top of the Sun Belt, now No. 60 after beating Coastal Carolina to move to 6-1 overall, while Georgia Southern took control of the Sun Belt East in beating James Madison and moves up to No. 63 from No. 82. Toledo is up to No. 68 after beating Northern Illinois.

No. 65 NC State and No. 66 Cal are the toughest teams to rank. NC State recently lost to Wake Forest but turned around and beat Cal, which is 0-4 in ACC play by a total of nine points. If the Golden Bears could make a field goal, their record would be completely different.

GO DEEPER

Morales: USC has invested heavily in Lincoln Riley and his staff. Where are the results?

76-100

Baylor jumps to No. 76 after a surprising 59-35 win against Texas Tech. Texas State drops to No. 77 after a loss to Old Dominion. Auburn blew a double-digit lead against Missouri, dropping to 2-5, and slips to No. 80.

No. 82 Western Michigan is actually atop the MAC at 3-0 after beating Buffalo, which has defeated Toledo and NIU. Marshall jumps up to No. 81 because the Herd have a win against WMU and beat Georgia State last week.

The bottom of the Power 4 is bunching together. Purdue is the lowest of the group at No. 95, but Florida State is just ahead at No. 94 after losing to Duke for the first time ever. No. 93 Mississippi State has played Georgia and Texas A&M competitively in recent weeks, while Houston slides back down to No. 89 after a 42-14 loss to Kansas.

GO DEEPER

Big 12, ACC should relish multiple bids if they get them: College Football Playoff Bubble Watch

101-134

New Mexico has won three games in a row after a 50-45 barnburner against Utah State to move up to No. 106 in Bronco Mendenhall’s first year. UTSA’s win against Florida Atlantic bounces the Roadrunners back up to No. 110.

UTEP got its first win of the season, beating FIU, to move up to No. 129. That leaves the FBS with just two winless teams: Kennesaw State and Kent State.

The Athletic 134 series is part of a partnership with Allstate. The Athletic maintains full editorial independence. Partners have no control over or input into the reporting or editing process and do not review stories before publication.

(Photo: Chris Gardner / Getty Images)

Click to comment

Culture

What’s So Great About ‘Slow Horses’? This Scene Says It All.

Published

2 days ago

October 17, 2025

Press Room

What’s So Great About ‘Slow Horses’? This Scene Says It All.

A couple dozen pages into “Clown Town,” Mick Herron’s latest novel, two veteran spies share a bench in London. They’re Jackson Lamb and Diana Taverner, notorious fictional fixtures of MI5, the British intelligence service. Fans of “Slow Horses,” the Apple TV series adapted from Herron’s earlier Slough House books, will recognize the pair as the characters played with brisk professionalism and callused gravitas by Kristin Scott Thomas and Gary Oldman.

Those incomparable actors are a big part of the show’s appeal, but the Britain they inhabit — weary, cynical, clinging to the tattered scraps of ancient imperial glory — is built out of Herron’s witty, corkscrew sentences.

And this bench, like others where Lamb and Taverner meet with some regularity on both screen and page, is hardly an incidental bit of urban furniture. It holds not only their aging bureaucratic bums, but also a heavy load of literary and sociological significance.

An ambient sarcasm hangs in the foul air around his characters. Nearly every word is freighted with a mockery that is indistinguishable from judgment. Herron’s prose bristles with the kind of active, restless grudge against the world that is the sure sign of a moralist.

While spies, bureaucrats and especially politicians come in for comic scolding, the real target of his satire is an administrative regime that will be familiar to many readers and viewers who have never cracked a code or aimed a gun. In interviews, Herron has often noted that unlike John le Carré, to whom he is often compared, he has had no first-hand experience of espionage. But he has spent enough time toiling in offices to understand the absurdity — the banality, the cruelty, the cringeiness — of modern organizational life.

“Slow Horses” is a workplace comedy, and Diana and Jackson — nightmare colleagues and bosses from hell — are its flawed, indispensable heroes. Their nastiness to each other and everyone else is a reflection of their circumstances, but also a form of protest against the ethical rottenness of the system they serve.

The gimlet-eyed Diana, managing up from a precarious perch high in the organization, must contend with the cretinous crème de la crème of the British establishment. The epically flatulent Jackson, a career reprobate exiled to a marginal post far from the center of power, manages down, wrangling MI5’s designated misfits, the Slow Horses who give the series its name. Those poor spies need to be protected from external savagery, internal treachery and their own dubious instincts.

Jackson and Diana seem to share a cynical, self-serving outlook, but what really unites them is that they care enough about the job to do it right. More than that: They may be the last people in London who believe in decency, honor and fair play, embodiments of the humanist sentiment that lurks just below the busy, satirical surface of Herron’s novels. Not that they would ever admit as much — especially not to each other, planted on a public bench, where anyone could be spying on them.

Culture

Can You Identify the European Locations in These Thrillers and Crime Novels?

Published

6 days ago

October 14, 2025

Press Room

Can You Identify the European Locations in These Thrillers and Crime Novels?

A strong sense of place can deeply influence a story, and in some cases, the setting can even feel like a character itself. This week’s literary geography quiz highlights the locations of thrillers and crime novels set around Europe. (Even if you aren’t familiar with the book, most questions offer an additional hint about the location.) To play, just make your selection in the multiple-choice list and the correct answer will be revealed. At the end of the quiz, you’ll find links to the books if you’d like to do further reading.

Culture

Test Your Memory of These Classic Books for Young Readers

Published

4 weeks ago

September 24, 2025

Press Room

Test Your Memory of These Classic Books for Young Readers

Welcome to Lit Trivia, the Book Review’s regular quiz about books, authors and literary culture. This week’s tests your memory of books you may have read during your school days — specifically, the plots of much-loved novels for young readers. In the five multiple-choice questions below, tap or click on the answer you think is correct. After the last question, you’ll find links to the books.