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

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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.

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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.

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1-10

Rank Team Record Prev

1

7-0

1

2

6-1

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3

3

6-0

4

4

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7-0

6

5

5-1

5

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6

6-1

2

7

7-0

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8

8

6-1

12

9

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6-1

11

10

6-1

9

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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

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.

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

go-deeper

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.

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go-deeper

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

GO DEEPER

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

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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

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.

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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)

Culture

Do You Recognize These Lines From Popular Science Fiction?

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Do You Recognize These Lines From Popular Science Fiction?

Welcome to Literary Quotable Quotes, a quiz that tests your recognition of classic lines. This week’s installment highlights observations from future or alternate worlds depicted in popular science fiction. 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 if you’re intrigued and inspired to read more.

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Culture

Test Your Memory of These Books That Changed the World

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Test Your Memory of These Books That Changed the World

Welcome to Lit Trivia, the Book Review’s regular quiz about books, authors and literary culture. This week’s challenge tests your memory of books that made huge impacts on society after they were published — some of them even spurring changes to American laws. 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 if you’d like to do further reading.

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Culture

Finding Wisdom in a Poem by Wendy Cope

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Finding Wisdom in a Poem by Wendy Cope

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Where do you turn when you need advice? A chatbot? A life coach? A wise and trusted friend?

How about a poet? Poets may not be famous for making the best life choices, but because they subject the mess of human existence to the discipline of language, they can be as helpful as any therapist or mentor.

Good poets know the rules and when to break them, which is something they can teach the rest of us.

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To wit:

Giving advice is a peculiar literary undertaking. It flourishes in certain popular genres — graduation speeches, newspaper columns, country and western songs and poems like this one — but what, in these contexts, is it really for?

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I’m thinking of situations when you don’t urgently need help but nonetheless enjoy reading answers to questions you may not have thought to ask. What interests you isn’t the content of the advice — you could get all the life hacks you want from A.I. — so much as the voice of the person dispensing it.

Wendy Cope is an English poet, born in 1945, who has been a fixture of her country’s literary scene since the 1980s. More recently, her short, buoyant poem “The Orange” has been widely memed online, bringing her to the attention of new readers beyond Britain.

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Cope favors rhyme, meter, brisk jokes and tart aperçus. She addresses romance, friendship and the petty absurdities of modern life with disarming good humor. The last line of “The Orange” is “I love you. I’m glad I exist.” Somehow she makes it the opposite of cringe.

This isn’t the kind of poetry you would describe as “confessional.” And yet …

Want to learn this poem by heart? We’ll help.

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Fill in the missing words below. You can always refer to the reading by A.O. Scott and full
text above.

Question 1/7

Let’s start with the first stanza.

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Stop, if the car is going clunk 

Or if the sun has made you blind. 

Dont answer emails when youre drunk. 

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Tap a word above to fill in the highlighted blank.

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