BYU Football: 3 ways preseason rankings are still hurting current rankings

Not so great wins?

Remember early in the season when Iowa had two great ranked wins against Indiana and Iowa State? Yeah, both of those teams are now 2-2. Fortunately for Iowa, nobody remembers that so Iowa is being marked down as having two great wins against teams that now look like they will be fighting to get to six wins.

This can go both ways.

As much as I hate to say it, what about Texas who lost to Arkansas? At the time the loss to the Hogs looked like an embarrassment to the Texas program. But now it turns out that Arkansas is pretty good! If rankings were just done for the first time this week Texas likely would be ranked, rather than on the outside having to get through all the teams ahead of them.

In BYU Football’s case, they have been a benefactor of both sides. While the Cougars have two Top 25 wins, both teams are now unranked. Would BYU be ranked as high as No. 13 if they had beaten two teams not perceived as a Top 25 team? At first thought, no. But after looking at all of the other teams and who they’ve beaten, their resume is better than most, so they would probably be ranked even higher.