We now have our first bit of substance surrounding any sort of poll and while some of the preseason hype was confirmed, others were less than impressive. Alabama's convincing win over Michigan puts them in the drivers seat as a clear cut no. 1 in my mind. USC definitely deserves consideration but Alabama faced an early test and passed with flying colors.

My top four includes two SEC teams and two Pac 12 teams. Right now those four look the best but West Virginia and Florida State also had very solid games. I'll need to see a better defensive game from the Mountaineers and some sustained success from Florida State since they have started strong and dropped of in recent years.

I dropped Oklahoma, moved up the Cowboys. Most of the rest of my Big 12 stayed in the ballpark of where they were last week with some slight fluctuations. I liked Michigan State in their win over Boise State. I think they have a team that could really compete in the Big 10 and I'm not quite ready to abandon ship on Brady Hoke and the Wolverines but they aren't quite at the upper echelon of the sport and that was clear on Saturday.

New to the list for me are Louisville and Florida. Both were good, neither was great, but generally speaking they did well against decent opponents. Charlie Strong is looking like a great hire for the Cardinals at this point. Dropping off my list are the Washington State Cougars(clerical error last week) and Boise State. I think Boise State is a good team, but that was a must win game if they were going to crash any top 10/top 15 party. The MWC just isn't the same without TCU, BYU, Utah and it's going to make the climb muich more difficult.