By Dennis Hall / Texas Football
It seems pretty obvious now who the top two teams are in the state. TCU is a clear No. 1 and is fighting to prove it's the best in the nation. Texas showed us Saturday that the inconsistent Longhorns still have enough talent to go on the road and beat a top-10 team.
After that, who knows who the third-best team in the state is? It seems to change from week to week. We've got Texas Tech at third in this week's DCTF Power Poll, mostly because the Red Raiders have beaten SMU and Baylor. Otherwise, Tech has given little indication that it belongs near the top of any type of rankings. The loss to unbeaten Oklahoma State on Saturday wasn't surprising, but a 1-3 mark at this point in Big 12 play is not what any Raider fan wants to see.
Baylor vaulted two spots up to No. 4 this week based on a nice road win against Colorado. But the Bears need one more win to qualify for a bowl, and they have a brutal schedule the rest of the way.
Texas A&M has dropped all the way to No. 6 after a blowout loss to Missouri. But what's crazy is that the Aggies still could end up No. 3 before the end of the year if they can handle business against Baylor and Texas Tech, and would you consider them a heavy underdog in either game?
Kudos to Rice for its upset win over Houston, although that jumbles the bottom of our power poll. Rice has now beaten Houston, Houston beat UTEP, and UTEP beat Rice. Wish us luck trying to sort out which of those teams is better than the others.
DCTF 2010 Texas College Football Week 8 Power Poll
| # | School | Points (1st-place votes) | Previous |
| 1 | TCU Horned Frogs (7-0/3-0) | Points: 50 (5) | 1 |
| Brad Hilliard: The Frogs have yet to give up a touchdown in October, although that streak will be tested when Air Force's vaunted triple-option attack comes to Fort Worth this weekend. | |||
| 2 | Texas Longhorns (4-2/2-1) | Points: 45 | 2 |
| Adam Hochfelder: Texas should offer the Huskers all their TV money to stay in the Big 12. Seeing Bo Pelini's contorted angry face for most of the game was especially satisfying. | |||
| 3 | Texas Tech Red Raiders (3-3/1-3) | Points: 37 | 3 |
| Dennis Hall: One week, the offense struggles, the next week it's the defense. Against Oklahoma State, the Red Raiders were outplayed in every phase. | |||
| 4 | Baylor Bears (5-2/2-1) | Points: 35 | 6 |
| Adam Hochfelder: BU is all but assured of a bowl game now with only one win to go. Now the question is: Can the Bears cause some damage in the Big 12? | |||
| 5 | SMU Mustangs (4-3/3-0) | Points: 30 | 4 |
| Brad Hilliard: The loss at Navy stings, but the Ponies are still in control of the C-USA West race. | |||
| 6 | Texas A&M Aggies (3-3/0-2) | Points: 25 | 5 |
| Rick Epstein: The entire Aggie team has now seen what the back of the woodshed looks like. | |||
| 7 | UTEP Miners (5-2/2-2) | Points: 19 | 7 |
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Dennis Hall: Guess all that talk about the Miners contending for the C-USA West talk was premature. The Miners not only lost to a bad UAB team, they were manhandled. Not good. |
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| 8 | Houston Cougars (3-3/2-1) | Points: 18 | 8 |
| Adam Hochfelder: You have to feel bad for the Cougars, losing their star quarterback and now losing to a lowly Rice team. Is the bottom in sight for 2010? | |||
| 9 | Rice Owls (2-5/1-2) | Points: 11 | 9 |
| Brad Hilliard: I might get criticized for ranking the Owls right below the team they just beat, but one great win does not a season make. | |||
| 10 | North Texas Mean Green (1-6/1-3) | Points: 5 | 10 |
| Rick Epstein: Will GameDay stop at America's worst game of the year: UNT vs. Western Kentucky? Ugly. | |||
ABOUT THE PANEL:
> Adam Hochfelder is the Executive Director of DCTF and several other IMG College properties
> Dennis Hall is a managing editor with DCTF
> Travis Stewart is a managing editor with DCTF (inactive this week)
> Brad Hilliard is the operations coordinator for DCTF and several other IMG College properties
> Tom Sullivan is an account executive for DCTF
> Rick Epstein is an account executive for DCTF
