
Saying ND Texas and IU really “looked vulnerable” to the point it’s worth dropping them in the rankings kinda feels like pulling hairs imo. Like yeah they didn’t literally look amazing every single drive but that’s typical of W1 football and they all laid pipe when it was all said and done. Mind you the two teams that made the natty last year started the year off with a hot 13 point win at home vs. Old Dominion and a loss to Notre Dame. Seems like it’d just be reading into things too much
I don’t disagree. My philosophy in this case is just looking at who was most dominant start to finish. Although I’ll say the voting margins being super close between the top 7 is probably the biggest reason why I’d move them around so much, given how tightly compacted voting was in the first AP poll. There are different things going against each of the teams you mention in my opinion, but it’s definitely nitpicking for 6 of the 7 top teams that blew out their opponents.