USC Football drops in AP Top 25 after Tennessee beats mediocre LSU

USC Football has dropped to No. 7 in the AP Top 25 Poll after winning convincingly against a 4-2 Washington State team by multiple scores. Why did they drop? Because Tennessee convincingly beating their own 4-2 opponent is actually so much more impressive that they deserve to jump up two spots, and USC should drop down one spot.

While Tennessee's opponent--LSU--was ranked, USC's opponent in Washington State received the highest amount of votes that the teams not in the poll received. They weren't much worse entering the week, and then the Tigers proved that they shouldn't have received their 25th ranking anyway with another loss from them.

This is the same LSU team that lost to Florida State, yet is apparently so much better than Washington State, that a dominant win over them should shoot their opponent up two spots over two teams who also won by multiple scores (Oklahoma State and USC)? But there's no east coast bias, right?

Unfortunately, USC advancing to 6-0 on a 16-point win over a team who entered the game 4-1 with their one loss being against the No. 12 team in the country (Oregon) by three points just isn't enough to simply stay put in the ranking. While it absolutely is possible that SC will lose to No. 20 Utah next week in Salt Lake City, and Tennessee beats No. 3 Alabama, it's a Week 7 ranking.

The ranking is supposed to represent where USC Football and the 24 other Top 25 teams are entering this week, and not next.

Regardless, it just goes to show that USC Football can't control what the poll voters have in store, and just needs to focus on winning over everyone in front of them. If they beat Utah next week in a massive Pac-12 contest against a ranked team on the road, they'll continue to make their case to move up (or at least simply not move down after 16-point wins).

If not, SC will still have the chance to redeem themselves with another road matchup against No. 11 UCLA late in the season, where they can prove themselves in what will truly be another big test for the program to prove their worth. It's also worth noting that these rankings aren't yet the College Football Playoff rankings, which are going to be the only ones that matter at the end of the day.