Georgia, Alabama, Ohio State appear to be class of faculty soccer once more

By Martin Rogers
FOX Sports activities Columnist

Maybe sport week media conferences in faculty soccer ought to include a warning that they're purely for leisure worth. Learn an excessive amount of into them at your individual peril.

Days earlier than Notre Dame went all the way down to Marshall in a stunner, head coach Marcus Freeman oozed calm and confidence. You could not assist however imagine in him. Then … the Thundering Herd thundered.

Within the build-up to Texas A&M being despatched tumbling by Appalachian State, Jimbo Fisher spoke of poise and stability. That was convincing stuff, too. Then … the Mountaineers climbed highest.

These situations alone needs to be sufficient to warn anybody in opposition to shopping for in too deeply based mostly off something uttered pre-game, besides that listening to Ryan Day this week made it virtually unimaginable to not make an exception.

Discussing why some groups had been falling prey to lower-ranked, nonconference upstarts, the Ohio State head coach gave an emphatic and cold-blooded reply to why his personal workforce would stay proof against stumbles.

"It actually does not have something to do with the workforce we're enjoying," Day advised reporters. "It does not. It has the whole lot to do with Ohio State. We're Ohio State. It does not matter who we're enjoying. It is concerning the course of. It is about the way in which that we play. It does not matter what the stage is. It does not matter what is going on on."

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Day's workforce will tackle Toledo on Saturday (FOX, 7 p.m. ET) and clearly have its eyes on the largest prize of all, a nationwide championship. Day did not appear to be a person terrified of getting turned over this weekend. Or that he's even entertaining the likelihood. And that is the nice separator on this yr's faculty season.

Perhaps the early upsets ought to have served as a reminder of the idea that any canine can have its day and that even the loftiest of favorites usually are not invincible. However it did not actually work that manner.

As a substitute, it spawned the sensation that the perfect groups are the one ones who do not have to fret an excessive amount of about such shocks, and that this season goes to be one for the heavyweights.

Already the AP rankings mirror the fact that faculty soccer has two absolute monsters as its largest conferences and the scrumptious comfort that the highest two groups from every overtly detest one another.

SEC and Big Ten. Alabama and Georgia. Ohio State and Michigan. One, two, three and four in the country, as we get ready for things to become properly spicy.

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You'd better believe the likes of Oklahoma (which faces Nebraska on Saturday at noon ET on FOX) and Clemson will have something to say about the current status quo, and those programs have traditional might, too. But with the list of peripheral contenders trimmed – Notre Dame looked like a strong preseason No. 5 and A&M a solid No. 6 – this campaign is already starting to have a certain feel to it.

Alabama, having gotten past Texas and with Bryce Young arguably the sport's best player, looks poised to be dominant again. Georgia, behind the inspiration of Stetson Bennett, is hellbent on retaining the national title. Day's Ohio State means business just as much as the coach's words indicate. 

Michigan has some convincing to do to show everyone that there is a genuine Big Four, with a handful of question marks surrounding Jim Harbaugh's program – though J.J. McCarthy being selected as the permanent starting quarterback over Cade McNamara might have answered one.

"I see Alabama, Ohio State and Georgia and there's a big separation until someone else starts coming on," FOX analyst Urban Meyer told the Big Ten Network. "The Wolverines, I went back and I watched their video and the teams they're playing are really struggling. And they obviously have the quarterback issue going on." 

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This feels like a very 2022 kind of situation. Just like how in many of the world's leading soccer leagues the top teams are so big and powerful that they are always in contention, year after year, college football has a core of elites that are never far from the conversation.

It gives you a sense of how the season is going to go and offers an implied guarantee that there will be juicy matchups involving star-laden teams at the end of it.

Don't expect something like 2007, possibly still my favorite college football season ever, when it felt like there were multiple upsets every weekend, when West Virginia came within a game of playing for the national title, when South Florida and Cal and Kansas and Boston College all spent time at No. 2, and the absolute upheaval was dizzyingly wonderful.

The game isn't really built that way anymore, but it is also hard not to like rankings that have a meaty feel to them. 

The powerhouses have the status and the position and they're there to be shot at, which is the whole point. 

When you've got the credentials, you have to be prepared to back them up. The words are nice. The actions speak louder.

Martin Rogers is a columnist for FOX Sports and the author of the FOX Sports Insider newsletter. Follow him on Twitter at @MRogersFOX and subscribe to the every day e-newsletter.

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