Bye week reveals bated breath for Texas Tech fans

After an unintentionally timely bye week, Texas Tech is pitted against a potential College Football Playoff contender in Oklahoma. QB debacle and wavering faith accounted for, Texas Tech fans remain at the ready for surprise or disaster. We’ll cover the confidence later on. For now let’s see what all changed in the SBNation FanPulse; the most accurate, fan-based top 25 in the nation:

The top ten, as I mentioned in the last article, is going to be stable until we get a little further in conference play. Especially for those SEC teams. Woof, some of y’all are going to expose the others. Beyond that there’s been exciting movement in the 11-25 range with teams like USC showcasing the potential of third-string quarterback heroics (wouldn’t that be nice for Tech) and Michigan taking a whipping in Madison and on the digital-front.

Biggest winners:

• Michigan State, climbing from No. 22 to No. 17 after beating Northwestern, 31-10
• USC, shooting up from beyond the graphic into the No. 21 spot after third-string QB heroics against Utah, winning 30-23
• Cal, for also moving into the top 25 after going into Oxford, Mississippi and taking care of business against the rebels, winning 28-20

Biggest losers:

• UCF, falling from No. 15 to No. 22 after Pitt’s late-game creativity, losing 35-34
• Utah, falling from No. 9 to No. 14 after losing to Stanford’s third-string quarterback, 30-23.
• Michigan, falling from No. 11 to No. 18 after being dominated by Wisconsin, 35-14

MOST OVERRATED (voted on by you!)

This week we added into the poll a question regarding which team was most overrated. Overwhelmingly, 60% of the total votes pointed out that Michigan is the most overrated team in FBS - which even at No. 18 seems to remain true. After their loss against a ranked Wisconsin team, many Wolverine fans are left in the continued-ambiguity of whether or not Jim Harbaugh can get their school over the hump. The next highest team is Florida, who received near-15% of the votes tallied. S-E-C!

Texas Tech fans’ Top 25:

1. Clemson
2. Alabama
3. Georgia
4. LSU
5. Oklahoma
6. Ohio State
7. Auburn
8. Wisconsin
9. Florida
10. Texas
11. Notre Dame
12. Penn State
13. Oregon
14. Utah
15. Michigan
16. Michigan State
17. Iowa
18. Texas A&M
19. USC
20. UCF
21. Washington
22. Washington State
23. Boise State
24. Virginia
25. Maryland

takeaways:

• despite Michigan being the widely-selected overrated program in the country, you guys dropped them only four spots rather than the national average of seven.
• No love for A&M after the Auburn loss; you guys dropped them a spot despite the national average raising them a spot.
• Texas Tech fans for Texas Tech brand; you guys launched USC up to No. 19, three spots higher than the average, undoubtedly because you knew that Graham Harrell and Seth Doege were behind that magic. Didn’t you? You did.

Texas Tech fans’ confidence in the program:

Despite being a bye week for the Red Raiders, there’s been plenty of news surrounding the injury to Alan Bowman and who will step up going forward. We ran our own poll to gauge where fans stood on the quarterback battle before Oklahoma. We knew it wasn’t an easy choice, and we tried to include an article on why Tyner was the better choice and why Duffey was the better choice.

Even though the twitter-sphere considers Duffey the better start against Oklahoma this week, reports presume that Tyner will be behind center for the first series. The confidence poll reflected similar concerns by not moving in either direction over the bye week. Oklahoma will be a non-consequential game that most expected Texas Tech to lose before the season began, but it doesn’t mean Wells can’t work out kinks throughout the game. Offensive inefficiencies and penalties marred the game against Arizona; what changes will we see this weekend? That will dictate which direction the fans’ confidence will go heading into the game against Oklahoma State.

Do you have serious FOMO with all your friends casting votes weekly about the who’s who of college football? Join the rest of us by signing up to receive SB Nation’s FanPulse Top 25 survey RIGHT HERE. We have Kool-Aid.