Kirk Herbstreit releases new top five rankings with new No. 1 after Week 7

Week 7 featured even more notable results coming out of Saturday’s schedule of games across college football. They were so much so that we saw a shake-up of the top-five released by Kirk Herbstreit.

Herbstreit shared the new edition of his top-five alongside Joey Galloway, who gave a top-five of his own, on the latest episode of ‘Nonstop’ on Monday morning. It included a new team atop the rankings coming out of what was the win of the weekend, as well as another team rounding it out in five that has earned some recognition of its own.

Here is that new-look top-five from Herbstreit coming out of Week 7:

Indiana Hoosiers

Herbstreit admitted that even he had continued to discount Indiana, even as recently as this past weekend when they traveled to Eugene. However, with a 30-20 road victory in a top-ten matchup over No. 3 Oregon, the Hoosiers are real to him, and real enough to now be at number one in his top-five.

“My top-five will probably shock you a little bit. Look what I did, and let me tell you why I did that,” said Herbstreit. “I’ve been waiting on Indiana…I think I, like a lot of people, just thought, wow, Cignetti is doing a good job. They didn’t beat one team with above a .500 record a year ago – not one team, and, the two that they played, they lost. So, I just thought they were a cute story, what he’s doing there at Indiana is great. And then they go to Eugene. They did more in 60 minutes to change my mind than they’ve done the previous year and a half. That is not easy to do, and the way they did it? When you back up Illinois, and now going to Oregon? I think, I have no problem putting them right now as the number one team in the country. It’s just being real…As we sit here right now, based on what they’ve accomplished and how they’ve done it, it’s hard for me not to put Indiana at one.

Ohio State Buckeyes

Just behind IU in first was now Ohio State, who remained undefeated with another win at 34-16 on the road at No. 17 Illinois. With that, Herbstreit thinks this is our likely matchup in the Big Ten Championship, while not knowing who would win, but that, this week, the Hoosiers deserved just a little more love than the Buckeyes.

“We’re probably going to get that. I think, by the time we get to December, it’ll be interesting to see how much Ohio State continues to grow. It could be a totally different kind of question,” said Herbstreit. “I mean, I was going to put Ohio State at one, Indiana two and I thought, I went back and I just looked and I thought, damn. You got to give them credit.”

Miami Hurricanes

Miami was on their second bye in three weeks’ time this past weekend. However, the Hurricanes have done more than enough to this point to have solidified themselves a spot in the top-three, let alone the top-five for Herbstreit.

The ‘U remains undefeated coming off a 28-22 win over No. 18 Florida State, concluding a three-game, in-state sweep along with wins over No. 18 USF and Florida as well as still having that win over No. 6 Notre Dame. They should have a very good chance to remain undefeated throughout the remainder of their season in the ACC, which’ll start again against Louisville on Friday night.

Texas A&M Aggies

Herbstriet deemed the Aggies as “the quietest top-five team” he’s seen, with Texas A&M still undefeated with a 34-17 win over Florida to cap off a four-game stretch against Notre Dame, Auburn, and Mississippi State. He thinks A&M has everything they need to contend this fall, and will get more chances to prove that over the back half of their season, specifically in their final four conference games.

“A&M is the quietest top-five team that I’ve ever seen. Nobody is talking about Marcel Reed and A&M. And, they’ll have their big test coming up ahead of them,” said Herbstreit. “I’m a huge Mike Elko fan. I mean, if you look old school football? And, like, I bet you they do still inside drill on Tuesday. I bet guys are getting lit up at practice. They’ve got great receivers now, they got a quarterback, they got two really good backs, they got an offensive line. They’re hard to beat. They just feel consistent to me. But, there’s some tough games coming up.”

Texas Tech Red Raiders

Texas Tech has continued rolling through the Big 12, winning 42-17 over Kansas on Saturday to be undefeated still. The Red Raiders are meeting a lot of their preseason expectations for them in Lubbock, with them looking to be their conference’s favorite – which they could further solidify this weekend in Tempe.

“Look at who I have at five. Do I hate Texas Tech too?” Herbstreit said. “You’ve got to acknowledge what Texas Tech has done.”