Week one was filled with some interesting games and some pretty routine ones.  After the dust of the opening weekend of college football settled, the polls gave teams and fans an inside look at how they will behave this season.  And for UCF fans, it is looking good for right now.

UCF destroyed conference opponent UConn in week one and will play an FCS team in week number two.  With the big win, UCF jumped up two spots, which is encouraging to see as the Knights climb the ranks after winning 14 consecutive games.  What is more impressive though is that the voters slipped Michigan and Miami below “group of 5” teams UCF and Boise State.  Granted, both teams looked pretty bad and deserved to drop, but it was to the surprise of many of the UCF faithful that the voters would do such a thing.

In short, Knight fans and any other “G5” team should be encouraged by how the polls look after week one.  There are still some doubters out there though.  Here are the results of some of the voting this week for UCF, courtesy of @UCFInfo on Twitter.

6^th – 1 vote

11^th – 2 votes

12^th – 1 vote

13^th – 2 votes

14^th – 1 vote

15^th – 2 votes

17^th – 5 votes

18^th – 5 votes

19^th – 11 votes (Actual rank as of week 1)

20^th – 8 votes

21^st – 7 votes

22^nd – 3 votes

23^rd – 7 votes

24^th – 2 votes

25^th – 1 vote

Unranked – 3 votes

This is a very interesting spread of votes considering it is spread very wide.  Whoever put UCF in the top 15 are pretty much going off of last year’s success plus this year as well, taking into account the fact we have a lot of starters returning.  Spots 17 through 21 are respectable, given that we picked apart a team that we were supposed to demolish.  Anything under 21 though is absolutely absurd.  These voters are probably stuck on the fact that a new coaching staff may somehow hinder the Knights, and anyone who voted unranked probably is friends with Paul Finebaum.

We are definitely over-analyzing these rankings this early on in the season as UCF sees their first test come at UNC, who didn’t look all too great in week 1.

Don’t expect UCF to move much after their game on Friday unless some games go the way of the Knights.  Orlando’s hometown team would need 18. Mississippi State to lose to Kansas State, 17 USC to lose to 10 Stanford, and 15 Michigan State to lose to Arizona State to advance in the rankings.  All of the above are possible, which could propel the Knights close to that 15 spot.  Number 16 TCU plays SMU who the Knights will play on October 6 at home.  UCF’s strength of schedule would be helped by an SMU upset in which they are 22 point underdogs.  Speaking of strength of schedule, good old Alabama is still at number one, despite playing a subpar Louisville team and getting to play Arkansas State this week.