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Wisconsin cracks into ESPN’s Top 5 power rankings

Dustin Schutte

By Dustin Schutte

Published:

The Badgers are finally in the picture.

While Wisconsin has earned plenty of respect from the Coaches and Associated Press polls over the last several weeks, it has been somewhat snubbed by the College Football Playoff poll and ESPN’s power rankings. That changed on Sunday morning, after a few top teams crumbled this weekend.

In the most recent power rankings updated by ESPN, Wisconsin finds itself in the No. 5 spot and would be just on the outside of the College Football Playoff. That’s a significant jump considering it was ranked No. 8 coming into the weekend.

Ahead of Wisconsin in the top four spots are Alabama, Miami, Clemson and Oklahoma.

Four of the five teams beat ranked opponents on Saturday. Alabama defeated Mississippi State, Miami knocked off Notre Dame, Oklahoma took down TCU and Wisconsin throttled Iowa. Clemson, the only team not to beat a ranked foe, defeated Florida State.

ESPN’s power rankings will also be fairly similar to what we see on Tuesday night from the selection committee. Several consider those five teams to be in the top spots this week, though there are some variations on where each team should fall.

While Miami made the biggest leap, it was huge for Wisconsin to finally get into the discussion. It seems that 10-0 record is finally starting to win over some folks.

Dustin Schutte

Dustin grew up in the heart of Big Ten country and has been in sports media since 2010. He has been covering Big Ten football since 2014. You can follow him on Twitter: @SchutteCFB