Penn State Slips One Spot To No. 5

And BYU is doing Rodney Dangerfield impressions.

Thanks for a comprehensive list, Traveler.

Oh wise one, who should be #1.  Please inform us.

I don't suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorder, but I have had my sanity questioned... In any event, the question of number 1 when is a good way to look at this. Most people would say Stanford is the odds-on favorite to be number 1 at the season's end. But right now, giving the number 1 ranking to a team with two recent losses is a stretch--especially when there's an undefeated team that could be number 1. Yes, Stanford has played a tough schedule, but Baylor played a reasonably challenging schedule. I'd have voted Baylor number 1, but nobody asked me to submit their poll.

BTW, Gia Milana, who IIRC went to UMD because Aird moved there, transferred to Baylor (last year?). I thought the B1G wrongly ignored her...she seemed to be UMD's everything OH. Good move it would appear. She's contributing at Baylor but far from their best hitter.

I've got to disagree with you.  I assume you think that Baylor should be #1.  Who has Baylor beat?  Wisconsin?  Wisconsin turns out to have been severely overrated and really has no good wins.  The win against Wisconsin only looked good because Wisconsin was highly rated because of the carryover on the polls from last year.  Marquette?  Marquette has some good wins vs BYU, (early in the season), and Wisconsin, who isn't very good at this point in time, a loss to Illinois, who may be a decent team, but has 4 losses already and Illinois's best win is against Tennessee.  

NOBODY has played the schedule that Stanford has played.  They've beat Texas, Nebraska, PSU, Florida.  You could say that maybe PSU is not that good a team after getting swept by Pitt.  But PSU is a young team that is going to have games like that this year.  And you could say that PSU played Stanford better than Nebraska did. You could make a case that Stanford lost to Minnesota because of the difficult match that they played against PSU the night before.  And bluepenquin from VolleyTalk would say that the loss against BYU would show that Stanford and BYU are about the same level, and BYU has a worst loss than Stanford does.  It sure appears that this is going to be one of those years where no team is going to be dominant. 

Since Stanford won last year, they also have that to overcome this year.  Most people would say that winning a second championship in a row is much more difficult than the first one.  Look at Nebraska in 2016.  They were the consensus to win it all that year but just didn't have the "want to".  I would personally put my money (if I bet ) on Stanford to win it all by the end of the year.  Anyway, that's what makes the rankings interesting.  Everybody has their own opinions and their own prejudices.