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It took five weeks of the season, but Oklahoma State finally found themselves among the Top-25 teams in the country, at least according to the Associated Press.
The Cowboys entered the poll for the first time this season at No. 21 after knocking off then No. 24 Kansas State on Saturday.
While OSU is ranked, they find themselves — like every team ranked No. 18 or lower — with a few non-believers still to convince.
| Week | Rank | High | Low | High % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Preseason | 42 | 23 | NR | NR - 61 |
| Week 2 | 33 | 23 | NR | NR - 59 |
| Week 3 | 33 | 20 | NR | NR - 56 |
| Week 4 | 27 | 20 | NR | NR - 40 |
| Week 5 | 27 | 15 | NR | NR - 48 |
| Week 6 | 21 | 14 | NR | NR - 21 |
I have no problem with the 21 voters who still have the Cowboys unranked. That said I certainly feel like going into a verbal battle with Sam McKewon and Audrey Dahlgren, who both have USC ranked, and OSU not.
One voter who does have the Cowboys ranked is Nathan Baird of Cleveland.com. He ranked OSU higher than anyone else, at No. 14. I reached out to find out what he saw Saturday to sway him in such a way, and he had an interesting response.
“This might be an answer that annoys some people but I did not necessarily see something from Oklahoma State in the past week that drastically changed my vote,” wrote Baird. “I was worried I was looking too much week-to-week at where I had people previously. So this week I started a word document with info on every team and lined teams up without considering any previous poll positions. ... I did previously have Kansas State higher than some other voters, so that win had some value to me. Same for a competitive road loss to Texas.”
I really like the line “lined teams up without considering any previous poll positions.” I understand sticking with pre-conceived notions early on, but the idea of ranking teams more by what they’ve done through five weeks of the season instead of what we think about them is a novel one. One I can appreciate.
Outside of blowing out Texas Tech this upcoming Saturday, there’s probably not a lot OSU can do to sway more voters into adding them into their Top-25 polls. But that’s fine. At least for now, this team is where they should have been all along; ranked.