The week three college football rankings are being released and the newest edition of the AP Poll has Stanford remaining sixth overall. The Cardinal went on the road and easily defeated the Duke Blue Devils 44-14. The top of the rankings featured fairly modest matchups for each team, and thus few changes. Alabama did defeat a ranked Penn State squad and that victory allowed them to leap-frog LSU in the AP Poll. Alabama had trailed the Tigers by six points and now lead them by six points.
The Cardinal did gain a bit of ground on No. 5 Florida State. The Seminoles wrapped up the cupcake portion of their schedule and lost a few points because of it. FSU led Stanford by 42 points in the rankings, but now leads them by 33 points. Of course, the upcoming schedule makes that point differential fairly irrelevant. In the biggest matchup of week four, the Seminoles host top ranked Oklahoma next Saturday in the biggest game of the week.
Barring an absolute blowout, a loss won't drop Florida State too far, but would be enough to get Stanford above the Seminoles. That is also assuming Stanford handles its business at Arizona in their Pac-12 opener. The Cardinal will be favorites in that game as Andrew Luck looks to further his Heisman campaign.
LSU and Boise State have their own intriguing matchups next week as well. The Tigers open SEC play against the Mississippi State Bulldogs and the Broncos take on the Toledo Rockets. Both are road games and considering how well the Rockets hung with Ohio State, Boise State could have their hands full.