Week 13 Top 25 and Playoff Race

As I expected, Ohio St.’s win over Penn St. put them over the top.  LSU is still ahead in the weighted ratings, which gives increased points for beating the best teams.  However, Ohio St.’s average FBS opponent is better, and the Buckeyes didn’t play any FCS teams.  This gives Ohio St. too much of an advantage in the unweighted system for LSU to stay #1 overall.

Justin Fields runs for a first down against Penn St. in Columbus on Saturday. Fields accounted for 256 yards against the Nittany Lions.

With Oregon out of the running, I wanted to update the resumes of the playoff contenders.  For now I’m not going to discuss a potential upset in the Big Ten or SEC Championship.  We’ve never had a loser of a championship game in the Playoff, but I would struggle to argue against a one-loss Ohio St. or a one-loss LSU for the fourth spot.

This would be assuming the teams win out of course. I think losses by Baylor, Oklahoma, Utah, or Alabama would take those teams out of the running unless they all lose and the Big Ten and SEC Championship favorites win.  I’m just sticking to the current top 50 for the list of wins.

Alabama wins: (23) Auburn (except lower), (39) Texas A&M (likely lower if they lose to LSU), (49) Tennessee (slightly higher if they beat Vandy, several spots lower if not)

Alabama loss: (2) LSU

Baylor wins: (12) Oklahoma (slightly lower if they beat Oklahoma St., several spots lower if not), (27) Oklahoma St. (higher if they beat Oklahoma, slightly lower if not), (36) Kansas St. (would be higher with a win over Iowa St., slightly lower with a loss), (40) Texas (higher if they beat Texas Tech, lower if they don’t)

Baylor loss: (12) Oklahoma (see above)

Oklahoma wins: (11) Baylor twice (would be lower even if they beat KU), (27) Oklahoma St. (would be lower), (40) Texas (higher if they beat Texas Tech, lower if they don’t)

Oklahoma loss: (36) Kansas St. (would be higher with a win over Iowa St., slightly lower with a loss)

Utah wins: (17) Oregon (would be lower even if they beat Oregon St., much lower if they don’t), (35) Brigham Young (higher if they beat San Diego St., lower if they don’t), (50) Washington (higher if they beat WSU, lower if they don’t)

Utah loss: (25) Southern California (season complete)

Despite this fumble and a 28-3 Baylor lead at one point, Jalen Hurts (#1) led Oklahoma to over 500 yards of offense in a win at Baylor on November 16. The Bears will likely get a rematch though.

As I said before, I would put a one-loss Big XII champion over Alabama and Utah, and I would put Alabama over Utah.  That might not be how Alabama and Utah come out in my ratings, but my ratings are supposed to measure everything you’ve done this season.  I think in this kind of analysis we should look at the best teams you’re played even if one team has really strong fifth, sixth, and seventh wins and the other doesn’t. 

On the other hand, that might be the kind of ambiguity the committee will reason should exclude a non-champion.  Given the treatment (and success) of Alabama over the years, I doubt it though.

Obviously, I don’t have the competitive teams four teams four, five, six, and seven.  There is no predictive function.  For instance, Oklahoma has a big chunk of points coming its way with wins over Oklahoma St. and Baylor, but the system doesn’t account for that.  Auburn would be Alabama’s biggest win (especially if LSU beats Texas A&M).

I personally think Cincinnati should be considered if the Bearcats don’t lose again, but I just don’t think the committee will ever put a one-loss Group of Five team in even if the one loss is possibly to the Number 1 team.  The Bearcats would have wins over (13) Memphis, (21) SMU, (23) Navy, (31) Central Florida, and (38) Temple. Memphis and Navy would be later, so their ratings would go down. 

Do I think Cincinnati would win a rematch with Ohio St. or beat LSU?  No of course not, but in the other sports you don’t pick wildcard or at-large teams based on who’s more likely to beat the #1 or #2 seed.  I didn’t think Notre Dame had a chance when they were included, but their resume justified it.

Moving on to more general discussion of the top-25, Oregon, Penn St., and SMU were the only teams in the top 25 going into the week who lost; so there are no new teams and no one has exited the top 25.  The top 30 also stayed the same.  Only two teams ranked #31 to #40 won, so there weren’t as many candidates for entry into the top 25 as usual.

Notre Dame is 6^th, but don’t worry about them getting in the way of Playoff candidates.  The Irish only have a game against seven-loss Stanford left and as usual will be idle for championship week.  Maybe they should see if the ACC will give a special waiver to play Clemson.

Boise St. plays an even worse team, Colorado St., next week.  The Broncos will play Hawaii for the MWC championship the following week, but the Rainbow Warriors aren’t worth many points even compared to the likely American runners-up Navy.

A Michigan upset of Ohio St. could make the Wolverines the best two-loss team, but I don’t see any way for a two-loss non-champion to make it in.  Then we get to three of the four major playoff contenders. Although they’re only 15^th, Minnesota would have an argument with wins over Wisconsin and Ohio St.

Also, I updated the LSU-Arkansas Rivalry Series.  That was actually the first one I wrote.  This was only the third time LSU beat Arkansas by more than four touchdowns.  The other two (1908 and 2003) were arguably national-championship teams.  LSU won the BCS in 2003.  Things were a lot murkier in 1908, but going 10-0 and allowing 11 points all season is pretty good regardless.

rank	team	last
1	Ohio St.	2
2	LSU	1
3	Clemson	3
4	Georgia	5
5	Cincinnati	9
6	Notre Dame	10
7	Penn St.	4
8	Boise St.	12
9	Michigan	15
10	Utah	8
11	Baylor	16
12	Oklahoma	13
13	Memphis	14
14	Wisconsin	19
15	Minnesota	7
16	Alabama	11
17	Oregon	6
18	Florida	18
19	Appalachian	21
20	Iowa	22
21	SMU	17
22	Auburn	20
23	Navy	24
24	Air Force	23
25	USC	25

Ratings of All Teams

Week 12 LSU and Top 25

Sorry for my absence. This was my first full week after a vacation, and I have a lingering cough that I’m still trying to get rid of. Also, I just wasn’t all that motivated. I guess it was hard for me to get that into the Ole Miss game after Alabama.

I am a little annoyed that people act like LSU can’t play defense. I’ll admit LSU has struggled to play solid defense for a whole game, although I’d argue we did so against Auburn. I’m still annoyed with the questionable points off of the questionable turnover in that game. Otherwise Auburn gets held to 13.

Anyway, as to the Ole Miss game, if you go up 28-0, your defense had a role in that. The rest of the game we basically went score for score except obviously at the end we ran out the clock. I would have liked a couple more stops in the second half to give younger guys more playing time, but that doesn’t say much of anything about the ability to win big games that in all likelihood are coming up.

When Alabama had a great defense in 2011 (holding LSU to 6 points in 120 minutes of regulation play), Georgia Southern scored 21 points in 20 minutes of play to make it a 10-point game with 7 minutes left in the third quarter (LSU’s lead was reduced to 11 at the same time of the game). The Eagles, who were still in I-AA at the time, finished with over 300 rushing yards against the Tide.

Ole Miss finished with more against the Tigers, but they’re an SEC team with SEC talent. I know they haven’t been the best in the conference or anything close lately, but many of their players were recruited shortly after the Rebels won the Sugar Bowl. That’s a far cry from the talent that Georgia Southern team had. And with the offense LSU has had, they don’t need to be nearly as good on defense as that Alabama team was.

That was more than I had intended to say about Ole Miss, but there will hopefully be less to say about Arkansas. Feel free to check out the rivalry blogs on those two series:
Ole Miss
Arkansas

I’ll talk a bit about the top 25 now.

LSU strengthened its hold on #1 somewhat, but I think that will change if Ohio St. wins (and I think they will).

Georgia improved.three spots to fifth and I suspect will pass up the loser of the Penn St.-Ohio St. game (assuming the Bulldogs beat the Aggies). Of course only one team can win the SEC.

The Pac-12 champion is still well-positioned to move into my top 4 with Oregon at #6 and Utah at #8.

As for the Big XII, both Baylor and Oklahoma are back behind Alabama. The Sooners can gain a decent number of points the next three weeks though (TCU, Oklahoma St., and most likely a rematch with Baylor). Without an upset of one of the top three, I still think I’m going to be for the Pac-12 champions to make the top four.

There isn’t really anything else remarkable except that Iowa made it back in by beating Minnesota. The Gophers fell only three spots, so I think I’ll still have them in the top four if somehow they win the conference.

Auburn finally had a loss that really showed in the standings. It’s not because Georgia isn’t good, but the teams are clustered a lot closer together once you get out of the top 10. So a modest relative decrease in points shows up a lot more.

De’Andre Swift rushed for 106 yards in the Bulldogs win on Saturday in Auburn.

rank	team	last
1	LSU	1
2	Ohio St.	2
3	Clemson	3
4	Penn St.	5
5	Georgia	8
6	Oregon	7
7	Minnesota	4
8	Utah	15
9	Cincinnati	11
10	Notre Dame	17
11	Alabama	14
12	Boise St.	10
13	Oklahoma	16
14	Memphis	12
15	Michigan	19
16	Baylor	6
17	SMU	9
18	Florida	18
19	Wisconsin	20
20	Auburn	13
21	Appalachian	21
22	Iowa	—
23	Air Force	23
24	Navy	22
25	USC	25

Out of Top 25: (24) Wake Forest

Full ratings

Alabama Is Not a Playoff Team

I’m not here to argue that it’s unreasonable to believe Alabama is one of the four most-talented teams or to argue that there is no circumstance in which Alabama should be in the Playoff. What I am going to argue is that Alabama should only be considered if a conference champion hardly did anything important on the national level other than win that championship game.

I’m OK with Alabama being #5 as long as it doesn’t mean that if Georgia loses to Auburn or LSU, Alabama gets a playoff spot. Until the championship games are played, all one-loss teams are one-loss non-champions, so it doesn’t really bother me that much if you think Alabama is the best one-loss non-champion.

Alabama head coach Nick Saban reacts to the LSU touchdown with 6 seconds left in the first half in Tuscaloosa on Saturday. The Tigers led 33-13 at that point.

It should be a completely different conversation when comparing a one-loss non-champion to a one-loss champion. Rather than giving Alabama the benefit of the doubt, as it seems college football voters (the committee still votes; it’s just a more complicated process than the polls) always do, any one-loss champion should get the benefit of the doubt instead.

For instance, if LSU had one loss, the Tigers could point to the win over Florida and the win over Texas. Alabama can point to Tennessee and Duke. That doesn’t overcome champion versus non-champion. Unless Clemson loses, the only team I can think of that might give me pause is Utah. If Utah beats Oregon, they’ll be 1-1 against the top 30 (I consider USC top 30 even though the polls don’t, and maybe the latter will change after USC wins over Cal and UCLA), just like Alabama will be if they beat Auburn.

Maybe you could argue that the only reason Texas A&M won’t be in the top 30 is the fact that the Aggies have four currently top-5 teams on their schedule (they already played Clemson and Alabama and have Georgia and LSU left), not to mention #12 Auburn (who also beat them). So maybe it would then be fairer to say even without a championship game Alabama is 2-1 against teams that have reasonable capability of beating a top team whereas Utah will be only 1-1 even with the benefit of the championship.

So I’ve laid out what kind of argument might work for me. I just don’t see any potential one-loss major-conference champion apart from Utah or Clemson (whose best win might be Texas A&M) failing that test. I could also see a one-loss non-champion such as Ohio St. or Minnesota belonging ahead of Alabama.

Just thought this was funny. If you don’t get it, it’s a reference to the 2015 Sugar Bowl loss to Cardale Jones and Ohio St. in conjunction with the loss to former Ohio St. backup Joe Burrow on Saturday.

I’ve mentioned resumes, so let’s break down the resumes. I start with the various teams’ current ranking, then I discuss what could happen to that ranking down the line. This is relevant because I don’t accept the argument that a team was tough to beat just because they were ranked highly when you played them. Polls can be wrong, especially early in the season. Remember how Nebraska (4-5 and has only played one of the top three teams on its schedule) was ranked in both polls after Week 1?

Alabama:

Top-50 Wins –  #13 Auburn (who would be a few spots lower if they beat Georgia before losing to Alabama and several spots lower if not)

#43 Texas A&M (who might be higher if they beat LSU and will be lower if they don’t)

Loss – #1 LSU (will be clear favorites in remaining games)

If Oklahoma wins out:

Top 50 wins:

#6 Baylor, probably twice (obviously would fall in that scenario)

#28 Texas (losing to Baylor and winning the other two probably won’t hurt the Horns and may even result in a higher ranking)

#32 Oklahoma St. (will probably be about the same if they beat Baylor and lose to the Sooners, will probably be lower if they lose to both)

Loss: #30 Kansas St.

If Baylor wins out:

Top-50 wins – #16 Oklahoma, probably twice (would fall slightly in that scenario; the Sooners would benefit from wins over Oklahoma St. and TCU)

#28 Texas (might be about the same if that is the only loss, will be lower if they also lose to Iowa St.)

#30 Kansas St. (could be a bit higher since they already lost to the Bears and will probably be favored in remaining games)

#32 Oklahoma St. (will probably be a bit lower if they lose to the Bears and the Sooners)

Most likely losses – Texas or Oklahoma

If Minnesota wins out:

Top-50 wins – #2 Ohio St. (if the Buckeyes make the Big Ten
championship, but of course they would lose a few spots by losing to Minnesota)

#5 Penn St. (may lose a few spots by losing to Ohio St. and several spots by losing to Indiana), possibly twice if the Nittany Lions beat the Buckeyes.

#20 Wisconsin (may lose a few spots by losing to Minnesota but should win the rest)

#27 Iowa (may lose a few spots by losing to Minnesota but should win the rest)

#48 Illinois (probably won’t lose ground by losing to Iowa and beating Northwestern)

Most likely losses – See list of top-50 wins

If Penn St. wins out:

Top-50 wins – #2 Ohio St. (would lose a few spots of course)

#4 Minnesota (likely Big Ten championship opponent; would
lose a few spots of course)

#19 Michigan (will be higher if they beat Ohio St., probably about the same if not)

#27 Iowa (may lose a few spots by losing to Minnesota but should win the rest)

#36 Indiana (probably would finish about the same if they beat Michigan, lower if two or more losses in the last three games)

#39 Pittsburgh (would improve by beating Va. Tech and Boston College, probably even an improvement if they also lose to Clemson).

Loss – #4 Minnesota (would be hurt by any loss; see above)

If Oregon wins out:

Top-50 wins – #15 Utah (in Pac-12 championship; probably would not
change much if they win the other remaining games)

#25 USC (may be slightly higher, will be favored to
win remaining games)

#35 Washington

Loss:

#13 Auburn  (who would be a few spots lower if they beat Georgia before losing to Alabama and several spots lower if they lose to both)

If Utah wins out:

Top-50 wins – #7 Oregon (would drop by losing to Utah)

#34 BYU (will probably lose ground if they lose to San Diego St. regardless of other wins; will gain slightly if they beat the Aztecs)

#35 Washington (will improve with wins over Colorado and Washington St., will drop if they lose either or both)

Loss – #25 USC (may be slightly higher, will be favored to win remaining games)

I already talked about Utah.  Oregon in this scenario would have played 11 major-conference opponents, including all of the good teams in the Pac-12 and Auburn. I don’t want the Ducks penalized for playing a good non-conference opponent in August and not losing again even if Alabama beats the team they lost to in late November.  The wins are still more important.

Even if Baylor loses to either Texas or Oklahoma and then wins the Big XII championship, I’m still more impressed by that. 

Resumes aside, I’m against a team like Alabama being able to game the system like this.

I’m in favor of the 8-game SEC schedule because I want teams like Florida and South Carolina that have tough annual rivalries to be able to play other competitive games out of conference and still have a couple of games to catch their breaths.  But it shouldn’t be used by teams like Alabama to play 10 games against mediocre (or worse) opponents and only have to win one of two games against really good opponents.     

The Gamecocks overdid it this year by scheduling North Carolina and Appalachian St., but maybe they thought both would be worse than they have been.  Alabama didn’t do any of that.  Maybe when Alabama scheduled Duke, they didn’t sign on to play any weaker of a team than Florida did when they scheduled Miami; but Alabama doesn’t have an annual series either cross-division or out-of-conference that’s worth anything.  Florida already knew they had LSU and Florida St. in addition to the SEC East.  South Carolina already knew they had Texas A&M and Clemson annually in addition to the SEC East (I’m not sure how recently they realized they were also playing Alabama this year). 

A team should never have an easier road to the Playoff by losing a game, and that’s what Alabama thinks they deserve just like they thought they deserved it in 2011.  They don’t.  If they have a clearly better resume, I understand just taking the four teams with the best resumes; but if there is any doubt at all, the committee should lean toward conference champions and against potential rematches.  Also, just like in 2011, I think losing at home should doubly mean you don’t deserve a second shot.

It’s not only resumes, it’s not only fairness for this year’s teams, the idea should also be to discourage bad scheduling.  Duke has had some good seasons in the past, but they never had beat-Alabama (or other serious title contender) levels of talent. When the Tide played USC or Virginia Tech in earlier seasons, there was at least a chance they’d be facing a challenge.  They knew all along Duke wasn’t going to be a challenge.  The other three would have been bigger upsets than have ever happened to my knowledge. 

I also don’t believe for a second that New Mexico St. was the best team they could get that week when Saban went on his little rant.  There are a ton of better programs who would have loved the exposure of a nationally televised game in Tuscaloosa.  Troy or UAB would have been better opponents.  They certainly wouldn’t have required large travel budgets or had trouble selling their ticket allotments.

It’s also not right that the only two teams who can challenge Alabama (Auburn and LSU) play Georgia and Florida respectively every year while Alabama plays Tennessee.  If Alabama doesn’t win despite the uneven playing field and despite playing the eventual champion at home, they don’t deserve sympathy or special consideration.  I don’t care if the entire offense already has NFL contracts waiting.

LSU/Bama Recap and Week 11 Top 25

I know there were a couple of other big games, but I only have time to write about LSU right now.

The Bama game was about what I expected apart from a few details. Tua had almost exactly how many yards per pass that I thought (8.32) until the long bomb to get the Tide within 5 with 81 seconds left put him over the 10 ypa mark. I expect College Football Nerds to celebrate how they lucked into that one even though they’d be the first to cite such a circumstance to show they weren’t really so wrong in some other game. I haven’t listened to their whole video, but they’re still saying Alabama has a better offense than LSU.

Joe Burrow, Ed Orgeron, and his wife Kelly are front and center celebrating the LSU win in Tuscaloosa Saturday.

I think more important than total yards was the fact that Tua threw 19 incompletions to Burrow’s 8. That’s usually what ends up hurting you in ypa average when you don’t get 85 on one play (and over 60 on another). Burrow also got 64 yards on the ground to Tua’s -5. LSU still got better QB play and still got more yards on the ground. Everything I brought up was in the context of LSU at least playing it close, and I did pick LSU to win.

As I commented on The Late Kick, another channel I follow (that also picked Alabama to beat the spread), I thought the winner would score in the high 30s instead of the mid-40s, but that’s a minor issue. The pass at the end (or not getting the punt return TD) and one more stop by Bama (or one fewer turnover, such as at the end of the first half) would have caused that to happen. I didn’t think Burrow would get out of quite as many jams as he did since I’ve been assured so many times how much better this defense was than the likes of Texas. So it was a little surprising that he didn’t seem any more affected by the pass rush than he did against Texas.

Harris of Alabama ran a little better than I expected, but my point in discussing Alabama running the ball was it wasn’t going to be anything close to the passing yards, and when you count the negative plays it was almost 300 yards fewer.

Early on, to Alabama’s credit, LSU struggled to get a traditional running game going; but the Tigers still made good use of the backs as blockers and receivers. Edwards-Helaire was ultimately responsible for 180 yards, 10 fewer than Harris. More than 70 of those yards were after contact on the rushing plays, probably another 50 were after contact on the receiving plays.

Clyde Edwards-Helaire catches a touchdown pass with 6 seconds left in the first half to put the Tigers up 33-13 in Tuscaloosa Saturday.

Sometimes a team in a hostile environment has to feel things out for a little while before they get comfortable. Obviously that wasn’t the case here. LSU early on seemed much more comfortable in a big-game environment, and I was right to question how capable Alabama would be in such a scenario. The Tide settled in of course, but the lack of experience of THIS Bama team probably decided the game.

Speaking of the road environment, I’m going to add this to my LSU/Alabama series blog. LSU has done better on the road against Alabama than at home not only for the last 12+ years (three of the four LSU wins in that span have been in Tuscaloosa) but for the last 50 years. All seven LSU wins from 1970 to 1999 (inclusive) were in Alabama. LSU won 7 of the next 8 (and 9 of 12) games overall starting in 2000 (Saban’s first year with the Tigers), so where the game was played didn’t matter quite as much in that span. Still, from 1970 to today, LSU has gone 13-12 against the Tide in Alabama (including 4-4 in Birmingham) and only 4-21-1 in Louisiana (including 0-1 in New Orleans).

One other bit of trivia: The 87 points scored on Saturday by both teams were the most in an LSU-Alabama game by 12 points, beating the 41-34 LSU win in 2007, the last season the Tigers won the national championship (and before Saban recruited his own defense). The third-highest point total was only 58, a tie between the 1989 Alabama win and the 2000 LSU win (which had been the first Tiger win at home since 1969).

Top 25

rank	team	last
1	LSU	2
2	Ohio St.	1
3	Clemson	4
4	Minnesota	7
5	Penn St.	3
6	Baylor	8
7	Oregon	5
8	Georgia	15
9	SMU	13
10	Boise St.	16
11	Cincinnati	12
12	Memphis	11
13	Auburn	10
14	Alabama	9
15	Utah	6
16	Oklahoma	18
17	Notre Dame	20
18	Florida	19
19	Michigan	14
20	Wisconsin	23
21	Appalachian	24
22	Navy	21
23	Air Force	22
24	Wake Forest	17
25	USC	—

Out of Top 25: (25) Central Florida

Week 10 Top 25

I’ve written so much about LSU/Alabama over the years, I have a whole page of links just for that. Yes, LSU hasn’t won since the 9-6 win in Tuscaloosa in 2011, although people forget the game came down to one possession in both 2012 and 2014. I also haven’t seen much mention that over about the last 50 years LSU does better on the road in this series. You’d think from the coverage that Albama hasn’t lost at home since they hired Bear Bryant and that every game was 20+ to 0.

I haven’t done a meaningful breakdown of what’s going on in my top 25 apart from the top 10 in a good while, so I thought now would be a good time to catch up with no LSU recap. I also don’t think we need to introduce Alabama and what they do well. I covered some of it here.

American Conference

The best Big Ten and SEC teams were idle, and the only ACC team that has much to offer played Wofford; so now seems like a good time to highlight the American conference.

SMU finally lost, so my whole top 10 is now Power Five teams. The American still has five teams in the top 25 though, which is tied with the SEC and the Big Ten for the best.

QB Brady White threw for over 10 yards per pass and three touchdowns in the 54-48 win over SMU.

The controversial loss to Temple is the only reason Memphis isn’t undefeated (although to be fair they barely escaped against Tulsa). Cincinnati’s only loss is to #1 Ohio St. I don’t factor in margin of victory unless the home team wins a game decided by less than a field goal in regulation, so 42 is the same as 4 in my formula. The average home advantage is about 3 points, and obviously that happens to be a field goal. Whether you need a field goal or a touchdown at the end of the game is often a big difference, so it seems like a perfect place to draw the line. SMU’s first loss was the one the Mustangs just suffered against Memphis, so I don’t see anything wrong with their rank either.

Staying in the same conference but skipping down a few spots, Navy and Central Florida have recovered well from early losses. Navy suffered its only loss to Memphis, so that gives even more context to that ranking. Navy beat Tulane, which as I mentioned is in the top 40, and Air Force, which rose to #21 after beating Army. Central Florida had a relatively ugly loss to Pitt, so that’s why the Knights are last in the top 25. The loss to Cincinnati wasn’t bad obviously. I doubt the American will have 5 ranked teams here at the end of the season, but they’ve seemed pretty legitimate so far.

Top 10

I don’t have a specific reason Clemson fell below Penn St., but a number of the purple/orange Tigers’ opponents have been stagnant or losing value. I’m sure Florida St.’s loss to U. Miami, which Clemson does not play and will not play, didn’t help. It will generally hurt a team if a team in their own division loses to a team in the other division. It would hurt Ohio St. slightly if Minnesota beat Penn St., although the Buckeyes haven’t even played the Nittany Lions yet.

Alabama barely stayed in the computer top 10 since their schedule is bad. I’d still put the SEC top 5 up against anyone else’s, but Alabama hasn’t played anyone else in the top 5 of the conference (or any other conference except arguably CUSA). In previous years the worst team or two was around #90 and sometimes the rest were all in the top 75. The SEC does have 11 teams in the top 75, which is still very respectable; but Arkansas and Vanderbilt are among the dozen worst teams in FBS football (with losses to San Jose St. and UNLV, respectively), so they bring down the average significantly. Ole Miss isn’t too much better at #104; the Rebels’ only FBS wins have come over Arkansas and Vanderbilt.

Bama only fell one spot in the computer formula, which isn’t unusual after a bye week, especially one in which one of your best opponents lost and another played a team outside of the top 100. They only fall three spots here because I had moved them up extra spots last week.

Unlike LSU and Auburn, the Tide does not have an annual cross-divisional game against one of the top teams of the East. This year they drew South Carolina and Tennessee, two of the worst teams in the East. The Tide’s best non-conference opponents on the schedule are #67 Duke and #78 Southern Miss. By contrast, LSU has beaten three teams in out-of-conference play alone that rate at least 14 spots higher than Duke. Auburn has the best non-conference win in the nation (over #5 Oregon), and their win over #40 Tulane helps too. In conference play, the one advantage Alabama has over LSU (but not Auburn) is having played Texas A&M already; but the Aggies only rate 9 spots higher than Mississippi St., who has played LSU (and Auburn) but not Alabama. LSU also has not yet taken the hit to the strength of schedule that playing Ole Miss and Arkansas will entail.

Hopefully that explains how a two-loss team is ahead of an undefeated team in their own division (I couldn’t let that stand in the list below though) and how the AP #1 and #2 are nothing close in my formula.

Other than switching Alabama and Auburn (who only has about 1/10 of 1% more points than their rivals), I decided not to make any other changes. Whether Alabama beats LSU or not, it would cause a bigger disruption if I put all the top-10 undefeateds in the top 7. Someone will also lose between Minnesota and Penn St., and whoever wins it will look like the loser is being unduly punished. If it’s the lower team, they’ll have lost a few spots before the game even started. If it’s the higher team, it will look like they’re being dropped too far for losing to a top-7 team, who in turn isn’t being rewarded enough for the big win.

The Rest

Like a couple of the other teams I mentioned, Michigan seems to be clawing back from relatively early losses.

Likewise, Georgia’s win over Florida went some way in repairing the Bulldogs’ resume. Auburn would be another huge help.

Boise St. can only go so far with the loss to BYU and the best non-conference win being Florida St.. Another team that barely beat Florida St. was Wake Forest, who has a habit of barely beating opponents; but the Demon Deacons still have only one loss (to unranked Louisville).

Oklahoma’s one meaningful win (over Texas, which has understandable losses but a lack of wins to be excited about) only goes so far. Notre Dame, Florida, and Wisconsin are two-loss teams capable of top-10 wins, but there are weak spots on the schedule that put them significantly behind a team like Auburn.

The only top-25 team I haven’t mentioned is Appalachian St., who barely stayed in the top 25 after losing to Georgia Southern. That’s been a fairly big rivalry going back to the schools’ I-AA days, so these things happen. I’m still going to be very interested in how the Mountaineers do against South Carolina.

Outside of the top 25, things are looking good for other Louisiana schools. I mentioned LSU and Tulane, but I didn’t mention there are two other Louisiana teams between the two, Louisiana Tech and UL-Lafayette. Louisiana Tech looks like the best team in its conference right now. I wish LSU had played one of them instead of Northwestern St. The Tigers’ non-conference schedule would look even better.

Top 25 (List)

rank	team	last
1	Ohio St.	1
2	LSU	2
3	Penn St.	4
4	Clemson	3
5	Oregon	8
6	Utah	12
7	Minnesota	7
8	Baylor	9
9	Alabama	6
10	Auburn	10
11	Memphis	17
12	Cincinnati	11
13	SMU	5
14	Michigan	16
15	Georgia	24
16	Boise St.	13
17	Wake Forest	19
18	Oklahoma	15
19	Florida	14
20	Notre Dame	25
21	Navy	20
22	Air Force	23
23	Wisconsin	22
24	Appalachian	18
25	Central Florida	—

Out of top 25: (21) Iowa