This was another vacation week, but I’ll start getting things back to normal in the coming week. This is still all in my mind and not based on my formula at all, but it’s meant to be at least somewhat of an estimate. If you didn’t play a good team last week and someone lower than you did, you might fall. Just to make up numbers, let’s say you had 20 points and the team after you had 19 last week. If that team got a quality win worth 3 and you got a mediocre win worth 1, you fall below that team. I don’t care how good you looked beating a winless team or an FCS team or whatever, you’re not entitled to keep your spot. I’m also allowed to change my mind about how good an opponent earlier in the year was. I know these are things most pollsters don’t do; but if I thought most did a good job, I wouldn’t have started doing my own top 25 28 years ago. However, since this was slightly rushed, there probably were a couple of cases where I just left teams about where they were by default and wouldn’t have with closer analysis.
Also, if you lose a game I fully expected you to lose to a higher-ranked team, I’m not inclined to lower you too much. An exception to that is if it’s a 2-loss team. A team that has two losses right now could end up being one of the best teams, but it’s going to take a while to recover a rating, so I don’t put teams like that in the top 25 right now.
Alabama looked a little more like what we expect from a Nick Saban Tide team against Ole Miss in Tuscaloosa on Saturday. Above, Rebel QB Jaxson Dart was pressured into a bad throw by DL Justin Eboigbe. Ole Miss was held to 10 points or fewer for only the second time since 2018 (the other being against Baylor in the Sugar Bowl two seasons ago).
Rank
Team
Last
1
Ohio St.
1
2
Georgia
2
3
Michigan
3
4
Texas
5
5
Southern CA
6
6
Penn St.
7
7
Florida St.
5
8
Oregon
10
9
Utah
9
10
Notre Dame
8
11
Alabama
12
12
LSU
11
13
Washington
14
14
Duke
15
15
Florida
16
16
Ole Miss
13
17
UCLA
17
18
Washington St.
—
19
Tennessee
19
20
Kansas
—
21
Missouri
20
22
Kansas St.
24
23
N Carolina
23
24
Oklahoma
—
25
Oregon St.
21
Out of Top 25: (18) Clemson, (22) Central Fla., (25) Colorado
I know this isn’t my usual quality, but I’m near a beach in Mexico sweating, so this is what you get. Kansas St. and Colorado essentially tied in my view, so they were bad enough to slip but not to fall out. At least unless and until Missouri and Colorado St. prove they’re terrible. The latter is more likely, hence the Buffs being lower.
Rank
Team
Last
1
Ohio St.
1
2
Georgia
2
3
Michigan
3
4
Texas
5
5
Florida St.
4
6
Southern CA
6
7
Penn St.
7
8
Notre Dame
8
9
Utah
10
10
Oregon
11
11
LSU
12
12
Alabama
9
13
Ole Miss
13
14
Washington
18
15
Duke
15
16
Florida
—
17
UCLA
16
18
Clemson
17
19
Tennessee
14
20
Missouri
—
21
Oregon St.
21
22
Central Fla.
23
23
N Carolina
24
24
Kansas St.
18
25
Colorado
20
Out of Top 25: (22) Cincinnati, (25) Mississippi St.
I’ve been accused of being an SEC homer in the past, but I’m not going to sugarcoat it. There were two more disappointing results to add to the LSU loss in Week 1. Neither was as bad as Utah, the defending and eventual Pac-12 champions, losing to a Florida team that wouldn’t even finish with a winning record last season. By SEC standards though, losing to a similarly-placed team in another conference as Alabama and Texas A&M did is still bad news.
Texas A&M and Alabama
It was a doubly good weekend for Longhorns fans. I guess it will be OK in hindsight if Texas A&M finishes last in the SEC West and U. Miami is in the top half of the ACC, but chances are the Aggies will beat at least one competitive team this year (as they beat divisional champions LSU last season). I think there is a limit to how low Alabama can fall, but if they’re third and Texas goes undefeated in the Big XII, maybe that loss will also be understandable in hindsight by the end of the year. Alabama could still win the national championship, but I’m just giving one scenario.
In Tuscaloosa, Ala., Saturday, Texas QB Quinn Ewers threw for 349 yards and 3 touchdowns, including the one above to Xavier Worthy in the second quarter.
Early Big Games Are Not Always Determinative
Like I discussed last week, sometimes a team just gets off to a rocky start and fixes the problems before getting exposed by a conference opponent. This happened to Ohio St. in 2014 before winning the first College Football Playoff. An SEC example happened in 2006, when Arkansas was embarrassed against USC, 50-14, before winning the SEC West. 2006 was when the 7-year run of SEC national titles began, so it wasn’t a sign of a weak league then. USC went on to win the Rose Bowl, but not before losing as many Pac-10 games (2) as the Trojans had lost in the previous four seasons combined.
Putting A&M aside since I don’t think a lot of people picked them first or second in the SEC West, the fact that it happened to both LSU and Alabama is somewhat concerning. As far as I can recall, there wasn’t a second such game in 2006 or the few years after by one of the top SEC teams.
I also want to say I don’t agree with some people saying that this means Texas will be a top contender for SEC titles right away. One game isn’t an 8- or 9-game SEC slate; and even though Texas should be an easy place to recruit, they probably will have less experience in key positions next season. Also, without the divisional format, it isn’t likely they can make a championship game almost by default like Missouri did a couple of times. Texas A&M, which joined at the same time as Mizzou, still has never made an SEC championship game despite typically having much better teams.
Ole Miss and LSU
Neither of the next two SEC West teams I’ll mention have gotten much of the flak for last week, but I’ll also be fair and say I wasn’t impressed by them either.
Also, Ole Miss should have appeared vastly superior to a Tulane team that is missing a lot of its talent from last season (when they still lost to Southern Mississippi and Central Florida despite the positive season overall) and was also playing without its starting quarterback. The starting quarterback might not have made a difference of 17 points (the final margin of victory), but it easily could have made a 7-point difference. That game would have been a lot different if Ole Miss had made a field goal to go up three points instead of ten with just under two minutes left. If Tulane didn’t have the urgency of being down two possessions on the ensuing drive, the turnover that resulted in the final Ole Miss touchdown would have been less likely.
LSU was expected to beat Grambling by a big score and did so, but I still think it was a bad sign that it was 14-10 LSU at the end of the first quarter. If Grambling hadn’t deferred after winning the toss, they would have had two different leads. It’s not like the field goal was from 50 yards either. It was a 23-yard field goal, so Grambling was close to scoring before stagnating in the red zone. It shows you don’t even have to be an FBS talent to catch passes against LSU, you just have to be tall. I’m sure there are some tall receivers in the SEC. A few players got out of the backfield too easily too.
Nonetheless, if LSU manages to go to Starkville and get a win (more on that below), the other teams in the division could be beatable. I think the Tigers also have a fairly favorable cross-divisional schedule with Florida (at home) and Missouri (on the road).
Mississippi St. and Auburn
I mentioned last week that the Pac-12 had not lost any games against other conferences in Week 1. The one bit of good news from the SEC West is Mississippi St. and Auburn became the first two teams from other conferences to defeat Pac-12 opponents. Cal and Arizona only had a combined five conference wins last season, but it’s not like Auburn was terrific either (2 conference wins by a combined 6 points). Yes, I know LSU struggled on the Plains last year anyway; but LSU has struggled there in the past against weak Auburn teams (even in 2012).
It will also be interesting to see how hosting Arizona compares to hosting LSU from Mississippi St.’s perspective.
Mississippi St. QB Will Rogers, who has thrown the most completions in SEC history, runs the ball against Arizona in Starkville, Miss. He only threw 13 of those 1192 completions on Saturday despite the game going into overtime.
LSU/Mississippi St. Series
Even if LSU wins, it’s going to be bittersweet, to me at least. 2024 will be the first year that Mississippi St. will participate in an SEC season and not play LSU. The first SEC season was in 1933, and the last regular season Mississippi St. played without playing LSU was 1925. The only Tigers’ schedule that didn’t have the Bulldogs on it over that time was 1943, when Mississippi St. didn’t field a team.
I don’t understand why they couldn’t keep the series going next season while they figure out what the permanent rotation will be, but of course no one asked me. Next season, LSU will play Vanderbilt for the 33rd time, South Carolina for the 23rd time, and Oklahoma for only the fourth time. I think somehow one of those (or even Florida or Arkansas) could have found someone else to play while LSU played Mississippi St. again.
I will have more to say about this whenever I get around to updating the rivalry blog, but I want people to appreciate that much while the game is taking played.
LSU/Mississippi St. Preview
About the game itself, it might be a good thing for LSU that Mississippi St. has moved away from the air raid since I’ve made no secret of my lack of admiration for the LSU secondary so far. By the way, I had to laugh during the week when LSU commentators who acted like the Tigers could somewhat easily handle the Seminoles and were good bets for the top 10 (if not top 5) acted like they agreed when Brian Kelly told the media that he knew it would be an area of concern. I understand why he didn’t tell us, but why didn’t the LSU media tell us if they knew? LSU has a well-paid PR department. They don’t need volunteers masquerading as journalists.
I hope I’m wrong, but I think I’d take the Bulldogs and the points at home anyway. Based on what State did last week, I do give LSU the edge but not by much. Just because Miss. St. didn’t throw it much last week doesn’t mean they can’t or won’t if they feel like that’s what LSU is giving them. The LSU defensive backs can’t get taller in the next couple of days, but I’m hoping they do a better job at breaking up passes on throwing downs and that there is more of a rush to assist the pass defense than there was against Florida St.
if Mississippi St. is not able to generate much offense without the help of the turnovers which they relied on to win the last game, then it might be relatively easy to outscore them. In that case, this might result in LSU being conservative to try to preserve the lead. Something like 23-14 or 27-19 would still fail to beat the spread. If LSU has to try to go score for score, then it’s also unlikely the Tigers win by double digits.
General Blog and Rankings Comments
Before I post the Top 25, I did want to mention that I’m not completely confident about my posting schedule for the next couple of weeks since I have some traveling planned. It will be done by the time I usually post my first computer ratings in early October though. It’s also more difficult to post blogs of my usual quality while traveling. Enjoy the pretty rankings chart below since you might not see it again for a little while.
This is already long, so I won’t explain any particular ranking decisions. I’m still giving some credence to preseason rankings at this point; but when I transition into a purely computer-based system, all preseason bias will be removed. This does not take place in major polls or committee rankings.
Sometimes long weekends are the worst scenario. It was basically Wednesday by the time I was able to review some of the things that went wrong during the LSU game. If I had waited to review all of them, I might have never written another blog. Obviously I’m not a beat reporter in Baton Rouge, so I rely on public statements and coverage from the people who are based around the program. That process was delayed by a day or more given that the game took place on Sunday night. I did have Friday the 1st off, but nothing had happened yet. I had decided to go out of town to a baseball game on Saturday, so I couldn’t write live reactions about the teams who played on Saturday.
On Sunday, I barely made it back in time for the game, and then Mondays are workdays for me whether I go into work or not. My bosses check to make sure I’ve made enough progress on Tuesday mornings, and I have the type of job where I always have to spend time preparing for the next day the night before anyway. Unfortunately, I don’t just clock in and clock out without having to think about it until I clock in again.
LSU-Florida St. Reaction and Historical Comparisons
Anyway, I do feel a little good right now that at least I didn’t pick LSU to win the SEC West or make the playoff. I’m not throwing in the towel though. There have been teams with rough starts who ended up doing well in the SEC, but it’s pretty rare to be one of the top teams nationally. Ohio St. got run out of their own stadium against Virginia Tech in the first week of September 2014 before winning the first College Football Playoff, but that’s kind of the exception that proves the rule.
Also, the Buckeyes had two months before they had to play a major-conference opponent who would finish with 9 wins or more. That was a long time to fix the issues in the Virginia Tech game, and there was even a close call against a Penn St. team (which would finish 7-6) in the interim. I think LSU has a lot less time. Mississippi St., LSU’s opponent a week from today, will win 9 games or more.
In Columbia on October 6, 2012, Marcus Lattimore gained as many yards on the ground (109) as Georgia QB Aaron Murray gained in the air. LSU handed South Carolina its first loss the following week. The Bulldogs would win the SEC East over the Gamecocks and the Gators.
A couple of years before that, Georgia got blown out by South Carolina, 35-7. in early October but came just a couple of yards short of beating Alabama to win the SEC and make the BCS championship game (which they most likely would have won given how easily the Tide handled Notre Dame). I think that’s a more realistic example for LSU to hope to follow (possibly making the SEC title game and playing better than last year). Georgia of course had to overcome that game to win the East whereas LSU’s loss to Florida St. does not count in the SEC standings. Unlike the Ohio St. example, the Bulldogs’ next big game (in hindsight and at the time) was just a couple of games later against Florida, who would finish 11-2. The only bad thing about following that Georgia example would be having to wait another 10 years to actually win a national championship.
I’ll update the Florida St. rivalry blog another time, but it’s just crazy how cursed LSU seems to be in the series. Of course, I still think LSU would have done quite well if they had played the Seminoles annually from about 2001 to 2019 (minus a couple of losses to Jameis, I suppose).
Thoughts on Brian Kelly
I said I’m not throwing in the towel on this season. I’m also not throwing in the towel on Brian Kelly. This was Kelly’s 15th game. Ed Orgeron lost to Troy in his 13th game in charge (two weeks after a 30-point loss at Mississippi St. that I still argue was worse). Les Miles lost his 12th game by 20 to a Georgia team that finished 10-3. Say what you will about Miles and Orgeron after the respective national championships, but no one was whining about it taking too long to get there at the end of 2007 (Miles’ third year) or 2019 (Orgeron’s third full year) seasons. By the way, 2014 was Urban Meyer’s third year at Ohio St., and Nick Saban didn’t win his first at Alabama until his third year (he had taken four years to win one at LSU). So even if it’s safe to assume a national championship is off the table already, I never thought it was a highly realistic goal for this year anyway.
LSU Head Coach Brian Kelly went on a bit of a rant at the end of his press conference on Tuesday.
Kelly can be a smooth talker, so I don’t always hold too much stock in his press conferences and whatnot, but I liked his rant at the end of his week-opening press conference. I disagree somewhat with faulting the enthusiasm gap, but I think it was a good message to put out there, and it showed he took onboard many of the issues fans and media pointed out.
“I could go through a number of different situations. We don’t get to the chains on third and 5… We’ve got a drop on third and 6 trying to get upfield… We’re 4th and 1 and we’re trying to make a play instead of reading what the defender is giving you. I could elaborate on defense. We’re spinning down a safety[, and] he’s watching the quarterback. We could have been more creative with play-calling. We could have been better defensively and [made fewer] spy calls and [brought] more pressure. I could attack the whole thing. The bottom line is I’ve got to get our football team thinking the right way and play[ing] with a competitive edge.”
I tried to clean up some of the grammar. He usually speaks better than that, but I’ll forgive it. I’ll accept some grammatical hiccups in exchange for his not sounding like a politician sometimes.
Other Results and Reactions
At least Kelly has been overshadowed somewhat by the hysterics about Dabo after Clemson’s loss to Duke. My prediction of those Tigers being the team to beat in the ACC isn’t looking too good right now. But that 2014 Virginia Tech team was in the ACC and ended up losing 6 games, 5 of them in conference, so we shouldn’t rush to any conclusions about that conference either. Even if Clemson continues to disappoint, I might still be right that the ACC champion will have a good shot at the Playoff though.
If I were a betting man (sports betting is still illegal where I live anyway), I would have taken Colorado +20.5. Although I did leave TCU ranked, I wasn’t very convinced they were going to be a competitive team this year. Deion performed better than many more experienced coaches in getting a bunch of transfers and other new players to support each other and have the needed enthusiasm. Whatever happens this season, he definitely did something right in preparing for Week 1.
Colorado head coach Deion Sanders confers with his son, S Shiloh Sanders, on Saturday in Ft. Worth. Sanders’ other son, Shadeur, threw for 510 yards in the upset win.
I don’t believe in making drastic changes after one week unless necessary, so I’m not dropping LSU and Clemson from the top 25. TCU was low enough that they will drop out though. I don’t really have the time and energy to re-work the whole thing even if I wanted to. I don’t really have a long list of teams that were just outside of the top 25 either.
I also wanted to put some of the conference talk into perspective. South Carolina has a much lower status in the SEC than North Carolina has in the ACC. The Tar Heels were the ACC runners-up in 2015 and 2022 and represented the conference in the post-2020 Orange Bowl. They would have been #2 in the conference had Notre Dame not temporarily joined. The Gamecocks have only made one SEC championship game, and that was back in 2010. They have only won 8 games or more twice since the 2013 season.
Florida is obviously a more successful program in the big picture than Utah is, but the Gators lost 5 SEC games (and two other games) last season and 6 the season before, going 6-7 overall both seasons. Utah went 10-4 in each of the last two seasons, winning the Pac-12 both years. I know Florida beat Utah anyway last year, but you can’t expect the SEC to win every game like that.
LSU-Florida St. was the only game of the three that was an apples-to-apples comparison.
It is interesting that the Pac-12 is disintegrating at the same the conference had the most successful Week 1; but other than Colorado, nothing is too impressive based on recent seasons.
I considered ranking Purdue in preseason, and Fresno St. beat the Boilermakers on the road. I thought it was good to make sure one team from outside of the major conferences (and Notre Dame) was included. I also considered Wyoming, which beat Texas Tech; but the Cowboys rarely sustain their early-season successes whereas Fresno St. is often one of the top teams in the Mountain West. I also take overtime wins with more of a grain of salt.
I know Georgia is the defending champion, but I need more continuity if I’m going to consider them the #1 team going into next season. Amost everyone knows the quarterback will be different, but the offensive coordinator is gone and so are most of the targets and running backs. They might gel by the end of the season, but I think preseason rankings shouldn’t just be guesses as to which programs have been good enough in recent years to probably finish near the top.
Georgia and Ohio St. were arguably the two best teams last season and provided the historic moment above, where the deciding kick in the semifinal was kicked by Ohio St.’s Noah Ruggles in 2022 and landed in 2023. If you have amnesia, it missed and Georgia won, 42-41, before defeating TCU in a blowout for the national championship.
Ryan Day is still at Ohio St. though. The Buckeyes will also have a new quarterback, but I trust Day to have whoever it is ready right away more than I trust (old and) new Georgia OC Mike Bobo. Day might even have backups who can win Heismans at other schools. I also think the Buckeyes have better continuity in the roster. I hope for their sake they have a kicker who’s a little better from 50 yards, but that’s what separated them from a relatively easy pick to stay #1 going into the season.
I’ll stay in the Big Ten for #3 Michigan. It’s a weird situation where the Wolverines were top five the last two seasons and Alabama was not.
Michigan’s resurgence is mostly based on defense, and the good thing about that is it’s not centered around one player. They seem to be solid everywhere but linebacker.
On offense, Big Blue does have a returning QB and players to block for him, so expect another quality game against the Buckeyes. I have been a little less impressed with Michigan’s consistency though, so this is why I couldn’t justify putting them higher.
While I’m pretty confident the winner of Michigan and Ohio St. will be the team to beat in the Big Ten (no offense to Penn St., who has a habit of being really good one year but mediocre the next) if not the entirety of college football, I don’t feel the same way about the SEC. Of course I’d be surprised if anyone other than Georgia won the East, but I don’t have a strong feeling about the West.
LSU certainly has the talent to do so. Somehow the Tigers managed to pull it off last year even though Brian Kelly basically took over a JV team that was embarrassed in the bowl in January 2022. I don’t think LSU was actually the better team overall last season though. They were the day of the Alabama game, but they definitely were not in the first week against Florida St. or the last (regularly-scheduled) week against Texas A&M.
I don’t think this was the actual play, but Alabama LB Henry To’o To’o was not able to contain QB Jayden Daniels in Baton Rouge last season. Daniels scored in overtime in this fashion before completing a pass to Mason Taylor to the same corner of the field for the two-point conversion in the 32-31 LSU win.
Like the change of fortune I expect for Ohio St. and Georgia, my instinct is to reverse the order here and give the nod to the Tide. I am skeptical this will be the first time that there will be back-to-back failures by Alabama to either win the SEC West or the national championship under Saban or the first back-to-back divisional wins by LSU ever. LSU also hasn’t won three of five against Alabama since 2007-2011.
I think Kelly has things headed in the right direction, but I still think there will be growing pains before the Tigers are in a playoff position. Of course I hope I’m wrong.
I’m not saying that the playoff will be only two conferences, but I think these will at least be the best 4 teams before the Ohio St.-Michigan game (and including LSU, the best 5 before the LSU-Bama game). I don’t feel strongly about any candidate outside of those two conferences. There are several teams that could be this year’s TCU (maybe not as big of a surprise, but someone from outside the SEC and Big Ten whose record is too good to pass up), but it’s hard to be confident in any one of them.
A lot of people have USC as the top team outside of those two conferences, but I think the main reason (other than hype) the Trojans were so high at points last season was the overall lack of competition. I recognize they lost to Tulane in flukey circumstances, but it was about time for someone other than Utah to expose their weaknesses. I don’t see USC beating any of the five teams I’ve mentioned.
One that I could see as more likely to win the necessary big games to make a Playoff is Clemson. If another one-point game had gone differently, they probably would have done so last season.
On offense, all the skill players should be improved, and it seems the OC position will be upgraded. Broyles Award winner Garrett Riley of the aforementioned Horned Frogs takes over that job. There may be some issues with depth, but the Tigers also have a talented defense. It might not be enough to contain a playoff offense, but it may be enough to get them there. Most playoff games are won by the more efficient offense anyway.
The USC defense has a lot to prove, but I apply a similar analysis to the Trojans. If things go well, it may be hard to turn them down for a Playoff spot. I think Dabo has shown more ability to do something once there than Lincoln Riley has. Like with Brian Kelly, I’m a little skeptical that all of the cultural problems will be gone in Riley’s second season.
Clemson RB Phil Mafah did not get around the end (Jordan Burch, in this case) quite as easily against South Carolina in Clemson last season. In hindsight, this game is probably what kept the Tigers from a playoff position. South Carolina won, 31-30, ending a 7-game losing streak in the series.
So I think those are the main Playoff contenders at the moment.
I did want to note that Washington will probably be lower on the list than they are in some other places since they had a major injury to Cam Davis, who would probably have been the star running back in the Pac-12.
Speaking of the Pac-12, Utah is another team to watch, but my concern would be they peaked last year and may not have the staying power of my top 7.
I think it makes some sense in preseason to give the benefit of the doubt to programs that have been the most successful of late, but I don’t agree with treating teams that way just for being good last year.
There could be a team out of left field again that makes or at least competes for a playoff spot, but I’m not going to go into detail about any of the others on the list below. It’s just going to be snap judgments based on last year’s results and known quantities who are returning.
Ole Miss (who entered the bowls at #26) ended up being the worst team on my list going into the bowls last season that did not win its bowl game, so that gives you an idea of how seriously I tend to take predictions of miraculous transformations from December of one year to September of the next.
Pitt and Texas Tech were too far out to make the final top 25 last season (see below) despite quality bowl wins, but they were impressive enough and seem to have enough coming back to make the top 25 now. The only teams I dropped out to make room for them and Ole Miss were the Group of 5 teams who all happened to start with T. Boise St. seemed most likely to maintain its success, so I did leave the Broncos in.
I did complete my top 25 before the Florida/Utah game, but I didn’t want to just rush out a low-quality blog. I didn’t complete it before Notre Dame/Navy or USC/San Jose St., but those did not affect my rankings. I didn’t consider Florida because they didn’t finish in the top 50 of my last ratings anyway. That was my cutoff to be considered.
I never did a final top 25 for last year, but you can figure out what it was below. The teams I had as #26 to #31 and #33 to #35 going into the bowls all lost their bowl games, so there weren’t any changes to the teams that made up the top 25 after the bowls, just the order.
Rank
Team
Last
1
Ohio St.
2
2
Georgia
1
3
Michigan
3
4
Alabama
6
5
LSU
10
6
Clemson
8
7
Southern CA
11
8
Penn St.
7
9
Utah
13
10
Texas
18
11
Florida St.
19
12
Tennessee
5
13
Notre Dame
22
14
Ole Miss
—
15
Oregon
14
16
UCLA
25
17
TCU
4
18
Kansas St.
12
19
S Carolina
24
20
Oregon St.
16
21
Washington
17
22
Boise St.
21
23
Mississippi St.
23
24
Pittsburgh
—
25
Texas Tech
—
Out of Top 25: (9) Tulane, (15) Troy, (20) TX San Antonio
The Bayou Blogger 
Alabama, College Football, Georgia, Kansas, Michigan, Ohio St., Okl, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, SEC, Texas, USC, Washington St.
Week 4 Top 25
In College Football, Rankings, Rankings Commentary on September 29, 2023 at 11:33 AMThis was another vacation week, but I’ll start getting things back to normal in the coming week. This is still all in my mind and not based on my formula at all, but it’s meant to be at least somewhat of an estimate. If you didn’t play a good team last week and someone lower than you did, you might fall. Just to make up numbers, let’s say you had 20 points and the team after you had 19 last week. If that team got a quality win worth 3 and you got a mediocre win worth 1, you fall below that team. I don’t care how good you looked beating a winless team or an FCS team or whatever, you’re not entitled to keep your spot. I’m also allowed to change my mind about how good an opponent earlier in the year was. I know these are things most pollsters don’t do; but if I thought most did a good job, I wouldn’t have started doing my own top 25 28 years ago. However, since this was slightly rushed, there probably were a couple of cases where I just left teams about where they were by default and wouldn’t have with closer analysis.
Also, if you lose a game I fully expected you to lose to a higher-ranked team, I’m not inclined to lower you too much. An exception to that is if it’s a 2-loss team. A team that has two losses right now could end up being one of the best teams, but it’s going to take a while to recover a rating, so I don’t put teams like that in the top 25 right now.