Week 8 Top 25 + LSU Update

I think this is the last week that I’ll add a subjective component. I might still move some teams a few spots, but it will be starting with the list the computer ratings give me instead of making some sort of ranking average first.

As for this week, after adding three parts computer rankings to one part subjective rankings, I then moved teams up to three spots.

Ohio St. was one of the few teams that I moved the full three spots. The Buckeyes play computer #17 Wisconsin next week while the Seminoles play Wake Forest (#74) and the Sooners play Kansas (#46). If the Badgers win, there will be a new #1 regardless. The other team Ohio St. skipped over was Michigan, who’s off next week. So there was really no other good option to select as #1 when considering the next opponent.

The Ohio St. defense forces a quick pass from Penn St. quarterback Drew Allar, who only completed 18 of 42 passes for 191 yards. The Nittany Lions arguably fared even worse in rushing, with an average of less than 2 yards per rush.

For future reference, Michigan does not play Wisconsin or Iowa this season (and also didn’t have an opponent like Notre Dame out of conference), so I would be strongly disinclined to move them ahead of Ohio St. without a loss by the Buckeyes. Ohio St. already beat the other three teams remaining on the Wolverines’ schedule (Purdue, Penn St., and Maryland).

The computer so happened to follow the following win chain. Oklahoma beat Texas, who beat Alabama, who beat Ole Miss, who beat LSU. I’m not promising to keep the teams in that order in the future; but for now it still fits the parameters I set out above, so I don’t see why not.

If you’re wondering why I didn’t similarly put Oregon St. ahead of Utah for beating the Utes, consider that Utah’s only loss is to a 1-loss top-10 team and Oregon St.’s loss is to a 3-loss team who is no longer in my top 30. Also consider that Utah beat a top-40 team out of conference and none of Oregon St.’s non-conference opponents are in the top 90.

Missouri’s going back ahead of LSU is simpler to boil down. Mizzou has one fewer loss and a couple of decent non-conference wins (Kansas St. and Memphis). LSU may end up with one decent non-conference win in Georgia St., but that’s not for a few weeks.

Despite having lost to Washington in the same stadium where Arizona St. should have beaten the Huskies, I actually was kinder to Oregon than the computer was. My kindness just doesn’t go as far as it did last week. The Ducks are still in need of some quality wins though. Colorado isn’t as good of a win as it appeared to be a month ago; and Oregon was the third team to beat Washington St., so that’s hardly a noteworthy achievement either. The Ducks still play Utah, USC, Oregon St., and a potential Pac-12 title game, which would probably be a rematch with either one of those or with Washington.

Speaking of which, the computer doesn’t factor in how ugly a win is, but ugly wins over bad opponents don’t get rewarded much by me. The computer put the Huskies #8, and I just let that be their final spot. UW had zero offensive touchdowns and took the lead when Arizona St. threw a “pick 6” on fourth down from the Washington 12. Had the Sun Devils kicked the field goal to take a 10-6 lead, I have little doubt that they would have won since the Huskies only managed a field goal the rest of the way and were still very much motivated to put the game away with a touchdown. Arizona St. still has no wins over FBS opponents.

I had no choice under the rules at the beginning but to rank Liberty and Air Force. The Flames have a weak remaining schedule though. They may get passed up by Air Force eventually even if they don’t lose.

Watch the “honorable mention” list. All three of the newly-ranked teams were on that list last week, which indicates the ratings are becoming a little less volatile.

LSU-specific Updates

You can expect LSU to fall further next week given the bye, similarly to how Georgia fell this week. Alabama is actually the computer #4 right now, so their bye will help the computers to make more sense. Obviously if LSU were to win, they could expect a pretty good move upward, but a loss following Army and a bye could see the Tigers fall out of the top 25 altogether.

This has no bearing on the rankings, but to give a couple of thoughts about the game… Given some of the mistakes Army made, LSU got some extra possessions, so the high point total by the LSU offense doesn’t mean much to me.

The defense is graded more on a curb, so I do give them some credit for the shutout. I’m still not sure they would have shut out a better-run option attack, particularly under the old rules that allowed such schemes to utilize more effective blocking downfield blocking, but I’ll take it.

This is after having a good second half against Missouri and a good game against Auburn. LSU only held Auburn to a few points less than Georgia and Ole Miss did, but 8 of the 18 points were given up after LSU led 34-10 going into the fourth quarter. Neither the Georgia nor the Ole Miss defenses had time to relax against Auburn since both finished as one-score games.

To elaborate on the Missouri game, LSU’s best win so far, the average Power-5 opponent who’s played Missouri gives up 17.5 points per half and LSU gave up only 14 in the second half. The first half (25 points) was bad, but Kelly sort of indicated it may have been related to play calls more than preparation. You can’t implement and practice an entire new game plan at halftime, so that makes some sense. It seemed like before that point the defense was scared to death a receiver might get behind them (even though it happened sometimes anyway); but now that fear is reduced, and the aim is more to hassle and distract the quarterback enough that he might not be able to get the ball to such a receiver anyway.

While I’m more excited by the recent progress by the defense, I wanted to give Brian Thomas, Jr., credit for making his three receptions count. He accounted for 122 yards and two touchdowns against Army, all in the first half. LSU had its 7th consecutive game with over 500 yards of total offense (a first in school history; second-best was the 2019 team with 5 in a row), while the Black Knights were held to fewer than 200 total yards. LSU also won the turnover battle, 4-0.

If the defense continues to hold teams below their average and the offense keeps scoring like this (not against Army per se, but it’s been consistent across a variety of defenses), LSU will be hard to beat. As Kelly referenced in one of the press conferences, no one is confusing them with the 1985 Bears; but that’s not remotely necessary. It’s not like 2012 when we scored 24 points or fewer in 40% of our wins. (It would have been 50% if it weren’t for an Alabama screen pass and a Clemson field goal in the final moments of those respective games.)

Top 25

Rank	Team	Last
1	Ohio St.	1
2	Florida St.	4
3	Oklahoma	2
4	Michigan	3
5	Texas	8
6	Alabama	9
7	Ole Miss	12
8	Washington	5
9	Utah	17
10	Penn St.	6
11	Missouri	16
12	Georgia	7
13	James Madison	21
14	Oregon St.	20
15	Notre Dame	14
16	LSU	13
17	Oregon	15
18	Iowa	11
19	N Carolina	10
20	Liberty	—
21	Wisconsin	—
22	Louisville	23
23	Southern CA	19
24	Air Force	—
25	UCLA	24

Out of Top 25: (18), Duke, (22) Tennessee, (25) Washington St.

Honorable mention: Georgia St., Kansas St., Tulane, Duke, and Oklahoma St.

Week 7 Top 25 2023

I’m still moving toward my completely objective top 25; but if you just want to know what the computer says, go here.  Last week, it was less than 1/3 objective.  Today, it’s roughly half.  The initial list I made was 60% objective, but I still allowed myself to move teams by up to 5 spots after that.  The only exception was Ohio St., whom I moved six spots.  There is a good chance the Buckeyes will be near #1 on their own merit next week anyway (if they beat Penn St. of course).

This might be the last week I can have Georgia ahead of all the one-loss teams though.  Texas has the #3 schedule, and Georgia has one of the worst in FBS.  Adding a bye week doesn’t help.  The Bulldogs have a gauntlet after that (three games against ranked teams, one on the road, and two other good teams away from home), so they’re not pulling the wool over anyone’s eyes to get back to the Playoff; but this is meant to be a snapshot.  They should not be in the top four or even the top eight if the season ended now.  Not only was Vanderbilt a weak opponent, but all of the Bulldogs’ best three opponents so far (Kentucky, South Carolina, and Auburn) lost to teams the Bulldogs have not yet played or will not play.

Just like last week though, most teams did not move more than a couple of spots from the improvised formula.  There may still be some volatility in the coming weeks because for many teams next week’s result will still make up 1/6 of their FBS opponents, so it counts for about twice as much as a game does at the end of the year.  Also, I’m going to continue to give myself less power to smooth out any transitions up or down the rankings.

The top 9 should make a lot of sense based on last week.

Iowa is exactly where the formula put them.  If Penn St. loses, the Hawkeyes may fall a spot or two, but I think this is fair for right now.  North Carolina is undefeated and has played a significantly better schedule than Georgia has, so I thought that spot was good for them.

Louisville followed up on the win over Notre Dame with a loss to Pitt, so this allowed LSU to move ahead of the Irish despite having a much less impressive win.  The only loss by either of the two teams who beat LSU was to Alabama, so LSU’s two losses look much more excusable right now.  Pitt already had four losses and had no FBS wins going into last week.  They had a significant drop-off from last season.  Former Pitt (and USC) quarterback Kedon Slovis going to BYU didn’t seem to do either side any good.

Michael Penix, Jr., of Washington prepares to attempt a pass against the Oregon Ducks in Seattle on Saturday. While both teams did have some success on the ground, the anticipated quarterback battle largely delivered. Although Penix threw for fewer yards and a lower completion percentage and threw the game’s only interception, he made up for it by throwing for two more touchdowns and about half a yard more per attempt than Oregon’s Bo Nix threw.

Oregon is still a good team despite the setback in Seattle.  Their loss is similarly excusable to LSU’s losses, but there just isn’t a quality win like LSU and Notre Dame have.  Missouri also only has one loss, but obviously I think hosting LSU is a step down from traveling to Washington right now.

Five of the remaining nine teams in my top 25 are in the Pac-12.  It took me a while to sort them.  I think it’s easier to explain in reverse order.  Despite two losses in a row, Washington St. deserved to stay ranked because they beat Wisconsin, the team I would otherwise have put #25.  Colorado St. isn’t bad for a second-best out-of-conference win either.   

I don’t know why Wazzu lost to Arizona so badly, but margin of victory (or loss in this case) isn’t a big concern for me going forward.  The week before, the Cougars lost to UCLA, so I put the Bruins higher.  Oregon St. beat UCLA, and I think they only ended up losing to Washington St. because the game was in Pullman.  Also, it’s a singular loss.  The Beavers also beat Utah, so I think putting them between Washington St. and Utah made sense.

USC lost, but it was out of conference to Notre Dame, so I don’t have a problem with leaving the Trojans ahead of Oregon St., UCLA, and Washington St.  You could argue about Utah, but it helps that the Utes beat Florida, whom I have #32 right now.  Baylor isn’t having the best season, but going to Waco is still a strong second-best out-of-conference game.  I don’t think USC has beaten anyone nearly as good as Florida.  The Utes are 1-1 against the rest of the top 25 (win over UCLA, loss to Oregon St… another reason the Beavers are ahead of the Bruins), which is of course better than 0-1.

I squeezed Duke ahead of USC because they played Notre Dame closer and also because Clemson is creeping their way back toward the top 25 like Florida is.

I wasn’t blown away by the fact that Tennessee beat Texas A&M at home, but I like the way that they were able to grind out a low-scoring win and never seemed panicky or particularly at risk of losing.  There were times last year when the Volunteers were out of their element when a defense was able to slow them down.  I’m seeing some maturity and consistency that I’m not seeing from teams that are lower; and I mentioned Florida vis-a-vis Utah, so I’m more forgiving of that loss than the combinations of two losses below or the singular loss to Pitt.

I moved James Madison as far down as I could, so I don’t think the Dukes would beat the Volunteers on a neutral field right now; but this is a normal consequence of the computer formula.  I could be wrong though.  I would have sworn all last year that Tulane wouldn’t have beaten USC on a neutral field, for instance.  I have Tulane #31, by the way, between the five honorable mentions and Florida.  Kansas St. is right after Florida, which explains in part why Missouri is still as high as they are.  Kentucky isn’t a bad #2 win for a one-loss team either.

Top 25

Rank	Team	Last
1	Ohio St.	1
2	Oklahoma	3
3	Michigan	2
4	Florida St.	5
5	Washington	8
6	Penn St.	6
7	Georgia	4
8	Texas	7
9	Alabama	9
10	N Carolina	11
11	Iowa	19
12	Ole Miss	13
13	LSU	18
14	Notre Dame	15
15	Oregon	10
16	Missouri	25
17	Utah	17
18	Duke	21
19	Southern CA	14
20	Oregon St.	23
21	James Madison	—
22	Tennessee	—
23	Louisville	12
24	UCLA	22
25	Washington St.	16

Out of Top 25: (20) Kentucky, (24) Wisconsin

Honorable mention: Liberty, Air Force, Wisconsin, Troy, Clemson

2022 Ratings Archive

This is just for housekeeping purposes to make room for the weekly computer ratings that I’m in the process of beginning, so I’m sorry if any subscribers got their hopes up for an actual blog today. Every year I assemble the previous year’s computer ratings into a blog post to add to the general ratings page (where I have now included the first computer rating, though I have not adopted it at my personal top 25). The latest computer rating can be located at any time by clicking the “Knights’ Ratings” heading above. I never got around to publishing the full final ratings for last year, but I did complete the final top 25 in preparation for the first rankings for this year.

12/04/2022

Rank	Team	Unweighted	Rank	Weighted	Rank	Total
1	Georgia	1.467486	1	39.767486	1	100.000000
2	Michigan	1.277718	2	25.577718	8	91.189279
3	TCU	1.115859	3	24.257204	11	85.740527
4	Ohio St.	1.006056	4	20.538678	15	81.503272
5	Southern CA	0.941728	6	29.434368	2	81.142942
6	Tennessee	0.908412	7	23.192901	12	78.877484
7	Clemson	0.953643	5	14.153027	22	78.597141
8	Alabama	0.882166	8	22.743257	13	77.948838
9	Kansas St.	0.847221	9	26.131778	7	77.476409
10	Utah	0.754370	13	29.100189	3	75.064676
11	Penn St.	0.822397	10	11.107334	17	73.821521
12	Tulane	0.774662	12	19.213364	32	73.800494
13	LSU	0.798850	11	3.958283	5	71.745958
14	Troy	0.665127	15	26.730966	55	71.674719
15	Texas	0.621924	17	27.669429	4	70.538970
16	Oregon	0.617364	19	26.260009	6	70.122502
17	Oregon St.	0.621299	18	24.703196	9	69.950507
18	TX San Anton’	0.702000	14	6.756842	44	69.102059
19	Florida St.	0.635297	16	13.335308	24	68.221470
20	Washington	0.600723	20	13.963309	23	67.232002
21	UCLA	0.544980	22	21.359746	14	66.859947
22	Boise St.	0.582930	21	9.249594	34	65.757562
23	S Carolina	0.512022	23	16.342323	18	64.840540
24	Notre Dame	0.460636	28	24.684201	10	64.789545
25	Mississippi St.	0.488595	25	15.340056	19	63.896481
26	Ole Miss	0.484908	26	14.385329	21	63.595181
27	S. Alabama	0.495104	24	11.728335	28	63.413306
28	N Carolina	0.473536	27	2.178145	61	60.890917
29	C. Florida	0.441547	29	6.816264	43	60.752857
30	N Carolina St.	0.410079	31	9.097199	36	60.179817
31	Fresno St.	0.427167	30	0.521584	46	59.109802
32	Coastal Car.	0.393508	32	6.289218	66	59.085024
33	Kentucky	0.389967	33	3.923988	25	58.584748
34	Cincinnati	0.337528	34	12.926776	56	58.542898
35	Purdue	0.336537	35	5.463950	51	57.122883
36	Louisville	0.297621	41	7.037069	42	56.175100
37	Pittsburgh	0.314902	38	3.251194	57	56.004376
38	Texas Tech	0.304358	39	4.266016	54	55.860369
39	Illinois	0.321274	37	0.638804	65	55.708308
40	Syracuse	0.278690	42	7.422968	40	55.641353
41	Jms Madison	0.333869	36	-3.345980	76	55.349034
42	Wake Forest	0.273016	43	6.718150	45	55.324181
43	Maryland	0.243528	45	11.523258	29	55.298358
44	Wash. St.	0.303536	40	-2.540688	16	54.682893
45	So. Methodist	0.240234	46	8.671840	37	54.646217
46	Air Force	0.175075	54	19.778305	72	54.529645
47	Oklahoma St.	0.212282	50	8.025078	38	53.625022
48	W. Kentucky	0.219847	49	5.498452	50	53.383695
49	Arkansas	0.267902	44	-3.508618	59	53.264739
50	Ohio	0.233552	47	2.581809	77	53.200316
51	Florida	0.134894	60	14.614171	20	52.403489
52	Houston	0.204894	51	1.183068	63	52.076777
53	Marshall	0.227199	48	-3.118626	73	51.968473
54	Minnesota	0.202890	52	0.442318	67	51.870492
55	East Carolina	0.193192	53	-0.349451	68	51.407484
56	Kansas	0.145850	57	6.119978	48	51.127478
57	Iowa	0.144702	58	6.186802	47	51.103440
58	Oklahoma	0.140814	59	4.963996	53	50.744323
59	BYU	0.171133	55	-3.964765	81	50.006580
60	Missouri	0.097018	62	7.723734	39	49.867270
61	Baylor	0.108909	61	5.001984	52	49.727434
62	Auburn	0.067364	67	11.508525	30	49.640633
63	Wisconsin	0.087505	63	5.773266	49	49.188157
64	Duke	0.151141	56	-6.679134	88	48.844708
65	Toledo	0.073962	66	-3.187964	74	47.036249
66	Michigan St.	-0.022141	73	11.804918	27	46.824303
67	Vanderbilt	0.080888	64	-8.910271	33	46.279470
68	Wyoming	-0.023971	74	9.268295	92	46.162015
69	San Diego St.	0.046440	69	-3.594176	78	46.074919
70	San Jose St.	0.075547	65	-9.480663	95	45.881284
71	Southern MS	0.005295	71	2.280131	60	45.879814
72	Arizona	-0.054068	80	12.208778	26	45.876824
73	North Texas	0.058861	68	-11.556960	75	44.973611
74	Liberty	0.009805	70	-3.204512	99	44.947773
75	Memphis	-0.015705	72	-5.543952	86	43.706451
76	La. Lafayette	-0.041779	77	-3.807475	80	43.202205
77	West Virginia	-0.070149	83	0.927822	64	43.198922
78	Ala. B’ham	-0.051392	78	-5.463270	85	42.576349
79	Utah St.	-0.040473	76	-7.759915	91	42.486732
80	Bowling Grn	-0.030893	75	-9.600915	96	42.441483
81	Middle Ten.	-0.064200	81	-6.569318	87	41.953263
82	Texas A&M	-0.083841	85	-4.144471	82	41.787431
83	App. St.	-0.068684	82	-7.457817	90	41.639066
84	Ga. Southern	-0.053859	79	-14.035524	101	40.854481
85	E. Michigan	-0.070581	84	-11.500855	98	40.803431
86	Iowa St.	-0.127746	86	-2.156483	71	40.759007
87	Connecticut	-0.139713	87	-6.687493	89	39.506608
88	U. Miami	-0.167537	89	-5.258466	83	38.887301
89	Indiana	-0.204367	93	-0.907259	70	38.538837
90	Buffalo	-0.146024	88	-16.272201	105	37.467385
91	Kent St.	-0.191411	91	-9.025616	93	37.399062
92	Georgia Tech	-0.271597	97	2.612141	58	37.055141
93	Stanford	-0.176437	90	-17.196964	31	36.507003
94	Navy	-0.340242	100	11.250770	108	36.313905
95	Tulsa	-0.233480	96	-11.015011	97	35.667433
96	Miami U.	-0.212941	94	-15.801490	104	35.409512
97	Fla. Atlantic	-0.201108	92	-18.324879	110	35.305809
98	Cal (Berkeley)	-0.363543	102	7.112294	41	34.965986
99	Virginia	-0.227852	95	-17.400180	109	34.624527
100	Rice	-0.287431	98	-9.425079	94	34.240236
101	Rutgers	-0.384990	104	-0.584359	69	32.802675
102	La. Monroe	-0.372140	103	-3.772946	79	32.604142
103	Army	-0.422970	108	-5.440811	84	30.652906
104	Arizona St.	-0.476896	112	1.604488	62	30.271905
105	W. Michigan	-0.338648	99	-23.885640	120	29.825185
106	Ball St.	-0.357287	101	-23.149040	102	29.412283
107	Georgia St.	-0.409165	106	-14.227582	119	29.368016
108	Nebraska	-0.409618	107	-16.899175	107	28.885807
109	UNLV	-0.398504	105	-22.177078	117	28.231185
110	UTEP	-0.427403	109	-19.026198	111	27.907313
111	Boston Coll	-0.474441	111	-13.286336	100	27.497281
112	C. Michigan	-0.453460	110	-19.209588	112	27.035737
113	Colorado	-0.654748	121	9.198656	35	26.018049
114	Colorado St.	-0.511809	114	-20.105791	113	24.990978
115	Texas St.	-0.506130	113	-21.293908	115	24.945593
116	Virginia Tech	-0.524918	115	-20.119085	114	24.567640
117	New Mex. St.	-0.533034	116	-21.638574	116	24.015938
118	La. Tech	-0.595162	118	-16.686445	106	22.970570
119	Arkansas St.	-0.613742	119	-15.420299	103	22.616760
120	Old Dominion	-0.544987	117	-28.351779	125	22.345812
121	Florida Int’l	-0.670287	122	-22.840577	118	19.379744
122	Charlotte	-0.636218	120	-30.253564	128	19.052855
123	Hawaii	-0.712880	123	-25.355557	122	17.530579
124	Temple	-0.741064	124	-30.055685	127	15.725214
125	New Mexico	-0.773969	125	-27.954284	124	15.071632
126	Northwestern	-0.794561	128	-24.577430	121	15.057686
127	Akron	-0.788167	127	-28.570989	126	14.497677
128	N. Illinois	-0.787745	126	-32.752086	129	13.710039
129	South Florida	-0.852483	129	-27.811801	123	12.578617
130	Nevada Reno	-0.867991	130	-34.853801	130	10.731365
131	Massachusetts	-1.175749	131	-39.301378	131	0.000000

12/04/2022 Conferences

1	SEC	62.270597
2	Big XII	57.827488
3	Pac-12	54.722675
4	Big Ten	52.030266
5	ACC	50.181369
6	AAC	45.042749
7	Sun Belt	43.241221
8	MWC	38.085806
9	CUSA	37.363757
10	Independents	36.254959
11	MAC	34.061501

11/27/2022

Rank	Team	Unweighted	Rank	Weighted	Rank	Total
1	Georgia	1.312403	1	30.812403	1	100.000000
2	Michigan	1.149896	2	23.549896	6	92.535665
3	TCU	1.148479	3	16.948479	16	90.276196
4	Southern CA	0.974747	5	25.744169	4	87.854277
5	Ohio St.	0.992622	4	19.431626	13	86.288515
6	Tennessee	0.913346	6	22.749100	10	84.949744
7	Alabama	0.884287	7	17.820147	15	82.396545
8	Penn St.	0.781915	9	18.340502	14	79.404523
9	Clemson	0.818713	8	12.832769	24	78.694215
10	LSU	0.702671	10	23.419597	7	78.657985
11	Oregon St.	0.619985	16	30.386364	2	78.438559
12	Texas	0.609300	17	26.186449	3	76.698408
13	Oregon	0.607584	18	24.934535	5	76.225150
14	Utah	0.583171	21	22.908063	9	74.789830
15	Kansas St.	0.654314	12	12.433192	26	73.474782
16	UCLA	0.533669	22	23.213119	8	73.360986
17	Tulane	0.678248	11	9.876109	35	73.356888
18	Florida St.	0.639667	15	12.001986	28	72.876997
19	Boise St.	0.639987	14	11.416162	30	72.690255
20	Washington	0.597787	20	14.802428	18	72.521449
21	Notre Dame	0.462478	30	21.567620	12	70.606567
22	Troy	0.652180	13	3.237916	57	70.322551
23	S Carolina	0.505432	24	12.971494	23	69.050114
24	Mississippi St.	0.489998	25	13.812945	20	68.855113
25	TX San Anton’	0.602329	19	2.493095	61	68.530525
26	S. Alabama	0.488854	26	12.662107	25	68.433485
27	Ole Miss	0.477522	28	13.349629	22	68.313682
28	C. Florida	0.479742	27	5.183245	48	65.641463
29	N Carolina	0.517742	23	-0.059660	69	65.057233
30	N Carolina St.	0.411306	31	8.353730	37	64.588652
31	Kentucky	0.334550	34	12.108557	27	63.474612
32	Coastal Car.	0.470542	29	-1.068334	73	63.258637
33	Cincinnati	0.389867	32	4.631655	51	62.676229
34	Purdue	0.377916	33	3.787616	54	62.023274
35	Wash. St.	0.172414	55	21.749026	11	61.694944
36	Fresno St.	0.248585	44	11.967799	29	60.768249
37	Louisville	0.300661	40	5.882383	45	60.336638
38	Pittsburgh	0.318445	38	3.811226	52	60.191579
39	Texas Tech	0.300599	41	4.873227	49	59.995999
40	Ohio	0.331618	36	1.794124	64	59.922055
41	Syracuse	0.279187	42	6.401360	43	59.846556
42	Maryland	0.237577	46	10.185304	34	59.829477
43	Air Force	0.305364	39	3.803955	53	59.784531
44	Wake Forest	0.273555	43	5.764951	46	59.458738
45	So. Methodist	0.241234	45	8.335527	38	59.321739
46	Illinois	0.322401	37	0.805826	66	59.305268
47	Jms Madison	0.334217	35	-2.529568	79	58.551304
48	W. Kentucky	0.217279	49	7.273066	40	58.224154
49	Florida	0.126526	60	13.561467	21	57.527509
50	Arkansas	0.235193	47	2.573362	59	57.200909
51	BYU	0.183689	54	7.204787	41	57.162189
52	Oklahoma St.	0.209379	50	3.760579	55	56.800878
53	Houston	0.198588	52	2.364112	62	55.998381
54	Minnesota	0.201730	51	1.827590	63	55.915482
55	Marshall	0.229668	48	-1.364472	75	55.708342
56	Iowa	0.146294	57	6.184064	44	55.662881
57	East Carolina	0.195551	53	0.747635	68	55.361885
58	Auburn	0.066185	66	10.964300	31	54.789272
59	Missouri	0.089630	62	7.064642	42	54.205665
60	Kansas	0.143307	58	0.922901	65	53.804650
61	Wisconsin	0.086965	63	5.640805	47	53.645333
62	Oklahoma	0.138534	59	0.798681	67	53.615328
63	Arizona	-0.059377	81	15.248656	17	52.343275
64	Baylor	0.105650	61	-0.673130	71	52.104158
65	Michigan St.	-0.024006	72	10.943109	32	51.992318
66	Duke	0.153826	56	-5.664661	89	51.919039
67	San Diego St.	0.031179	69	2.503368	60	50.866689
68	Vanderbilt	-0.027169	73	7.806811	39	50.841827
69	Wyoming	0.080916	64	-3.306929	80	50.455054
70	Southern MS	-0.006585	70	3.213180	58	49.936775
71	North Texas	0.055762	68	-4.298342	86	49.344243
72	Georgia Tech	-0.040300	75	3.713200	56	49.061687
73	San Jose St.	0.070102	65	-8.450895	96	48.394065
74	Liberty	0.057212	67	-9.579392	99	47.616601
75	Utah St.	-0.029605	74	-1.928843	77	47.498854
76	Memphis	-0.015047	71	-3.835908	84	47.309114
77	La. Lafayette	-0.045873	77	-2.298231	78	46.871668
78	Ala. B’ham	-0.046317	78	-3.913088	85	46.315954
79	Toledo	-0.050727	79	-3.691648	83	46.253851
80	West Virginia	-0.071666	83	-3.464771	81	45.682299
81	Texas A&M	-0.077366	85	-3.518956	82	45.487798
82	Middle Ten.	-0.066448	82	-4.586080	87	45.467366
83	Bowling Green	-0.045500	76	-7.521174	93	45.130233
84	App. St.	-0.076562	84	-5.468356	88	44.858373
85	Iowa St.	-0.124328	87	-1.450639	76	44.729325
86	E. Michigan	-0.079933	86	-9.505997	98	43.398951
87	Ga. Southern	-0.053120	80	-12.012277	101	43.387156
88	Stanford	-0.341861	100	14.130332	19	43.229880
89	Connecticut	-0.149225	88	-6.084376	91	42.403937
90	Indiana	-0.206493	94	-0.860235	72	42.385879
91	Army	-0.203645	92	-1.246921	74	42.344183
92	U. Miami	-0.166327	90	-5.703296	90	42.002830
93	Cal (Berkeley)	-0.363602	103	9.643907	36	41.051580
94	Kent St.	-0.204104	93	-7.790622	95	40.133716
95	Tulsa	-0.236916	98	-8.965777	97	38.724327
96	Navy	-0.163195	89	-15.780030	111	38.717649
97	Rice	-0.285908	99	-6.452113	92	38.052528
98	Fla. Atlantic	-0.190099	91	-15.589664	110	37.949315
99	Miami U.	-0.216566	96	-13.804876	105	37.729652
100	Buffalo	-0.209029	95	-15.015311	107	37.556537
101	Virginia	-0.220216	97	-15.286791	108	37.119381
102	Rutgers	-0.386743	105	-0.643708	70	36.882914
103	Arizona St.	-0.482551	112	4.833913	50	35.757753
104	La. Monroe	-0.379311	104	-7.751916	94	34.727049
105	Colorado	-0.654736	121	10.745849	33	32.415850
106	UTEP	-0.419150	109	-11.497957	100	32.237426
107	Ball St.	-0.417110	108	-12.831844	102	31.852849
108	W. Michigan	-0.346079	101	-21.171729	121	31.250889
109	Nebraska	-0.409417	107	-15.568934	109	31.172160
110	Georgia St.	-0.356714	102	-20.947413	120	30.997213
111	Boston College	-0.476824	111	-12.929460	103	29.972943
112	UNLV	-0.403032	106	-20.103198	118	29.847815
113	C. Michigan	-0.471932	110	-16.804813	113	28.823585
114	Colorado St.	-0.510042	113	-13.439257	104	28.774309
115	Virginia Tech	-0.520545	114	-17.378231	114	27.127398
116	Texas St.	-0.521057	115	-18.986946	115	26.571626
117	New Mex. St.	-0.550384	117	-19.545473	116	25.477000
118	La. Tech	-0.599700	118	-16.103801	112	25.106637
119	Arkansas St.	-0.621238	119	-14.133090	106	25.101832
120	Old Dominion	-0.540530	116	-25.841863	126	23.668524
121	Florida Int’l	-0.677637	122	-19.756928	117	21.469730
122	Charlotte	-0.640188	120	-27.162747	128	20.142476
123	Akron	-0.713902	123	-22.429246	123	19.451010
124	Hawaii	-0.725590	124	-23.728310	124	18.653488
125	New Mexico	-0.777439	126	-20.244524	119	18.218923
126	Northwestern	-0.792856	127	-22.178543	122	17.092894
127	Temple	-0.742537	125	-27.091410	127	17.000499
128	N. Illinois	-0.796412	128	-29.329668	130	14.582746
129	South Florida	-0.855092	129	-25.033860	125	14.209422
130	Nevada Reno	-0.879465	130	-27.344075	129	12.680115
131	Massachusetts	-1.202006	131	-35.397585	131	0.000000

11/27/2022 Conferences

1	SEC	66.839341
2	Pac-12	60.806961
3	Big XII	60.718202
4	Big Ten	56.009756
5	ACC	54.160992
6	AAC	48.028872
7	Sun Belt	45.885324
8	MWC	41.552696
9	Independents	40.801497
10	CUSA	40.258214
11	MAC	36.340506

11/20/2022

Rank	Team	Unweighted	Rank	Weighted	Rank	Total
1	Georgia	1.207585	1	25.007585	3	100.000000
2	Ohio St.	1.095223	2	25.395223	2	96.417290
3	TCU	1.072256	3	20.872256	8	94.308727
4	Michigan	0.970057	4	19.770057	9	90.615002
5	Clemson	0.901038	5	22.613312	6	89.193314
6	LSU	0.814496	8	26.784531	1	87.591979
7	Southern Calif.	0.832168	6	22.362273	7	86.851229
8	Tennessee	0.802743	9	24.323924	4	86.469277
9	Alabama	0.817220	7	18.556082	10	85.220971
10	Penn St.	0.685801	10	17.383817	11	80.544455
11	Oregon	0.656195	11	17.018632	13	79.460708
12	Utah	0.548092	16	16.970206	14	75.887781
13	Florida St.	0.572641	14	13.860086	16	75.765778
14	Troy	0.588604	13	11.315518	18	75.530317
15	Notre Dame	0.547164	17	14.522489	15	75.125252
16	Oregon St.	0.462128	27	23.092142	5	74.888769
17	N Carolina	0.602433	12	6.055533	28	74.412562
18	Texas	0.516950	22	10.952958	19	73.063243
19	Ole Miss	0.530570	19	8.824706	22	72.875153
20	Tulane	0.531301	18	8.653592	24	72.848034
21	Kansas St.	0.553995	15	5.674820	30	72.704291
22	TX San Anton’	0.518274	21	5.710680	29	71.539150
23	UCLA	0.471542	26	10.401765	20	71.403703
24	Washington	0.491154	24	7.075450	27	71.054558
25	Coastal Car.	0.522670	20	3.526982	37	71.030858
26	S. Alabama	0.441166	28	12.118300	17	70.917127
27	Boise St.	0.511779	23	2.590178	43	70.392211
28	Cincinnati	0.416721	29	3.071090	39	67.406963
29	C. Florida	0.476344	25	-4.533085	64	67.095624
30	Mississippi St.	0.360477	31	7.588237	25	66.906377
31	Wake Forest	0.345863	32	5.489881	33	65.797836
32	Oklahoma St.	0.322101	34	7.124507	26	65.504476
33	Wash. St.	0.225473	42	17.050227	12	65.291960
34	Louisville	0.368611	30	-1.362278	57	64.497540
35	Purdue	0.321687	35	2.606352	42	64.139734
36	N Carolina St.	0.292068	39	5.641044	31	64.072248
37	S Carolina	0.323956	33	-1.012655	56	63.132176
38	Iowa	0.282530	40	3.345137	38	63.071709
39	Houston	0.301174	37	-0.653342	55	62.489710
40	Syracuse	0.249088	41	1.487175	47	61.415271
41	Texas Tech	0.223224	43	3.800634	35	61.255723
42	Arkansas	0.293021	38	-4.175839	62	61.167966
43	Pittsburgh	0.219471	44	2.785086	41	60.828502
44	Illinois	0.310247	36	-7.691055	74	60.683784
45	Fresno St.	0.130430	60	8.665690	23	59.656055
46	Ohio	0.207880	46	-0.180531	51	59.560101
47	Florida	0.155123	55	5.507505	32	59.524461
48	Kentucky	0.199163	48	0.579572	50	59.500465
49	BYU	0.165349	53	3.604673	36	59.292023
50	Oklahoma	0.181880	50	0.607227	49	58.939828
51	Auburn	0.095952	63	10.032906	21	58.929988
52	Air Force	0.174351	51	-0.547873	54	58.346568
53	Marshall	0.149891	58	0.970530	48	57.995475
54	Jms Madison	0.201088	47	-5.021014	67	57.889014
55	Kansas	0.209338	45	-6.751448	70	57.643108
56	Wisconsin	0.125410	61	2.012854	44	57.501331
57	Maryland	0.191733	49	-6.532142	69	57.129196
58	Liberty	0.169187	52	-4.624951	65	56.957359
59	San Diego St.	0.082312	65	4.110901	34	56.710073
60	S. Methodist	0.152467	57	-4.216112	63	56.529234
61	W. Kentucky	0.139845	59	-3.406316	60	56.355946
62	Minnesota	0.091637	64	-0.212492	52	55.724130
63	East Carolina	0.154835	56	-10.301319	79	54.787476
64	Duke	0.077590	66	-3.087030	58	54.402128
65	Vanderbilt	0.020672	69	2.978307	40	54.342354
66	Baylor	0.161957	54	-13.033600	87	54.204844
67	Wyoming	0.107352	62	-7.361533	72	54.103576
68	Georgia Tech	0.015118	71	1.904101	45	53.838307
69	Toledo	0.058629	67	-3.162591	59	53.755396
70	App. St.	0.000659	72	-0.368685	53	52.682681
71	Michigan St.	-0.004938	73	-4.970106	66	51.122435
72	Memphis	0.031858	68	-10.053640	76	50.813459
73	Missouri	-0.012054	74	-6.081144	68	50.555925
74	San Jose St.	0.015522	70	-11.923257	83	49.716626
75	Bowling Green	-0.018975	75	-10.493885	80	49.008506
76	Arizona	-0.086022	80	-3.992764	61	48.745617
77	Utah St.	-0.030513	76	-12.468038	86	48.038355
78	Iowa St.	-0.075900	78	-7.619287	73	47.994335
79	North Texas	-0.035840	77	-13.693320	89	47.496617
80	Middle Ten.	-0.120330	84	-8.933262	75	46.138883
81	Southern MS	-0.081917	79	-13.702875	90	45.977007
82	U. Miami	-0.127326	85	-10.188765	77	45.533152
83	Stanford	-0.248337	97	1.818148	46	45.140349
84	La. Lafayette	-0.113044	82	-13.715125	91	44.948737
85	Ala. B’ham	-0.094648	81	-15.993637	97	44.872920
86	Buffalo	-0.115267	83	-14.784194	95	44.555851
87	E. Michigan	-0.144352	86	-13.949781	94	43.848004
88	Indiana	-0.174238	92	-11.686468	82	43.541061
89	Connecticut	-0.173175	91	-13.925662	93	42.906440
90	Army	-0.194184	93	-11.664387	81	42.891092
91	Texas A&M	-0.196098	94	-12.047854	84	42.713401
92	West Virginia	-0.170781	90	-16.613587	98	42.181417
93	Fla. Atlantic	-0.151659	87	-18.781427	104	42.162593
94	Ga. Southern	-0.157811	88	-18.247963	102	42.119629
95	Rice	-0.220822	96	-13.308088	88	41.522699
96	Virginia	-0.213941	95	-17.998185	100	40.346673
97	Cal (Berkeley)	-0.319809	100	-6.773095	71	40.218550
98	Navy	-0.168925	89	-27.272444	118	39.055068
99	La. Monroe	-0.304487	98	-13.811206	92	38.618218
100	Rutgers	-0.347717	104	-12.376707	85	37.624175
101	Arizona St.	-0.385899	108	-10.202764	78	37.017416
102	Georgia St.	-0.310410	99	-20.255111	108	36.496246
103	Tulsa	-0.340146	103	-18.020873	101	36.185542
104	Miami U.	-0.337952	102	-18.713902	103	36.050529
105	Kent St.	-0.335896	101	-19.115818	107	35.998017
106	Ball St.	-0.375990	106	-15.136641	96	35.868161
107	C. Michigan	-0.381395	107	-18.909169	106	34.562092
108	UTEP	-0.373891	105	-20.744420	109	34.260298
109	Boston College	-0.386533	109	-21.028697	110	33.759155
110	Texas St.	-0.426680	110	-18.891156	105	33.076835
111	UNLV	-0.429996	111	-24.506442	111	31.288460
112	W. Michigan	-0.436067	112	-28.149487	119	29.999205
113	La. Tech	-0.525150	116	-25.895097	114	27.741003
114	Virginia Tech	-0.517015	115	-27.272109	117	27.596976
115	Colorado	-0.621723	121	-17.492677	99	27.074755
116	Old Dominion	-0.481882	113	-33.422128	123	26.914355
117	Colorado St.	-0.558976	117	-24.947731	112	26.910841
118	Nebraska	-0.513421	114	-30.163596	120	26.850611
119	Arkansas St.	-0.560007	118	-26.804928	115	26.321511
120	Florida Int’l	-0.579913	119	-25.319372	113	26.110508
121	New Mex. St.	-0.642614	122	-27.150241	116	23.499046
122	N. Illinois	-0.601807	120	-35.331179	126	22.395870
123	New Mexico	-0.705270	125	-30.298343	121	20.495181
124	Charlotte	-0.643768	123	-38.927887	128	19.939030
125	Temple	-0.697289	124	-33.964851	124	19.661422
126	Northwestern	-0.741362	126	-34.929646	125	17.922173
127	Hawaii	-0.767485	127	-33.366128	122	17.529820
128	Akron	-0.769002	128	-35.548430	127	16.827293
129	South Florida	-0.824005	129	-39.587083	129	13.809014
130	Nevada Reno	-0.844224	130	-42.306105	130	12.330335
131	Massachusetts	-1.155239	131	-49.303700	131	0.000000

11/20/2022 Conferences

1	SEC	67.780749
2	Big XII	62.779999
3	Pac-12	60.252950
4	ACC	57.961389
5	Big Ten	57.349078
6	AAC	49.152868
7	Sun Belt	48.608429
8	Independents	42.953030
9	MWC	42.126509
10	CUSA	41.649059
11	MAC	38.535752

11/13/2022

The numbers to the right of the teams are unweighted rating (rank), weighted rating (rank), and overall rating.

1	Georgia	1.062739	1	17.61273949	4	100.0000
2	Ohio St.	0.976957	3	18.77695669	3	96.8330
3	TCU	0.980259	2	14.78025851	6	96.0359
4	Tennessee	0.870611	4	23.36203687	1	93.6375
5	Michigan	0.859728	5	19.40972772	2	92.2822
6	Clemson	0.810137	6	9.764088849	9	88.0518
7	Alabama	0.742976	7	11.78084311	7	85.8293
8	LSU	0.723664	8	7.971761692	13	84.1696
9	Southern Calif.	0.667933	9	15.58738592	5	83.7072
10	North Carolina	0.649103	10	5.103055336	16	80.5144
11	Penn St.	0.599812	11	11.68216792	8	80.0691
12	Utah	0.596502	12	3.18865385	19	77.9612
13	UCLA	0.544537	14	6.117306389	15	76.5598
14	Oregon	0.524362	16	8.660814903	10	76.3428
15	Notre Dame	0.522819	17	8.367850461	12	76.2129
16	Ole Miss	0.528818	15	5.082001681	17	75.6891
17	C. Florida	0.571025	13	-2.073381277	33	75.7165
18	Florida St.	0.483872	21	8.508513963	11	74.6848
19	Coastal Car.	0.513098	18	2.625475231	20	74.4879
20	Troy	0.501515	19	0.623112705	26	73.5580
21	Kansas St.	0.489013	20	-2.427373505	35	72.3476
22	Washington	0.476177	22	-2.008973664	32	71.9305
23	Tulane	0.430438	23	2.194818134	23	71.0752
24	TX San Anton’	0.428398	24	1.776648243	24	70.8961
25	Oklahoma St.	0.409803	25	1.616334931	25	70.1137
26	Oregon St.	0.402147	27	2.568721894	21	70.0283
27	S. Alabama	0.386334	28	4.462069114	18	69.8349
28	N. Carolina St.	0.356749	30	2.377376236	22	68.1645
29	Texas	0.408736	26	-7.670911745	50	67.9111
30	Liberty	0.348919	31	-1.362920643	29	66.9809
31	Cincinnati	0.347162	32	-1.539031881	31	66.8695
32	Boise St.	0.382849	29	-9.217151274	54	66.5141
33	Mississippi St.	0.310142	36	-0.438244839	27	65.6420
34	Purdue	0.320879	34	-4.146204025	37	65.2100
35	Syracuse	0.312495	35	-6.347852241	45	64.3620
36	Illinois	0.324520	33	-8.568142729	53	64.3275
37	Florida	0.221552	40	6.271482554	14	63.6521
38	Kansas	0.273276	37	-9.903575654	56	61.9634
39	Kentucky	0.206782	44	-0.918233246	28	61.3882
40	Wake Forest	0.221298	41	-6.325825677	44	60.7124
41	Louisville	0.250813	38	-11.25466336	58	60.7490
42	Maryland	0.218517	42	-8.137647967	51	60.1796
43	Minnesota	0.165584	51	-1.452598669	30	59.6129
44	Toledo	0.168674	50	-2.106454644	34	59.5847
45	Iowa	0.183035	46	-4.989520727	40	59.4897
46	S. Methodist	0.177683	48	-5.94809537	43	59.0524
47	Baylor	0.231040	39	-13.86518555	66	59.3495
48	East Carolina	0.212103	43	-14.46011136	67	58.4522
49	Ohio	0.142239	55	-4.812197781	39	57.8961
50	Washington St.	0.142694	54	-5.559210334	41	57.7406
51	Texas Tech	0.168767	49	-9.561026915	55	57.8548
52	Houston	0.184228	45	-11.95242587	60	57.9183
53	Duke	0.120200	56	-3.474557625	36	57.3240
54	Wyoming	0.143800	53	-8.170147378	52	57.1778
55	W. Kentucky	0.177999	47	-14.77745245	68	57.0117
56	Pittsburgh	0.106735	59	-4.785188422	38	56.4796
57	South Carolina	0.101184	61	-7.655756702	49	55.5895
58	Michigan St.	0.094703	63	-6.948183835	47	55.4944
59	James Madison	0.114086	57	-10.36041894	57	55.4776
60	San Diego St.	0.080954	65	-6.801688309	46	54.9774
61	Air Force	0.104981	60	-11.43631447	59	54.8625
62	Fresno St.	0.110386	58	-12.54952721	63	54.8202
63	BYU	0.158720	52	-19.79385631	79	55.0725
64	Wisconsin	0.072174	66	-7.462337824	48	54.4719
65	Arkansas	0.097185	62	-12.52935546	62	54.2959
66	Oklahoma	0.083771	64	-12.6371899	64	53.7333
67	San Jose St.	0.069205	67	-12.47720065	61	53.1867
68	Auburn	-0.035436	74	-5.911984632	42	50.5201
69	Memphis	0.020065	68	-18.75735554	75	49.7570
70	Marshall	-0.009154	72	-16.19797806	72	49.1812
71	Connecticut	-0.015393	73	-15.68921243	69	49.0495
72	Southern MS	-0.008976	71	-20.45175852	83	48.1991
73	North Texas	0.014632	69	-24.79741227	97	48.1346
74	Iowa St.	-0.005771	70	-22.59634677	91	47.8288
75	Arizona	-0.043527	76	-20.06614079	81	46.9042
76	App. St.	-0.084795	81	-16.05598058	71	46.1830
77	Vanderbilt	-0.105694	84	-13.23230409	65	46.0021
78	Alabama B’ham	-0.035636	75	-23.63778744	95	46.3898
79	La. Lafayette	-0.046750	77	-22.90843598	93	46.1140
80	Missouri	-0.076577	80	-18.88889375	76	45.8535
81	Ga. Southern	-0.063437	78	-21.6670769	86	45.7340
82	Fla. Atlantic	-0.075542	79	-21.29483918	85	45.3354
83	Utah St.	-0.100173	83	-20.09470037	82	44.6275
84	Buffalo	-0.088095	82	-22.66350538	92	44.5141
85	Georgia Tech	-0.150997	88	-17.41648011	73	43.2135
86	U. Miami	-0.143556	87	-19.11993613	77	43.1156
87	West Virginia	-0.129590	85	-21.9497279	88	43.0172
88	E. Michigan	-0.163590	90	-19.62008511	78	42.1964
89	Bowling Green	-0.151589	89	-23.84239125	96	41.6954
90	Stanford	-0.136706	86	-27.24487303	101	41.5006
91	Middle Ten.	-0.190997	91	-22.19139692	89	40.5001
92	C. Michigan	-0.231524	93	-21.06594262	84	39.1378
93	Rice	-0.232482	94	-22.35720044	90	38.7991
94	Indiana	-0.243684	96	-21.75960518	87	38.4891
95	Rutgers	-0.289085	100	-15.94425497	70	38.0221
96	Kent St.	-0.249228	97	-23.23151536	94	37.9246
97	Virginia	-0.231203	92	-28.96920547	104	37.3127
98	Texas A&M	-0.238825	95	-28.93995761	103	37.0140
99	Ball St.	-0.311605	102	-18.44488521	74	36.5381
100	La. Monroe	-0.311939	103	-19.89113994	80	36.1883
101	Army	-0.280382	99	-26.04505355	99	36.0218
102	Arizona St.	-0.304484	101	-25.72059666	98	35.1314
103	UNLV	-0.256703	98	-33.25474422	111	35.2941
104	Georgia St.	-0.326345	105	-26.67285859	100	34.0339
105	Navy	-0.316865	104	-35.25528317	114	32.4179
106	Tulsa	-0.344351	106	-33.37117241	112	31.7546
107	La. Tech	-0.371675	108	-29.69076385	105	31.5155
108	Cal (Berkeley)	-0.356303	107	-32.64909538	109	31.4435
109	Boston College	-0.378862	109	-33.47468304	113	30.3475
110	Miami U.	-0.426029	111	-30.17424371	106	29.2248
111	Arkansas St.	-0.428364	112	-32.12601026	108	28.6773
112	Texas St.	-0.448505	114	-30.59992887	107	28.2251
113	UTEP	-0.419475	110	-35.92343424	115	28.1504
114	Florida Int’l	-0.452555	116	-33.0767788	110	27.4868
115	Old Dominion	-0.433499	113	-38.47981919	118	26.9939
116	Nebraska	-0.450399	115	-36.40593516	116	26.7990
117	New Mex. St.	-0.546477	120	-28.87600814	102	24.6998
118	W. Michigan	-0.479608	117	-39.50159275	120	24.9085
119	Colorado St.	-0.500119	118	-37.78169613	117	24.4865
120	N. Illinois	-0.504055	119	-39.91185672	121	23.8334
121	Colorado	-0.555731	121	-40.21480926	122	21.6920
122	Virginia Tech	-0.606821	122	-39.03964075	119	19.9179
123	New Mexico	-0.643889	123	-41.90777917	124	17.7654
124	Temple	-0.678887	124	-40.73234398	123	16.6362
125	Northwestern	-0.696518	127	-44.43183249	125	15.0693
126	South Florida	-0.690738	125	-45.60461736	126	15.0282
127	UNC-Charlotte	-0.690923	126	-53.56243276	130	13.1702
128	Akron	-0.766248	128	-49.56263793	127	11.0817
129	Nevada (Reno)	-0.793166	129	-49.6031862	128	9.9936
130	Hawaii	-0.849858	130	-50.13064408	129	7.5990
131	Massachusetts	-1.006195	131	-55.86612592	131	0.0000

11/13/2022 Conferences

1	SEC	65.663067
2	Big XII	63.015525
3	Big Ten	57.596422
4	Pac-12	57.578522
5	ACC	56.067819
6	AAC	48.607095
7	Sun Belt	47.349170
8	Independents	44.005351
9	CUSA	40.671798
10	MWC	40.108746
11	MAC	37.377968

11/06/2022

1	Georgia	0.907537
2	Ohio St.	0.888818
3	TCU	0.832712
4	Michigan	0.793757
5	Tennessee	0.786494
6	Clemson	0.720248
7	UCLA	0.658060
8	So. California	0.616111
9	LSU	0.601589
10	Oregon	0.595866
11	Ole Miss	0.578316
12	Alabama	0.576445
13	N Carolina	0.549871
14	Utah	0.515358
15	N Carolina St.	0.509958
16	Notre Dame	0.480871
17	Tulane	0.480829
18	Coastal Car.	0.470591
19	Troy	0.439997
20	Penn St.	0.436338
21	Liberty	0.427705
22	C. Florida	0.419784
23	Illinois	0.417997
24	Texas	0.409548
25	Kansas St.	0.380738
26	Syracuse	0.370069
27	Florida St.	0.360041
28	Kansas	0.352311
29	Tex. San Antonio	0.347567
30	Mississippi St.	0.346238
31	Oregon St.	0.331424
32	Oklahoma St.	0.321472
33	Kentucky	0.319748
34	Washington	0.304192
35	S Alabama	0.287351
36	Maryland	0.279231
37	Baylor	0.276317
38	East Carolina	0.269464
39	Cincinnati	0.268183
40	Wake Forest	0.250806
41	Louisville	0.233815
42	S Carolina	0.204238
43	Oklahoma	0.201449
44	So. Methodist	0.191849
45	Purdue	0.180391
46	BYU	0.163842
47	Arkansas	0.154534
48	Boise St.	0.151717
49	Houston	0.145504
50	Wisconsin	0.137955
51	San Jose St.	0.136174
52	Florida	0.134283
53	Minnesota	0.132055
54	Washington St.	0.129510
55	Wyoming	0.116115
56	Iowa	0.093970
57	Duke	0.082470
58	Air Force	0.077496
59	Ohio	0.076198
60	Pittsburgh	0.075906
61	N Texas	0.073151
62	Michigan St.	0.064351
63	James Madison	0.050109
64	Texas Tech	0.039360
65	Toledo	0.038383
66	Iowa St.	0.033113
67	Georgia So.	0.019770
68	Fresno St.	0.013255
69	Appalachian St.	0.012386
70	W. Kentucky	0.004239
71	Buffalo	-0.001170
72	Bowling Green	-0.018712
73	Memphis	-0.022196
74	So. Mississippi	-0.022831
75	Missouri	-0.054482
76	Georgia Tech	-0.054545
77	Auburn	-0.060845
78	San Diego St.	-0.078736
79	Marshall	-0.080582
80	Stanford	-0.083404
81	Texas A&M	-0.123609
82	Fla. Atlantic	-0.133943
83	Utah St.	-0.135823
84	Connecticut	-0.136736
85	Ala. Birmingham	-0.140253
86	Georgia St.	-0.147498
87	Rice	-0.165049
88	Virginia	-0.166493
89	UNLV	-0.178683
90	La. Lafayette	-0.182237
91	Indiana	-0.183672
92	U. Miami	-0.204372
93	Arizona	-0.209599
94	West Virginia	-0.214166
95	Rutgers	-0.219998
96	Vanderbilt	-0.220510
97	Army	-0.223520
98	Arizona St.	-0.223810
99	Ball St.	-0.230906
100	E. Michigan	-0.232769
101	Navy	-0.239176
102	Middle Ten.	-0.247616
103	Tulsa	-0.273762
104	W. Michigan	-0.299744
105	Miami U.	-0.308368
106	La. Tech	-0.313220
107	Cal (Berkeley)	-0.324045
108	Kent St.	-0.336597
109	C. Michigan	-0.344097
110	Old Dominion	-0.344630
111	Nebraska	-0.381625
112	Texas St.	-0.406155
113	Florida Int’l	-0.425601
114	UTEP	-0.426541
115	La. Monroe	-0.453222
116	Colorado St.	-0.455590
117	Arkansas St.	-0.456299
118	Boston Coll.	-0.506176
119	Colorado	-0.511677
120	New Mexico St.	-0.526277
121	New Mexico	-0.557598
122	Virginia Tech	-0.566164
123	Northwestern	-0.593769
124	Charlotte	-0.599033
125	No. Illinois	-0.602248
126	Temple	-0.606828
127	S Florida	-0.631843
128	Akron	-0.703684
129	Nevada (Reno)	-0.736124
130	Hawaii	-0.794625
131	Massachusetts	-0.831767

11/06/2022 Conferences

1	SEC	0.296427
2	Big XII	0.263285
3	Pac-12	0.149832
4	Big Ten	0.146128
5	ACC	0.118245
6	AAC	0.000164
7	Sun Belt	-0.058089
8	Indpendents	-0.092269
9	CUSA	-0.184209
10	MWC	-0.203535
11	MAC	-0.246976

10/30/2022

1	Ohio St.	0.794584
2	TCU	0.787664
3	Tennessee	0.778340
4	Clemson	0.756694
5	Georgia	0.745112
6	Michigan	0.706152
7	Alabama	0.619672
8	Ole Miss	0.592286
9	So. California	0.562746
10	UCLA	0.556930
11	Oregon	0.553443
12	Illinois	0.488098
13	Tulane	0.477047
14	N Carolina	0.474083
15	Kansas St.	0.468379
16	Utah	0.454556
17	LSU	0.444233
18	Syracuse	0.436228
19	Oregon St.	0.385641
20	Coastal Car.	0.385597
21	N Carolina St.	0.382928
22	Troy	0.365012
23	Penn St.	0.363646
24	Oklahoma St.	0.361558
25	Maryland	0.350980
26	Liberty	0.339543
27	Notre Dame	0.313082
28	Wake Forest	0.306522
29	Mississippi St.	0.304005
30	Tex. San Antonio	0.294341
31	C. Florida	0.286959
32	East Carolina	0.276133
33	Texas	0.265509
34	Florida St.	0.258279
35	Oklahoma	0.255622
36	Purdue	0.254504
37	Houston	0.227531
38	Boise St.	0.225486
39	Arkansas	0.219218
40	Kentucky	0.219124
41	Kansas	0.208062
42	Washington	0.192453
43	Cincinnati	0.186540
44	S Carolina	0.163564
45	Baylor	0.154357
46	So. Mississippi	0.152877
47	James Madison	0.136961
48	S Alabama	0.136706
49	Louisville	0.134815
50	Wyoming	0.111626
51	San Jose St.	0.105826
52	So. Methodist	0.090922
53	Texas Tech	0.088699
54	Georgia So.	0.083367
55	Appalachian St.	0.081988
56	Florida	0.076897
57	Minnesota	0.076513
58	Washington St.	0.071986
59	Buffalo	0.068442
60	Air Force	0.050125
61	Memphis	0.041669
62	Duke	0.034164
63	Wisconsin	0.033090
64	BYU	0.023204
65	Toledo	0.016436
66	N Texas	0.013221
67	Auburn	0.006365
68	W. Kentucky	0.002956
69	Missouri	-0.007620
70	Stanford	-0.019823
71	Fresno St.	-0.023702
72	Texas A&M	-0.024714
73	Iowa	-0.026815
74	Ohio	-0.047847
75	Iowa St.	-0.059712
76	Ala. Birmingham	-0.066245
77	Middle Ten.	-0.072914
78	Pittsburgh	-0.077538
79	U. Miami	-0.092239
80	Michigan St.	-0.095209
81	Indiana	-0.098156
82	UNLV	-0.101637
83	Georgia Tech	-0.104621
84	Bowling Green	-0.111287
85	Virginia	-0.115605
86	Marshall	-0.124366
87	San Diego St.	-0.140877
88	Vanderbilt	-0.142189
89	Fla. Atlantic	-0.143718
90	Connecticut	-0.150354
91	West Virginia	-0.156728
92	Utah St.	-0.157814
93	Rutgers	-0.158713
94	Army	-0.163974
95	Navy	-0.170189
96	Arizona St.	-0.172156
97	Arizona	-0.172874
98	Georgia St.	-0.173334
99	Rice	-0.199016
100	Florida Int’l	-0.211882
101	Tulsa	-0.222357
102	La. Lafayette	-0.230863
103	E. Michigan	-0.240021
104	Texas St.	-0.245589
105	Ball St.	-0.261292
106	Kent St.	-0.276003
107	Old Dominion	-0.277114
108	W. Michigan	-0.279575
109	Nebraska	-0.284164
110	Cal (Berkeley)	-0.286634
111	Miami U.	-0.306476
112	Colorado St.	-0.377507
113	UTEP	-0.379672
114	La. Tech	-0.393693
115	C. Michigan	-0.407585
116	S Florida	-0.417184
117	Colorado	-0.435794
118	Boston Coll.	-0.440608
119	Virginia Tech	-0.442336
120	Arkansas St.	-0.453800
121	New Mexico	-0.455141
122	No. Illinois	-0.460574
123	La. Monroe	-0.490141
124	UNC-Charlotte	-0.494027
125	New Mexico St.	-0.508675
126	Northwestern	-0.566642
127	Temple	-0.573426
128	Hawaii	-0.691412
129	Nevada (Reno)	-0.737767
130	Massachusetts	-0.738830
131	Akron	-0.827597

10/30/2022 Conferences

1	SEC	0.285307
2	Big XII	0.237341
3	Pac-12	0.140873
4	Big Ten	0.131276
5	ACC	0.107912
6	AAC	0.018513
7	Sun Belt	-0.046622
8	Indpendents	-0.126572
9	CUSA	-0.150059
10	MWC	-0.182733
11	MAC	-0.261115

10/23/2022

1	Clemson	0.818146
2	TCU	0.708073
3	Tennessee	0.664842
4	Georgia	0.662319
5	Alabama	0.625595
6	Ohio St.	0.616511
7	Michigan	0.603979
8	Ole Miss	0.557276
9	Oregon	0.533639
10	So. California	0.494716
11	UCLA	0.489522
12	LSU	0.487966
13	Syracuse	0.480954
14	Tulane	0.443720
15	Illinois	0.428852
16	Penn St.	0.407179
17	Troy	0.401930
18	Oklahoma St.	0.395127
19	Oregon St.	0.387851
20	Wake Forest	0.375602
21	Liberty	0.371245
22	Utah	0.349682
23	N Carolina St.	0.341563
24	N Carolina	0.337149
25	Maryland	0.325554
26	Kansas St.	0.314606
27	Mississippi St.	0.313682
28	Coastal Car.	0.295927
29	Texas	0.281451
30	Kentucky	0.271659
31	Tex. San Antonio	0.262371
32	S Carolina	0.235772
33	Purdue	0.226554
34	Houston	0.218548
35	Cincinnati	0.212624
36	Kansas	0.207891
37	Florida St.	0.202903
38	Notre Dame	0.178383
39	Oklahoma	0.176385
40	Texas Tech	0.161296
41	Arkansas	0.158664
42	Washington	0.155499
43	Boise St.	0.154320
44	James Madison	0.144852
45	Washington St.	0.143329
46	C. Florida	0.135763
47	East Carolina	0.133439
48	S Alabama	0.121962
49	Florida	0.099540
50	Wyoming	0.086951
51	Georgia So.	0.080622
52	W. Kentucky	0.078115
53	Appalachian St.	0.070349
54	Baylor	0.066250
55	BYU	0.061452
56	So. Mississippi	0.058670
57	Auburn	0.046737
58	San Jose St.	0.043395
59	Wisconsin	0.042484
60	Marshall	0.036644
61	Ala. Birmingham	0.035841
62	Duke	0.035435
63	Air Force	0.023604
64	Buffalo	0.013480
65	Louisville	0.009265
66	Minnesota	0.006491
67	Memphis	0.004194
68	Texas A&M	-0.003793
69	Pittsburgh	-0.009893
70	Iowa St.	-0.012929
71	Stanford	-0.015233
72	Virginia	-0.016708
73	Georgia Tech	-0.027745
74	So. Methodist	-0.034981
75	Ohio	-0.039325
76	Iowa	-0.040193
77	San Diego St.	-0.048485
78	Rice	-0.053332
79	Toledo	-0.055221
80	Michigan St.	-0.065164
81	Indiana	-0.073672
82	Missouri	-0.087063
83	Rutgers	-0.091867
84	Arizona	-0.108219
85	Bowling Green	-0.113066
86	West Virginia	-0.115661
87	UNLV	-0.116576
88	Middle Ten.	-0.125988
89	Fresno St.	-0.128077
90	N Texas	-0.128987
91	La. Lafayette	-0.130211
92	Vanderbilt	-0.151234
93	Utah St.	-0.175431
94	U. Miami	-0.175690
95	Old Dominion	-0.177722
96	E. Michigan	-0.184616
97	Tulsa	-0.187296
98	Army	-0.198268
99	Arizona St.	-0.206919
100	Connecticut	-0.217007
101	Navy	-0.219959
102	Nebraska	-0.236604
103	Cal (Berkeley)	-0.241982
104	Texas St.	-0.262824
105	Fla. Atlantic	-0.269242
106	La. Tech	-0.279223
107	Florida Int’l	-0.284677
108	W. Michigan	-0.290178
109	Ball St.	-0.295605
110	Georgia St.	-0.300620
111	UTEP	-0.302327
112	Colorado	-0.305555
113	Kent St.	-0.309666
114	Colorado St.	-0.324134
115	Miami U.	-0.331309
116	Boston Coll.	-0.339210
117	Arkansas St.	-0.377362
118	S Florida	-0.378787
119	Virginia Tech	-0.395842
120	C. Michigan	-0.404578
121	Temple	-0.452837
122	No. Illinois	-0.455459
123	La. Monroe	-0.456217
124	Northwestern	-0.477106
125	New Mexico	-0.515395
126	New Mexico St.	-0.558076
127	Massachusetts	-0.569305
128	Hawaii	-0.601601
129	UNC-Charlotte	-0.655915
130	Nevada (Reno)	-0.665317
131	Akron	-0.683369

10/23/2022 Conferences

1	SEC	0.276984
2	Big XII	0.218249
3	Pac-12	0.139694
4	Big Ten	0.119500
5	ACC	0.116852
6	AAC	-0.011416
7	Sun Belt	-0.035286
8	Indpendents	-0.133681
9	CUSA	-0.159576
10	MWC	-0.188330
11	MAC	-0.262409

10/16/2022

1	Clemson	0.669204
2	Tennessee	0.633229
3	Michigan	0.623244
4	Georgia	0.621459
5	Ole Miss	0.606535
6	TCU	0.572979
7	Alabama	0.542778
8	UCLA	0.531846
9	Ohio St.	0.523750
10	Syracuse	0.496285
11	So. California	0.449313
12	Illinois	0.407252
13	Mississippi St.	0.366125
14	Utah	0.346661
15	Purdue	0.344501
16	N Carolina	0.336761
17	Penn St.	0.333917
18	Texas	0.319410
19	LSU	0.312338
20	Tulane	0.312253
21	Oregon	0.308621
22	Oregon St.	0.305081
23	Maryland	0.305081
24	N Carolina St.	0.302859
25	Kansas St.	0.300091
26	Wake Forest	0.294587
27	Kentucky	0.290534
28	Kansas	0.290416
29	Liberty	0.259394
30	Coastal Car.	0.247410
31	C. Florida	0.226126
32	Oklahoma St.	0.224483
33	James Madison	0.212116
34	Troy	0.200273
35	Oklahoma	0.191180
36	S Alabama	0.176057
37	Arkansas	0.167909
38	Florida St.	0.165154
39	S Carolina	0.157172
40	Air Force	0.133401
41	Cincinnati	0.132509
42	Houston	0.116619
43	Tex. San Antonio	0.107788
44	Washington St.	0.104491
45	Georgia Tech	0.099997
46	Texas Tech	0.094309
47	BYU	0.084869
48	So. Methodist	0.081140
49	Pittsburgh	0.078617
50	Memphis	0.073815
51	Ala. Birmingham	0.070487
52	Washington	0.070176
53	Florida	0.065093
54	Minnesota	0.060869
55	East Carolina	0.056817
56	Texas A&M	0.053394
57	Georgia So.	0.046977
58	Auburn	0.027255
59	Boise St.	0.021378
60	Appalachian St.	0.018604
61	Iowa	0.003148
62	Notre Dame	0.000333
63	Indiana	-0.000007
64	Wyoming	-0.002868
65	Iowa St.	-0.010037
66	Toledo	-0.014764
67	San Jose St.	-0.017677
68	So. Mississippi	-0.021526
69	Duke	-0.026819
70	W. Kentucky	-0.029781
71	UNLV	-0.031259
72	N Texas	-0.031895
73	West Virginia	-0.032509
74	Baylor	-0.033038
75	Vanderbilt	-0.042181
76	Utah St.	-0.067620
77	Wisconsin	-0.082077
78	Louisville	-0.084532
79	Stanford	-0.084975
80	Virginia	-0.088288
81	Rice	-0.095894
82	Michigan St.	-0.096168
83	Old Dominion	-0.103386
84	U. Miami	-0.110247
85	Buffalo	-0.110395
86	Arizona	-0.110434
87	San Diego St.	-0.113215
88	Marshall	-0.118253
89	Ohio	-0.124620
90	Missouri	-0.145768
91	Middle Ten.	-0.146211
92	Rutgers	-0.146411
93	Fla. Atlantic	-0.147063
94	Cal (Berkeley)	-0.154005
95	Navy	-0.164939
96	Nebraska	-0.184982
97	Texas St.	-0.186352
98	Fresno St.	-0.186891
99	Tulsa	-0.194664
100	Arizona St.	-0.196021
101	Bowling Green	-0.202626
102	La. Lafayette	-0.203403
103	La. Tech	-0.215184
104	Connecticut	-0.230539
105	Miami U.	-0.233015
106	Army	-0.233427
107	Colorado	-0.235683
108	Ball St.	-0.242322
109	E. Michigan	-0.248448
110	Arkansas St.	-0.271946
111	La. Monroe	-0.272389
112	Georgia St.	-0.278763
113	Boston Coll.	-0.298019
114	Kent St.	-0.310751
115	C. Michigan	-0.322169
116	Temple	-0.324662
117	Florida Int’l	-0.326191
118	Virginia Tech	-0.338757
119	UTEP	-0.344917
120	Colorado St.	-0.345914
121	No. Illinois	-0.381096
122	Northwestern	-0.386294
123	W. Michigan	-0.408235
124	New Mexico	-0.421840
125	S Florida	-0.423737
126	UNC-Charlotte	-0.459450
127	Hawaii	-0.470617
128	Akron	-0.573192
129	New Mexico St.	-0.579226
130	Nevada (Reno)	-0.628390
131	Massachusetts	-0.671463

10/09/2022

1	Clemson	0.583051
2	Georgia	0.566898
3	Alabama	0.557534
4	Ohio St.	0.552117
5	Ole Miss	0.501758
6	UCLA	0.447233
7	Tennessee	0.440778
8	Southern Calif.	0.436596
9	Michigan	0.435572
10	Mississippi St.	0.422263
11	TCU	0.380894
12	N. Carolina St.	0.354225
13	Kansas	0.351827
14	Oregon	0.340345
15	Penn St.	0.336286
16	Syracuse	0.333930
17	Wake Forest	0.317381
18	James Madison	0.316852
19	Illinois	0.315340
20	Coastal Car.	0.308708
21	Kansas St.	0.302726
22	Tulane	0.270421
23	Oklahoma St.	0.247288
24	LSU	0.245369
25	Notre Dame	0.239431
26	North Carolina	0.233772
27	Purdue	0.212973
28	Washington St.	0.207135
29	San Jose St.	0.199397
30	Texas	0.198857
31	Liberty	0.196614
32	Florida St.	0.195379
33	Utah	0.183372
34	BYU	0.180587
35	Memphis	0.169555
36	Houston	0.168568
37	Maryland	0.149961
38	Cincinnati	0.143174
39	C. Florida	0.131821
40	Kentucky	0.129359
41	South Carolina	0.125012
42	Troy	0.112309
43	Auburn	0.105417
44	Oregon St.	0.102072
45	Georgia Tech	0.100776
46	Cal (Berkeley)	0.097984
47	Florida	0.092914
48	S. Alabama	0.084881
49	Texas Tech	0.075277
50	UNLV	0.072386
51	TX San Anton’	0.070511
52	Arkansas	0.066629
53	Baylor	0.065417
54	Iowa St.	0.061866
55	Pittsburgh	0.059447
56	Minnesota	0.045162
57	Oklahoma	0.045060
58	Duke	0.044557
59	Alabama B’ham	0.042612
60	App. St.	0.039801
61	Wyoming	0.035192
62	Air Force	0.031132
63	Indiana	0.022771
64	East Carolina	0.019721
65	Iowa	0.016225
66	Texas A&M	0.012770
67	Marshall	-0.008955
68	Rice	-0.022927
69	S. Methodist	-0.031057
70	Wisconsin	-0.033798
71	Arizona	-0.037166
72	Boise St.	-0.038652
73	Vanderbilt	-0.055178
74	Washington	-0.057972
75	Virginia	-0.063536
76	Middle Ten.	-0.079340
77	Texas St.	-0.080489
78	Utah St.	-0.085188
79	Buffalo	-0.087687
80	Navy	-0.088053
81	Louisville	-0.096469
82	Ga. Southern	-0.101803
83	West Virginia	-0.102467
84	Southern MS	-0.105996
85	Missouri	-0.114163
86	Rutgers	-0.129746
87	W. Kentucky	-0.130009
88	Toledo	-0.132222
89	North Texas	-0.134194
90	Miami U.	-0.137542
91	La. Tech	-0.140237
92	E. Michigan	-0.147111
93	San Diego St.	-0.150818
94	U. Miami	-0.154688
95	Ohio	-0.157409
96	Nebraska	-0.164726
97	Arkansas St.	-0.185711
98	Tulsa	-0.201419
99	Connecticut	-0.201826
100	La. Lafayette	-0.201996
101	New Mexico	-0.207673
102	Stanford	-0.209402
103	Temple	-0.210107
104	Arizona St.	-0.211136
105	Michigan St.	-0.216904
106	Bowling Green	-0.217077
107	La. Monroe	-0.220260
108	Kent St.	-0.225590
109	Old Dominion	-0.226742
110	Colorado St.	-0.227588
111	Army	-0.241138
112	Fla. Atlantic	-0.247303
113	Florida Int’l	-0.251173
114	Boston College	-0.274606
115	Fresno St.	-0.276870
116	Ball St.	-0.288515
117	W. Michigan	-0.288694
118	Georgia St.	-0.308265
119	UTEP	-0.313446
120	Virginia Tech	-0.320024
121	Colorado	-0.340131
122	South Florida	-0.352298
123	Nevada (Reno)	-0.375297
124	Northwestern	-0.396350
125	Akron	-0.414878
126	C. Michigan	-0.436504
127	UNC-Charlotte	-0.459068
128	N. Illinois	-0.477944
129	Massachusetts	-0.520425
130	Hawaii	-0.552848
131	New Mex. St.	-0.666304

Revisiting the Worst Sports Week Ever

I was pretty happy when I started my day on Sunday September 24. I was in the middle of my vacation in Mexico and familiarizing myself with the new hotel (the vacation wasn’t all in the same hotel). While relaxing in the bar area, I noticed the Saints were winning their game against the Packers by multiple scores (17-0, to be exact). I thought briefly about how I guessed no one won the whole Aaron Rodgers saga and that maybe the Saints were going to have a decent year after all (despite my having told people not to expect great things from Derek Carr).

While I don’t blame Derek Carr (the ballcarrier above) for getting injured or for the missed field goal after he exited the game, he deserves some blame for the loss since he only netted 82 yards (after the subtraction of sack yardage) in 18 attempts. If they were pitchers, backup Jameis Winston would have gotten the loss; but he put up better yardage per pass and was only sacked once. Unlike for LSU, it’s the defense that typically keeps the Saints in games.

I rarely write about sports other than college football here, so I’m going to give some backstory about my fandom of other sports if you’re interested. It’s going to be relevant to the topic.

College > NFL, particularly in the regular season

I don’t usually get too uptight about the NFL regular season, especially not in September. Even if I could manage to care as much about the NFL as college (even NFL players often seem more passionate about the college they went to than they are about whoever signs their paycheck at any given moment), I’ve seen too many teams go 10-6 or something like that and win the Super Bowl. If we expanded the college football playoffs to the point that 8-4 or 8-5 teams were sometimes crowned champions, I wouldn’t get as excited about college football games as I do.

Anyway, unlike some NFL fans I know who would have a coronary in this situation, I was somewhat amused as the Saints game seemed to get closer and closer every time I checked, and I was only mildly annoyed when they finally gave up the lead and then missed what should have been an easy field goal to lose. I honestly didn’t think too much about it again until the next weekend…

Saturday has been the big day for me since 1995. I mentioned a couple of blogs ago that that was the year I started doing my own top 25. It was purely subjective for the first 8 years or so, but I paid enough attention to it to know that the coaches’ and media polls were biased and misleading. Part of the reason this realization took place that year was I had begun a more difficult school (with more extracurriculars as well), and I knew I was not going to be able to enjoy two days dedicated to football as I had been. College is more fun, the big games during the day are nationally broadcast, the regular season means more (as I mentioned), and the upcoming week doesn’t concern me half the day on Saturday like it does on Sunday. Even though I had started off as more of an NFL fan (partly because the Saints were good when I first got into football, while LSU was mediocre to bad), it was an easy choice for me.

I didn’t completely ignore the NFL, but I usually just watched one game on Sunday and that was it. I could watch all the big games around the Christmas holidays. By the time the spring semester got in full swing there were only about 4 teams left in the playoffs. I always thought that was a bit of a letdown anyway. You go from about half the teams teams in the league jockeying for playoff position in the final weeks to a total of three games in three weeks.

The Other Football

Anyway, something else I gradually acquired a taste for was soccer. I didn’t give much thought to it until my parents decided it was something I should try since I didn’t excel at the big American sports. I wasn’t great at that either, but it was something to do. I gave it up after a couple of seasons; but I always enjoyed watching international competitions in a variety of sports (many of which I had never even attempted), so it was definitely included since I then understood it fairly well. Eventually, I realized there was soccer of similar quality to the World Cup being played in Europe for a good nine months out of the year. It wasn’t just something that happened for a couple of weeks every four years. So toward the end of high school, I started to follow the English Premier League and gradually became a bigger fan.

Soccer is still well behind American football in the fall; but if you want to compete for the league title, you have to be in top form starting in August. (In stark contrast to the NFL.) Since my team, Liverpool, is often in competition for league titles (or at least the top four positions), I usually make time to watch them or at least fast-forward to the good parts when there is a lull in college football games on Saturday. Since I don’t live near any of the NFL teams I like the most, I often have zero NFL games I want to see on TV, so it’s really easy to squeeze in the Sunday games.

Anyway, the Saturday following the Saints game I mentioned I woke up relatively early since I was on east coast (of Mexico) time and there had usually been some reason to get up early on my vacation. So it was an unusual case that I watched soccer before even turning on college football and didn’t fast-forward too much on a Saturday.

LSU @ Ole Miss

After the game was over, there was the LSU-Ole Miss game to watch later.

LSU WR Chris Hilton unsuccessfully attempts a leaping grab of what would have been the tying touchdown (pending the point after) as time expired in Oxford, Miss., on September 30. A brilliant all-around offensive performance by QB Jayden Daniels and LSU was overshadowed when the defense gave up over 700 yards of total offense to Ole Miss in the loss.

My natural range of thought is between realism and cynicism, but I still got tricked by the game trajectory of LSU-Ole Miss.  You’d think if at any point you go on a 42-20 run, you’d end up winning the game.   That gave LSU an 8-point edge.  An exchange of touchdowns (but with a failed conversion by Ole Miss) gave LSU a 9-point lead with 8:24 to play in the fourth quarter.

I have learned many times not to take the winning percentage meter on ESPN too literally, especially when the home team is behind; but usually if it’s over 90% in the fourth quarter you’re in pretty good shape.  At one point, LSU had a 94% chance of winning. That was when Ole Miss had a 3^rd and 11 while trailing by 9 with 7:21 left in the game.

Conclusion: An Unlikely Combination of Disasters

Returning to earlier that day, Liverpool was wrongly denied the opening goal (the people responsible for reviewing it admitted this) and still was about 30 seconds away from salvaging a draw at Tottenham before allowing the winning goal well into stoppage time. 

The previous Sunday, the Saints had had a 96.4% chance of winning midway through the fourth quarter after possibly peaking at 96.7% 2-3 minutes earlier.  Not every single moment makes the chart after the game (the LSU one I mentioned didn’t, only the percentage after the preceding down), so it could have even been slightly higher at one point.

They don’t do charts like this for EPL since there are three common outcomes as opposed to ties being abolished as they are in college football and only happening once or twice a season in the NFL.  But I’m sure the chances of the final score (not to mention the outcome) remaining the same well into the last minute of stoppage time is above 95%.  It’s probably close to 99%, but I’ll underestimate it to make up for the overestimations that I believe the ESPN calculations do.

Liverpool’s Joël Matip watches the ball that had just bounced off his shin fly toward the net in the 96th minute in North London on September 30. Matip was “credited” with an own goal.

So the combined chance of something like this happening to three of my favorite teams in a row is about 0.0125% at best.  It’s even less than that if you consider that most close games don’t have such a high percentage by either team with meaningful time left in the game.  I guess the good news is a combination like this should never happen again in my lifetime.  Maybe at least my memory will start to go by then and I won’t recall what happened two weeks ago.

Also, assuming it doesn’t happen again any time soon, I guess I should be relieved this series of events took place in September. It could have been really bad if LSU lost a bowl game like this, while the Saints lost an important playoff game (or game with playoff ramifications), and Liverpool had a major setback after Boxing Day (the day after Christmas).

LSU/Mizzou & Week 6 Top 25 2023

Intro

I actually have two blogs of material this week since I didn’t have time to post the other one last week.  I finally did get around to entering all the FBS results into the spreadsheet for my computer formula.

I thought posting the rankings blog was more important to get more back on schedule.  I haven’t even promoted them like I usually do because most people aren’t really interested on Thursday and Friday.

LSU QB Jayden Daniels keeps the play alive in the first quarter in Columbia on Saturday. Daniels was responsible for 389 total yards and four touchdowns (with no turnovers). It should have been more scores, but we don’t need to get into why he didn’t get credit for more.

LSU/Missouri Recap and Reaction

I wanted to include a couple of comments about LSU’s win over Missouri even though my next blog will in part be about the game before.

It was nice to get Mizzou back for the first game after Covid, when LSU’s rising star quarterback Myles Brennan played a great game in Columbia but got hurt and was never seen in meaningful action again.  I’m torn between saying LSU deserved to win that game and that LSU was lucky they competed in any games in 2020 and 2021.

Anyway, that was also the only season I know of when the LSU defense was nearly as bad as it is this year.  I have barely even watched LSU play defense the last two games, by the way.  Auburn’s offense isn’t as good as that of Mizzou or Ole Miss, so I’m hoping it might be more tolerable next game. 

The second half of the Mizzou game was not bad though, to be fair.  Six of the home Tigers’ 8 possessions did not result in points.  Ideally LSU would like to force the other team to punt more, but missed field goals and interceptions result in the same number of points that “three and outs” do.

Preface of Rankings

For the rankings this week, it’s still mostly subjective; but there is an objective element now.  I gave each team a score that was a combination of my subjective and objective ratings, and then I allowed myself to move teams a maximum of five spots from the order the improvised formula put them in.  For most teams, it was only one or two spots though. The objective ratings aren’t as thorough as they will be (for instance, no credit was given for quality of FCS opponents), but they’re complete enough to give a strong idea of who the most accomplished teams are.

Oklahoma was the best team in my formula, but it’s partly because they beat 6 FBS opponents (none of which were very good before last week).  So I felt the need to move them up considerably.   I haven’t been impressed with them in “the eye test” since Caleb Williams transferred to USC, which is partly why they weren’t higher going into the week; but I couldn’t move Georgia any higher given the rules I made above.  Florida St. has had two lucky wins, so I didn’t want to put them in the top 3 either.

Oklahoma’s Nic Anderson catches the winning touchdown pass from Dillon Gabriel in Dallas on Saturday. Gabriel did not complete as many passes or throw for as many yards as Texas’s Quinn Ewers, but he threw no interceptions and Ewers threw two as Oklahoma got revenge for a 49-0 loss to the Longhorns last season.

Speaking of USC, I’m not impressed with them much at all once I sat down and looked at who they’ve beaten and the records of those opponents.  They just went to triple overtime against Arizona, who lost to Mississippi St., possibly the worst team in the SEC West.  The Trojans are undefeated though, so I thought I would put them ahead of the best two-loss team, Notre Dame.  I would not be surprised to see USC lose to the Irish or any of the ranked Pac-12 teams though.

There were a couple of other large movements in the rankings. Louisville is another undefeated team who had a big, somewhat unexpected win over the weekend. North Carolina also made a big jump, but I am still concerned by the narrow home win over Appalachian St. One of the things I do when I move to more objective rankings is to de-emphasize margin of victory though. I added a couple of Big Ten teams with understandable losses, as well as adding LSU back.

Even though I understand it can look bad to move teams too dramatically, I still think it was the right choice to take LSU out when they fell to 2-2 against FBS opponents (which included a 3-point home win over Arkansas) going into the Missouri game. I also still think I was right to put Mizzou ahead of the four teams who fell out (as I’ll explain, formerly #21 Kansas didn’t fall far), but at any rate it makes sense for LSU to be a bit higher than those other Tigers now.

I can defend most of the choices I made last week, but the idea is to be as accurate as possible now, not to put last week on a pedestal and see who deserves to move up or down a set number of spots based on a preconceived idea of how good last week’s respective opponents were. I continue to think it’s the right thing to start evaluating teams differently around this time of year. Preseason, knee-jerk reactions to one or two early results, and margin of victory should count for very little going forward.

I’ve hardly had any teams from the G5 (those outside of the Power 5 conferences) ranked this season, but four of the best five unranked teams by both the computer and the overall formula are G5.  They are as follows: James Madison, Kansas, Liberty, Memphis, and Wyoming.

I was going to leave it at that, but since I mentioned Liberty, it will be interesting to see how former Liberty and Ole Miss head coach and current Auburn head coach Hugh Freeze does in his first trip to Tiger Stadium since 2016. He was winless in three contests there as the head coach of Ole Miss, most notably in 2014 when his undefeated #3 Rebels were upset 10-7 in one of those Les Miles defensive and ball-control classics. When I get a chance, I’ll try to get caught up on the rivalry blogs.

Top 25

Rank	Team	Last
1	Ohio St.	1
2	Michigan	3
3	Oklahoma	19
4	Georgia	2
5	Florida St.	7
6	Penn St.	6
7	Texas	4
8	Washington	12
9	Alabama	10
10	Oregon	8
11	N Carolina	23
12	Louisville	—
13	Ole Miss	11
14	Southern CA	5
15	Notre Dame	9
16	Washington St.	14
17	Utah	17
18	LSU	—
19	Iowa	—
20	Kentucky	13
21	Duke	16
22	UCLA	18
23	Oregon St.	15
24	Wisconsin	—
25	Missouri	20

Out of Top 25: (21) Kansas, (22) Kansas St., (24) Tennessee, (25) U. Miami

Week 5 Top 25 2023

My vacation has been over for more than a week, but I’m only about 1/5 of the way through adding results for an eventual computer rating, which I hope to have some semblance of by next week. Given that a team playing tonight is in my top 25, I couldn’t wait any longer to put up another subjective top 25.

LSU and Florida could well be among the best 25 teams; but consistent with my approach last week, I think if you have two losses right now, that’s too many to remain ranked. Also, either could seemingly lose several games by being unable to stop teams with any regularity when on defense.

Since Kentucky beat Florida easily and is undefeated, that seemed like a good option to take the Gators’ place. I haven’t thought Texas A&M was deserving of a ranking since last September; but in hindsight, the Aggies seem to have meaningfully improved from last year judging by the first couple of SEC games. Since their only loss is to U. Miami, who is undefeated, I thought it made sense to give the Hurricanes the final spot given that I’d decided it could not go to Florida or LSU.

Kentucky RB Ray Davis scored 4 touchdowns and ran for 280 yards against Florida in Lexington on Saturday.

Rank	Team	Last
1	Ohio St.	1
2	Georgia	2
3	Michigan	3
4	Texas	4
5	Southern CA	5
6	Penn St.	6
7	Florida St.	7
8	Oregon	8
9	Notre Dame	10
10	Alabama	11
11	Ole Miss	16
12	Washington	13
13	Kentucky	—
14	Washington St.	18
15	Oregon St.	25
16	Duke	14
17	Utah	9
18	UCLA	17
19	Oklahoma	24
20	Missouri	21
21	Kansas	20
22	Kansas St.	22
23	N Carolina	23
24	Tennessee	19
25	U. Miami	—

Out of Top 25: (12) LSU, (15) Florida