Reaction to CFP and LSU’s Bowl Selection

My top 4 agrees with the committee’s, and I would even have the same matchups. I would have had Washington and Texas in the Rose Bowl though, which makes more sense geographically; and I wouldn’t have made the Longhorns (who are supposedly the worse seed) close being at home.

My top 4 is based on the best teams.  I’m not saying that I don’t think a team like Florida St., which went undefeated and even played two programs with multiple championships in the last 20 years out of conference, should be included in the top 4; but I think Alabama and Texas both have strengths of schedule that cancel out the additional loss and then some.

Florida St.’s Exclusion

The committee’s instructions do not include something that says, “an undefeated conference champion should be given priority over a conference champion who is not undefeated.” 

I would be OK with adding such a stipulation, especially if it also added language that said an exception could be made if the non-conference schedule is particularly weak, which would certainly not be the case here. 

My point is the committee did its job.  If I were a one-man committee with the same instructions, I would have put aside my preference for including Florida St. and given the same list of best 4 teams.

There is also language that the committee can consider injuries to major players.  I don’t consider anything like that in my formula, and I can’t think of any consistent way you could apply that to any formula.  There are no strict standards for injury reporting in college football like there is in the NFL.  Even if there were, it would be difficult to enforce that and provide consistent oversight for injury reports of all 133 teams and then add those reports to a formula.  I don’t like the idea of using that as an argument because every team has a mix of players who are hurt or otherwise unavailable from game to game that can affect any outcome.  Others are playing hurt or playing with some other type of stress or distraction.

In the only touchdown drive of the game by either team, Lawrance Toafili (#9) rushed for 75 yards in two plays. Florida St. won the ACC championship, 16-6, over Louisville in Charlotte last night. It was the Seminoles’ first conference championship (and first 13-0 start) since Jimbo Fisher and Jameis Winston led the team in 2014.

What I do think is fair, and what I think the committee did, is to look at how they played at the end of the year.  They did not look like a top-4 team against Florida or Louisville.  I don’t think they looked like a top-20 team in either game.  I have Louisville in the top 20; but if I considered the trajectory of their season, I wouldn’t have them anywhere close.  I have Kentucky #47 right now, and the Wildcats won at Louisville 8 days ago.

I don’t include that in my formula, but I’ve never had a problem with the basketball or baseball committee’s giving more weight to recent results, and I don’t fault the football committee for doing so.  If there were no SEC championship and Alabama beat Georgia earlier in the year, I wouldn’t want them to be given less credit for that, but obviously the committee isn’t being unfair about when you any played a given game.  If anything, I think they’re being charitable to Texas for not considering how long ago the Alabama game was (or any game against a top-20 opponent was) in ranking Texas #3.  But the point is that’s why I don’t include it in my formula.  It could yield unfair results that way, but a person can avoid such outcomes.

So I have Florida St. fifth without considering margin of victory, how the Seminoles looked in those games, or the Jordan Travis injury.  I also didn’t consider how Florida and Louisville were playing, just their respective seasons as a whole.  So I think there are more than enough factors not to consider Florida St. to be a top-4 team.  It’s not just one thing.  But as I said, I’m very sympathetic if you ask me who should get to play for the championship instead of who the four best teams are.

Some people are coping by saying, “at least it’s an expanded playoff next year”; but that doesn’t give me any consolation personally.  None of the major-conference championship games would have been for a spot in the top 12 this year.  I might not even watch next year if LSU isn’t in it.  There is a good chance the committee will already know exactly who the top 12 is by championship weekend, and the games will solely be for seeding.  I’ll have my opinions again, but it will lose a lot of the excitement.

Alabama vs. Texas

To go back to the Alabama-Texas discussion I began in previous blogs (especially the last rankings blog) and touched on a couple of paragraphs ago, I think too much attention is being paid to a head-to-head game in September and not enough attention is being paid to all the games since then.  I have Alabama #2 in strength of schedule vs. FBS teams and Texas 21^st.  Texas does get a little more credit for playing all FBS teams though.  If I ignore Chattanooga from Alabama’s schedule and drop Baylor from Texas’s schedule, Alabama still ends up stronger.  The average of the best 12 teams Alabama faced is about equal to that of #39 Iowa St.  The average of the best 12 teams Texas faced is about equal to that of #51 Northwestern.

So now I’m going to get to arguments from outside of looking at the computers.  Alabama has a better loss from longer ago.  The #1 wins by each team are roughly even (Alabama vs. Georgia), but I would give Alabama more credit for getting the win in December versus September.  Even if you still give Texas a point from there to make the two teams even, I don’t know how you argue LSU and Ole Miss aren’t better wins than Oklahoma St. and Kansas St. 

I think Texas would have to have a far superior list of the more middle-of-the-road wins to overcome that, and I don’t think they do.  Texas beat Wyoming, Iowa St., and Texas Tech.  Alabama beat Kentucky, Texas A&M, and Auburn.  Those are pretty similar lists of three.  Although it did fall a little short, I do think the Longhorns made a very good attempt at playing the necessary type of schedule to prepare them for an SEC season.  If you’re one of those people who says, “sorry, that win over Auburn was ugly and if they’re that close, I’m going with head to head,” that’s a reasonable point of view.  It’s just not how I see it.  I would have been perfectly happy to have joined you in laughing at Alabama if Texas and Florida St. had made it ahead of the Tide though.

Alabama WR Isaiah Bond (who may have pushed off first) catches the go-ahead touchdown pass on fourth and 31 in Auburn 8 days ago. The need for a miracle finish in this situation is one argument against Alabama’s inclusion in the top 4.

As I mentioned, what I don’t like is when someone says, “I don’t care what else they did, they each have a loss and Alabama’s is to Texas. End of story.”  That’s just wanting to rush to a conclusion and not consider the season as a whole.  Word keeps telling me not to use the phrase “season as a whole,” but I don’t know a better way to distinguish my more holistic approach from the approach of just cherry-picking a couple of factoids and stopping there.

Washington vs. Michigan

I don’t have strong feelings about Washington ahead of Michigan, but I’ll lay out the arguments.  I have Michigan about 99% as good as Washington, so there isn’t a huge separation.  I like that Washington had a much tougher game this weekend, but obviously Michigan had a much tougher rivalry-week opponent.  Maybe some of the narrow margins of victory (both Oregon games, Arizona, Arizona St., Utah, Oregon St., and Washington St. were all within one possession) hurt the Huskies.  Michigan had a robust list of top-three wins: Ohio St., Penn St., and Iowa.  I think Oregon would beat Ohio St. and Penn St. but it was just unfortunate for the Ducks that they had to play a top-2 team twice instead of Ohio St.’s once.  Iowa is a better third win than Washington’s third, which might be Arizona.  But then Michigan’s fourth- and fifth-best wins are UNLV and Bowling Green (they didn’t play Northwestern or Wisconsin, which are my two highest Big Ten teams after Iowa).  I strongly believe both would lose to both Oregon St. and Utah and probably USC as well.

LSU Bowl Selection Reaction

D’Cota Dixon celebrates the game-clinching interception of LSU QB Brandon Harris in 2016 in Green Bay, Wisc., as LSU was driving with just under a minute left in the game. This was one of the final nails in the coffin for LSU head coach Les Miles, who was fired three weeks later.

I’m sure I’ll go more into bowl match-ups later, but I’m disappointed that LSU will be playing Wisconsin.  I was hoping for either Notre Dame, which would give the Tigers a chance to get revenge for some foolishness in bowl losses over the last 10 years (as well as being the Brian Kelly bowl), or Iowa.  The contrast in styles for Iowa/LSU would have been worth getting up early for.  Wisconsin isn’t an offensive juggernaut – they haven’t scored more than 30 points in a game since September – but they’re not Iowa.  Wisconsin isn’t even in my top 50.  I think either LSU won’t get up for the game and it will be ugly regardless of the winner or we could get another blowout like last season.  Neither would be a very satisfying end to the year. It’s one of six bowl games between the SEC and the Big Ten.

Top 25 Later This Week

I have my top 25 ready.  Of course it’s mostly based on my ratings with a few adjustments, but I don’t want to overshadow it with all of the discussion of the top 4, so look for that later in the week.

Week 11 Top 25 2023

I was supposed to have time to do this on Wednesday but ended up having an unusually long (and rainy) work day instead, so I’m writing this on Thursday night (Friday morning for many of you).

Best-laid plans of mice and A&M boosters, I suppose.

Recap of LSU/Florida and Rivalry

It wasn’t because there was nothing to write about. I’m happy to make fun of Texas A&M and Florida, who lost a fifth straight to LSU. No one else has a losing streak to LSU that goes back to the national championship season (unless Vanderbilt’s streak of two counts). Although the LSU/Florida series dates back to 1937 and has been played annually since 1971, this was the first time LSU won five straight. Florida had once won nine straight from 1988 to 1996, but LSU now has its first lead in the series since then. If LSU doesn’t win another game this season, I’ll still feel some measure of success from that fact.

While it is unlikely that the LSU/Florida series will continue annually beyond that, the Tigers will at least make the return trip to Gainesville next year. I will endeavor to update the key Rivalry Series in the next week or so.

Not to be bitter about it, but the damage is done anyway. Having to play Florida every year, which included going to the Swamp every even year (apart from 2016), at least more often than not placed the Tigers at a disadvantage in the SEC West as far back as 1996. I guess it did in years before that too, but LSU was so bad it didn’t really matter. LSU had also played Auburn, which was strong for roughly the same time period, on the road in even years. The combined influence of those two games prevented LSU from winning the West in an even year until last season. The other SEC Championship appearances had been 2001, 2003, 2005, 2007, 2011, and 2019. I acknowledge a certain crimson opponent played a role as well, but LSU’s unique struggles with them really only started in the 2012 calendar year.

LSU had to play Auburn every year by virtue of being in the West (that series will not be played next year), but had the Florida series not been made permanent, playing a different SEC East opponent could have made the difference in 1996 (when LSU would been one game better rather than losing a tie-breaker with Alabama) and 2006 (when LSU would have won a tie-breaker with Arkansas, but the additional loss made that irrelevant).

Given that the game was typically in early October though, it put the Tigers behind in 8-ball in several additional seasons. For example, LSU would have known going into the Arkansas game in 2000 that a win would have sent them to Atlanta (ironically, they went to Atlanta anyway to play in the Peach Bowl). Florida dealt LSU its first loss in 2008, and QB Jarrett Lee was never the same again. If it weren’t for his late-season penchant for throwing “pick sixes”, LSU could have easily won all but one other SEC game. LSU also nearly lost to Troy later in that season (seems like that would have taught the AD a lesson, but I digress). I doubt it affected the SEC championship games, but Florida also dealt LSU its first losses in 2012 and 2018, respectively.

Anyway, this was the largest win by either team since LSU’s 41-11 win in 2011. I’ll give the Gators credit for keeping it close for a while though. It didn’t help LSU that, as a result of a poorly-fielded kickoff, the Gators were able to score twice in just a couple of minutes to take a 28-24 lead in the third quarter. Jayden Daniels is a little bit more reliable for generating points than hoping for points off of turnovers and other miscues though, so the Tigers outscored the Gators 28-7 the rest of the way.

Jayden Daniels rushes against Florida on Saturday in Baton Rouge. He ran so well, I can’t even be certain which play this was; but I believe it was the 85-yard touchdown that was along the left side of the field. Daniels became the first person to pass for 200 yards and run for 200 yards in an SEC game at some point in the third quarter, but he finished with over 350 passing yards, which had never been done along with that many rushing yards. Johnny Manziel had thrown for 200 and rushed for 200 once; but that was in a bowl game, so we really hadn’t seen anything like this before.

The LSU defense and coordinator Matt House continue to get a lot of flak, but keeping Alabama within one possession at least until the fourth quarter (if not the entire rest of the game) and keeping Florida from getting a lead the whole game would have been something to be proud of. It’s just not helpful if you put them on the field with their backs close to the end zone seconds after the previous drive ends.

Response to College Football Playoff Top 25

I’ll start by saying there is nothing really new in terms of grievances with the College Football Playoff’s top 25. Oregon’s being ahead of Alabama and Texas continues to make no sense if you care about schedule strength.

At least Oregon St. is no longer the top 2-loss team, having been passed by Missouri. I don’t expect the Beavers will stay the one of the top 2-loss teams indefinitely anyway given games against Washington and Oregon coming up. If they win both, I’ll be happy for them to be the top 2-loss team though. More on them below.

I’d also like them to care more about the schedules of teams like Arizona and North Carolina, but those are far enough down that I’m not sure they really matter. The Arizona/Arizona St. game might actually be game though. It looked like it was going to be a pillow fight earlier in the year.

Comments about My Ratings

I had a bit of time to smooth out the rough edges this weekend and I still liked the results to add the original ratings back in as I described last week.  It also makes sense for some of the teams lower in the ratings because there is a number I have to adjust to factor in the bad teams so one bad loss doesn’t swallow multiple wins.  I can re-add the original ratings without that adjustment though, which I think is the fairer approach.

I was also able to do conference ratings and strength of schedule.  I will wait another week to see if the strength of schedule is giving teams enough credit in the ratings.  That might also be a further adjustment to the formula.  The same basic numbers and computations are being used regardless, it’s just been a continuing balancing act over years between giving credit for wins and giving credit for quality of competition.

It’s amazing that LSU, Ole Miss, and Penn St. have only seven combined losses and are still in the top 7 of the strength of schedule.  Duke is the only other team in the top 12 with a winning record.  Others in the top 20 with winning records are Utah, Kansas St., Kansas, Notre Dame, Missouri, and USC.  I did opt not to put Kansas in the top 25 below due to some of the losses they have though.

I think it’s fair that even though Michigan and Georgia still don’t have great schedules that this recognizes their schedules are now comparable enough that they should be ranked ahead of teams with losses like Texas and Alabama. I think barring any major upsets (based on rank, not necessarily based on betting line), most people would agree that the Top 4 should be Big Ten champion, SEC champion, undefeated Florida St., and undefeated Washington. If Alabama were to lose the SEC championship, the next beneficiary (for now) of a potential upset should be Texas if they win out. This recognizes that.

The conference ratings weren’t very surprising.  The SEC and Big Ten are neck and neck, but I think the SEC will pull away slightly next week given the out-of-conference games.  There are non-conference games the week after that, but I don’t like Kentucky’s, Florida’s, or South Carolina’s chances against ACC opponents (I’m not too worried about Georgia), so that might bring the SEC closer to the Big Ten again.

The SEC would still be ahead after adding the new programs to the Big Ten and the SEC.  That’s not really proof of too much about next season anyway given that Washington, Oklahoma, etc., can’t get as many good wins without hurting someone else in their respective future conferences next season.  It might mean that the Big Ten will be harder to beat in future seasons; but on the other hand, maybe Oregon and Washington fall back to the more mediocre status they occupied not too long ago.

Washington is very close to getting the top spot in the computer ratings.  I definitely think the Huskies will have that spot with a win, but they might lose it the week after (Washington St. wouldn’t count for nearly as much as Michigan would) and reclaim it the week after that (Oregon would count for a lot more than Iowa would). I expect to keep Ohio St. #1 here however for the next couple of weeks absent a loss or something really concerning. I’ll be very interested in how the ratings shape up after the conference championships though.

The initial line I saw had Washington barely favored over Oregon St., and then I saw one in which the Beavers were favored.  I definitely think that’s the big game this weekend. As I’ve mentioned, the Huskies have a couple of very narrow wins at home, so playing a team that’s been playing well on the road might be a challenge.  They might gain more support in the polls and the CFP with the win also, but those are much more stubborn than my ratings are.

Another Heisman candidate now, Michael Penix, Jr., throws under pressure against Oregon St. in Seattle last November. The Huskies won at the last second, 24-21, so it makes sense that the Beavers are given a very good chance to win at home this time despite the Huskies’ undefeated record.

I feel bad for Oregon St. that they lost a close game in Pullman when Wazzu was playing well, but the Cougars have gone down like the Hindenburg since then.

Three of the Honorable Mentions got promoted last week, so keep an eye on those. This week, all but one is in a Power Five conference, so that’s a noticeable change. That one other team is Coastal Carolina, the only one that hasn’t been ranked at some point this season.

My Top 25

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

Out of Top 25: (12) Kansas, (15) Oklahoma St., (22) Tennessee

Honorable mention: Kansas, Oklahoma St., Coastal Carolina, North Carolina, Southern CA

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

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

Week 1 Reaction and Top 25 2023

Since the last blog…

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 15^th game.  Ed Orgeron lost to Troy in his 13^th game in charge (two weeks after a 30-point loss at Mississippi St. that I still argue was worse).  Les Miles lost his 12^th 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 4^th 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.

Top 25

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

Out of Top 25: (17) TCU, (19) S. Carolina, (22) Boise St., (25) Texas Tech

Preseason/Week 0 Top 25 2023

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

Week 6 Top 25 and LSU Reaction

I didn’t make a prediction as to the outcome of the LSU-Tennessee game.  While I thought LSU would be a lot better in the passing game than they were against Auburn and that Tennessee was not unstoppable, I knew there were some things that LSU could do wrong in this game that could make them look really bad on the scoreboard.  If you had told me the final score, I would have predicted that LSU would have had poor special teams play (likely including a turnover) early and got behind.  I would have further predicted that once they got behind, LSU would not be able to establish a running game.  Tennessee did have a better rushing offense than I thought they would even if they got ahead (263 is beyond what I thought the upper limit would have been, in other words); but given how the game started, I’m really not surprised by the end result.  I didn’t anticipate Tennessee having so many more sacks and tackles for loss than LSU did, but part of the reason was that LSU was forced to throw so much and Tennessee was not.

Tennessee RB Jabari Small runs through an attempted arm tackle by LSU CB Jarrick Bernard-Converse in Baton Rouge on Saturday. Small ran for 127 yards and two touchdowns in Tennessee’s first win over the Tigers since 2005.

I was not at all surprised that Jayden Daniels threw for 300 yards with a 71% completion percentage and that Hendon Hooker was held to 239 yards and a 63% completion percentage.  Hooker did throw for more yards per attempt, but he wasn’t this vastly superior quarterback whom LSU wasn’t going to be able to stop as many claimed.  He was good enough that when they took over at the LSU 25 he could put points on the board though.  And Daniels wasn’t so good that he was able to throw long touchdown passes to keep the game close.  So nothing that I thought about Tennessee’s passing offense versus LSU’s passing defense or LSU’s passing offense versus Tennessee’s passing defense was disproven.  I’m actually glad that Daniels took enough chances to throw an interception.  Maybe next time he’ll take more chances while the game is still within reach.

This is kind of a humbling moment; but as I discussed previously, Saban’s first SEC game was a 34-17 loss to Auburn.  On October 7, 2020, he suffered his second SEC loss, 41-9 to Florida.  In Ed Orgeron’s first full year, he lost his first SEC game 37-7 to Mississippi St.  The Tigers had a 3-game conference winning streak after that (starting with Florida two weeks later) but not before losing to Troy.  I know Orgeron isn’t the model to follow beyond that, but it was still a better progression from Year One to Year Two to Year Three than anyone could have realistically expected.

In 2005, Les Miles lost his first SEC game at home to Tennessee.  Granted, that loss took place in overtime rather than being some ugly score like the above; but Tennessee finished 5-6 that year, while LSU won 11 games.  If LSU had under-performed and Tennessee had over-performed that much on Saturday, the final score would have been even worse.

Even after Saban won a national championship at LSU, he lost a game to Georgia, 45-16, in 2004.  Obviously such a score against anyone would be disappointing in a head coach’s fourth season, but I had a feeling such a loss was coming at some point this season.  I hope that like in the Orgeron tenure, we can make up for the disappointment from the week before by taking it out against Florida.

Here are the obligatory “rivalry” links for Tennessee and Florida. Hopefully LSU continues to rally around the Florida game to overcome past disappointments as they did in the Orgeron era (after his interim stint, during which LSU lost on a goal-line stand, Orgeron was 4-1 against the Gators). LSU has a chance of winning 4 in a row against Florida for only the second time ever and also of winning 5 of 6 against Florida for only the fourth time ever. Last year, LSU took the lead in the series in Baton Rouge for the first time in 30 years; but Florida still leads by a few games at home (where the game will be played on Saturday).

Top 25 and Comments

I was more limited in my subjective interventions into the top 25.  I based most of my ratings on last week, which was half computer formula anyway.

There were a few reasons I couldn’t strictly follow the computers.  For one, Clemson went into the #1 spot.  The Tigers haven’t played been very convincing in their wins.  While the average opponent might be better, I think Alabama’s top three opponents of Texas, Arkansas, and Texas A&M are probably a tougher group (though none are in the top 25 at the moment) than Clemson’s top three of Wake Forest, North Carolina St., and Georgia Tech.  The top four teams are very close together though, so the order of my subjective ratings makes a big difference.  #1 and #4 are closer to one another than #4 is to #5.

Based on the current rankings, the game of the year so far was Clemson’s double-overtime win over Wake Forest. In the picture above, Clemson QB DJ Uiagalelei drives forward through the Demon Decon defense. He accounted for 371 passing yards and 52 rushing yards in the game in Winston=Salem, N.C., on September 25.

I certainly didn’t want to allow a team that lost to LSU in the top 10, and I didn’t want teams that lost to Marshall or Southern Mississippi to be in the top 25.  It’s bad enough that I am allowing a team who lost to Tulane in.

Given how uninspiring the last handful of teams in the top 25 are, it wasn’t really surprising that James Madison and Coastal Carolina made it into the top 20 by virtue of being undefeated.  They eventually play one another and each has a game against an ACC opponent, so don’t assume they’re just going to go up the rankings every week without having to prove anything.  My ratings don’t really work that way anyway, but in the short term they can maintain their position or gain slightly based on losses by other teams who will be tested more frequently.

I got an interesting comment last week that the Big Ten wasn’t that good (and that therefore I shouldn’t have had Ohio St. #2). The Big Ten didn’t play Notre Dame, for instance, Ohio St. did. I have three SEC teams in the top 5 versus one Big Ten team. Even with how much the conference schedule dominates the season as a whole these days, it doesn’t do it as much early in the season. Anyway, even though I thought Michigan St. was good three or four weeks ago, beating them didn’t keep the Buckeyes from slipping this week. There are only two potential top 10 opponents (before the championship game) on Ohio St.’s schedule and maybe one other who may be ranked when the Buckeyes play them, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see Ohio St. fall farther behind the top three teams as the season goes on. Michigan and Penn St. are in a similar boat, but they were farther behind to begin with due to not having played a Notre Dame.

I believe James Madison is the 93rd team I have ranked since I started doing this in 1995.

Todd Centelo threw for 394 yards and four touchdown against Arkansas St. on Saturday in Jonesboro, Ark.

Rank	Team	Last
1	Alabama	1
2	Georgia	3
3	Clemson	4
4	Ohio St.	2
5	Ole Miss	5
6	Michigan	6
7	Tennessee	15
8	Texas Christian	14
9	USC	13
10	Penn St.	11
11	Wake Forest	7
12	Oregon	9
13	UCLA	24
14	N. Carolina St.	8
15	Mississippi St.	17
16	Kansas	10
17	Syracuse	25
18	Oklahoma St.	18
19	James Madison	—
20	Coastal Carolina	—
21	Illinois	—
22	Kansas St.	—
23	Kentucky	12
24	Florida St.	16
25	Cincinnati	20
—	Washington	19
—	LSU	21
—	B. Young	22
—	Maryland	23

Full Computer Ratings

Weeks 4 and 5 & Return to Objectivity

Top 25s

I apologize for the long period of time between posts.  I haven’t stopped working on and thinking about the blog.

I was on vacation for about 10 days.  My return was somewhat well-timed because this is when I like to begin transitioning into my computer ratings anyway.  I meant to post a new top 25 while I was away.  I made the new list but never got around to posting it.  I prefer to look at an objective rating at the end of September, but I tried something a little different.  I looked at the very early version of a computer rating that I did before that week; but I had no way to update it with the results from two Saturdays ago, so it was just my best estimation of what the rankings would have been if I’d had that ability.

Since the ratings are the most overdue and urgent part, I’ll start with those.  Two weeks ago first and then the one from earlier this week.

My new rankings are about 50/50 between objective and subjective.  What I did was take the computer top 40 and then rank them 1 to 40 myself.  So they each got a value between 1 point and 40 points.  I divided that number by about 40 and also got a percentage of the best computer rating, which belongs to Ohio St.  The final rating is a percentage of those two smaller amounts added together.  I only made a few small changes if teams where within 1%.  It so happened that LSU’s next opponent and two best prior opponents were nearly tied.  So I decided to put the undefeated team the Tigers haven’t played first, followed by the one who beat them by a point, followed by the one LSU beat by 15.

I just combined them into one chart. People get confused or distracted otherwise.

Rank	Team	Last	Prev.
1	Alabama	2	2
2	Ohio St.	3	3
3	Georgia	1	1
4	Clemson	4	4
5	Ole Miss	6	6
6	Michigan	5	5
7	Wake Forest	19	20
8	N. Carolina St.	8	10
9	Oregon	9	11
10	Kansas	25	—
11	Penn St.	22	25
12	Kentucky	7	8
13	USC	14	18
14	Texas Christian	18	19
15	Tennessee	21	23
16	Florida St.	—	—
17	Mississippi St.	—	—
18	Oklahoma St.	11	13
19	Washington	10	12
20	Cincinnati	12	15
21	LSU	—	—
22	B. Young	15	16
23	Maryland	20	17
24	UCLA	—	—
25	Syracuse	—	—
—	Arkansas	13	9
—	Baylor	16	21
—	Oklahoma	17	7
—	Texas A&M	23	—
—	Texas Tech	24	—
—	Michigan St.	—	14
—	Oregon St.	—	22
—	Iowa St.	—	24

Kansas safety O.J. Burroughs (5) breaks up a pass to Iowa State wide receiver Xavier Hutchinson (8) during the first half In Lawrence on Saturday.

Kansas was the biggest jump, but I don’t consider just inside the top 25 to just inside the top 10 unreasonable for a transition week such as this one.  I prefer to give undefeated teams who have faced major-conference opposition the benefit of the doubt at this point anyway.  In the Jayhawks’ case, that’s three of five games against Power 5 opponents and a fifth against Houston of the AAC.  This is not unrelated to why they are rated so highly at this point. All three Power 5 games were within one possession, so I don’t expect them to continue this.  They may not even win another game.  My ratings aren’t meant to be predictive though: they’re meant to give credit to accomplishments to this point.

I don’t have an “others receiving votes section,” but this is the remainder of the Top 40 in order: Kansas St., James Madison, Illinois, Texas Tech, Washington St., Liberty, Arkansas, Coastal Carolina, Tulane, Memphis, North Carolina, Utah, Duke, Appalachian St., and UNLV.

There may be some other teams I would subjectively put in the top 40, but I didn’t even apply a subjective rank to teams that weren’t in the computer top 40. Air Force, Minnesota, Purdue, and Notre Dame come to mind as additional possibilities in the coming weeks. Although a couple of them are on the list above, it’s difficult for two-loss teams to have much of a shot at this point in the season.

I wasn’t sure where to mention this, but this isn’t penalizing Georgia for a close win. Although Oregon has looked good, Georgia’s average opponent isn’t as good as Alabama’s average opponent. Even if Georgia-Missouri and Alabama-Arkansas were identical final scores, I think Arkansas is a much better team both on paper and in reality. Notre Dame is slowly rehabilitating itself to make Ohio St.’s schedule thus far look stronger than Georgia’s as well. It helps the Buckeyes that they have not faced an FCS opponent or had a bye week yet.

It’s unusual that my top 10 is this consistent during a transition week. The top 6 remained in tact with just a few minor changes to the order, and numbers 8 and 9 stayed exactly the same.

LSU, Tennessee, Auburn, and Objectivity

Back to LSU, with the win over Mississippi St. a couple of weeks ago, Brian Kelly became the first LSU head coach since 1995 to win his first conference game in his first full season.  Now he’s won his first two.  1987 was the last time a new head coach started 3-0 or better in SEC play.  Three different head coaches (Stovall, Arnsparger, and Archer) started their inaugural seasons with 4-game SEC winning streaks in the 1980s.

Given the inconsistencies of both sides, I’m not making a prediction regarding the game tomorrow; but I do think Tennessee is appropriately placed outside the top 10.  Unlike the major polls, I constantly revisit earlier games.  The major polls continue to give the Vols credit for a shaky win (prevailing in overtime against a backup quarterback) over a Pitt team that did not lose to Georgia Tech, for instance, while I think the fact that the Yellowjackets beat the Panthers without overtime is a big negative against Tennessee. The Vols also beat the team (Florida) who beat Utah, but I still don’t see why Utah was as highly rated as they were going into the season.  As it stands, the Utes don’t even make my top 35.

As badly as LSU played in the win over Auburn (and at times against the other two Power 5 opponents) though, Tennessee could win easily.  I would note that the Vols are favored by about as much as Mississippi St. was when the Bulldogs visited Baton Rouge though.  Regardless of LSU’s shortcomings, I think Las Vegas is well aware of Tennessee’s.  So while as I said, I don’t have a predictive model, I think I do have some commonalities with bettors in that I try to be objective and take into account the big picture and all aspects of a team.  In addition to amnesia about why they moved teams up (or down) in the first place, I think the polls are more impressed by how historical a program is and flashy highlights. Good team defense on third down or good blocking on special teams or a long hang time aren’t likely to make SportsCenter countdowns.

I guess if LSU’s wins I’ll be happy for any undeserved credit for beating a top-10 opponent.

One of the most bizarre football games I’ve ever witnessed (even though I turned it off before it was over) took place the last time Tennessee went to Baton Rouge, in 2010.  That also featured a top-10 team, but in that case it was the home team.  For the overall series against Tennessee, see here.  If you follow the second link, you’ll see the same discussion regarding 2010 but not the videos.  I still can’t believe that 10 turned into a 16.

LSU RB Stevan Ridley (you can only see the side of his pants and the bottom of his leg) scores the winning touchdown against Tennessee at Tiger Stadium on October 2, 2010.

Another thing I did while you didn’t hear from me was update the Auburn series.  I added a detailed summary of the game that took place while I was gone.

Week 3 Top 25 & Miss. St. Reaction

I’ll start with LSU-Mississippi St. since there was nothing too earth-shattering elsewhere.  Both the Mississippi St. and Auburn entries of my Rivalry Series are updated.

The game Saturday was similar to some other recent games in the series in that one team dominated the first stretch of the game and another team dominated another.  Examples are when Mississippi St. held onto a win in 2014 and when LSU held onto wins in 2015 and 2016.  The difference here was the switch took place late in the first half rather than late in the second half and that not only did the team who did well initially not hold on, they ended up losing by double digits.

After LSU received the kickoff and earned a couple of first downs before being forced to punt, Mississippi St. scored on its first offensive possession.  The Bulldogs did need to convert a 4th and 1 from their own 22 but did not face a third down after that on the drive.  PK Ben Raybon missed the extra point wide right though.

The LSU defense kept up the pressure on Mississippi St. QB Will Rogers through most of the game in Baton Rouge on Saturday.

None of the next several drives by either team went very far.  The offense would get maybe one or two first downs but would still be forced to punt after that.  The only good opportunity to score was when LSU took over at the Mississippi St. 29 after a fourth-down attempt was unsuccessful, but then Daniels and Williams had miscommunication on a handoff/play action and the resulting fumble was recovered by State.

The first half ended with some drama.  Punter Jay Bramblett (44.8 average, 2 punts inside the 20) had a good kick, nearly 50 yards, but it was returned by Zavion Thomas for 26 yards to give the Bulldogs the ball in LSU territory.  The first play from scrimmage was a 35-yard rush by Dillon Johnson, after which State QB Will Rogers was able to complete a touchdown to Rara Thomas to give the Bulldogs a 13-0 lead.

As had happened at the end of the game against Florida St. two weeks before, LSU’s offensive woes seemed to melt away when they moved into the hurry-up offense after receiving the subsequent kickoff with only 2:14 remaining in the half.  LSU QB Jayden Daniels was 4-4 in the air (albeit for 27 yards) and also ran for 48 yards in the touchdown drive that only lasted 1:28.

It was not apparent at this point that LSU would dominate the rest of the game, but that was an easy place to draw the line as far as a turning point in hindsight as LSU would only give up three points after that.

After Mississippi St. had to punt after one first down to open the second half, Daniels picked up right where he left off.  At least this worked to lead LSU from its own 13 to field goal range, at which time he threw three incompletions; but at least the field goal was good, making the score 13-10.

Another good return by Mississippi St. (which was even better before a penalty cost them about 60 yards) did shift the momentum back somewhat.  After the Bulldogs converted 3^rd-and-longs, it was like the LSU defense went into lockdown mode.  Mississippi St. was forced to settle for a field goal on fourth and 16, returning the lead to 6.  The Bulldogs would not get another first down until the last few minutes of the game though.

The LSU offense wasn’t so dominant right away though.  After only one first down on the next drive (one of Daniels’s longer passes, for 15 yards), the Tigers went for it on fourth down from midfield, and it was a rather weak incompletion.  The Bulldogs’ next drive ended the exact same way after no first downs.  Then Daniels engineered one first down in the air before the LSU offense stalled yet again.

This time, they punted, and Austin Williams could not handle it.  It was recovered by the LSU long snapper Slade Roy who had made it downfield and was watching the attempted catch.  This gave LSU a first and goal.  After a false start backed them up, it took three rushing plays, but Daniels kept the ball himself on the second two and bounced around and into the end zone on third down giving LSU its first lead of the game on the second play of the fourth quarter.

Even though the field position wasn’t great on the next drive, the confidence seemed to carry over.  LSU would convert a 3^rd-and-5, 3^rd-and-1, and 3^rd-and-3 all in the air.  On the subsequent 3^rd-and-10, Daniels completed another pass, to RB Josh Williams; but it was not enough for a first down.  Despite the failure on fourth down earlier and despite the fact that it was probably a makable field goal, LSU went for it.  They were rewarded when a jump ball was caught by WR Malik Nabers (the game’s leading receiver) for 27 yards.  Williams then punched in the touchdown to put LSU up 8.

Rogers then threw three straight incompletions for the Bulldogs, leading to another punt.  LSU was forced into a 3^rd-and-8 on the next set of downs, but Daniels still seemed to maintain the same confidence and ran for the first down this time.  The next play after that, even though they got a breather with an injury timeout, the State defense seemed helpless as RB Armoni Goodwin ran up the middle for 47 yards, giving the Tigers the final margin of 31-16.  Jay Ward had a key interception on the next drive to end the last meaningful threat by the Bulldogs.

Armoni Goodwin’s run here helped to put the game away.

For the game, Mississippi St. was only 3/14 on third down and 1/4 on fourth down.  LSU was only 6/15 on third down but converted 6 of the last 7.  The Tigers’ only fourth down attempts were the two I mentioned, and one was converted.

This was the second straight game against major-conference competition when LSU scored 20 points or more in the last 15:08 of the game (41 total).  This compares to a total of 13 points combined in the two games in the first 44:52.   It would have been easier to explain if LSU had waited 8 more seconds to score a touchdown against Florida St., but you get the idea.  LSU also had the ball for 11 minutes and 20 seconds of the fourth quarter.  Maybe for the next SEC game they should scrimmage for 30-40 minutes before the game starts.  If Auburn (see Rivalry Series) plays like they did against Penn St., it may not be necessary though.

On that note, I’ll move on to discussion of the top 25…

Top 25 Discussion

I will be on vacation next week, so even though it’s early in the season to even look at potential computer ratings, I wanted to start incorporating them now so there is a better transition into next week’s ranking.  Then in the following two weeks rankings start to become completely objective.

So that explains some of the teams that fell In the rankings without losing or even necessarily playing badly.  For instance, Oklahoma St. has only played two FBS opponents and neither of those has a win over another FBS team.  They didn’t have to win at the last minute, but they didn’t beat those teams by impressive scores either.  The Cowboys have a week off before facing Baylor the next week.  Even if they win that one, I don’t see any way they will be able to substantiate a high ranking even then.  TCU also has a bad early schedule.

In my trial run of the computer rankings, there were 4 top-25 teams from the Pac-12.  I didn’t see any reason to exclude any of the four from this list even though only one was ranked going into the week.  In light of Oregon’s win over BYU, maybe that’s proof that Georgia is just that good, and I shouldn’t have dropped the Ducks out of the top 25 for that loss even though I was initially skeptical of the Bulldogs’ being nearly as good as last year.  Of the four, I’m still most skeptical of USC, but I ranked the Trojans a few spots ahead of the Beavers (settle down) because they had a relatively easy time against Fresno St., a common opponent.  I was also impressed by Washington’s win over Michigan St., who has a lot back from last year.

Washington WR Ja’Lynn Polk brings in a touchdown pass in the first half in Seattle on Saturday, a good day for the Pac-12.

I didn’t rank Penn St. because I think Auburn is great, but they’re not a cupcake, and having three wins over FBS opponents puts the Nittany Lions in select company at this point.  Syracuse (whose best win is 1-2 Louisville) is the only unranked team below that you can say that about.

The only huge step up I didn’t cover is North Carolina St., which did have a narrow win over East Carolina in Week 1; but it’s a win that looks pretty good right now. With the win over Texas Tech last week, the Wolf Pack has one of the best two-win combinations, especially for both wins to be out of conference.

I think the rest is easy enough to understand.

Here are a few undefeated teams to watch who for now are not ranked but could be if they keep winning and as the rankings become more objective: UCLA (didn’t like the South Alabama game, but margin of victory doesn’t count for much later in the season), Indiana, Florida St., Tulane, James Madison, Duke, Syracuse, Washington St., and Kansas.

Some teams who are in position to bounce back from early losses are Illinois, Wyoming, Mississippi St., Liberty, UL-Lafayette, SMU, Iowa, and East Carolina.

LSU isn’t on that second list right now, but obviously if Mississippi St. and Florida St. continue to do well, the Tigers will have a good chance once SEC play resumes.  I’m just not sure LSU will look great in the computers even with wins in the next two games (a win at Jordan-Hare would be a great step, but it won’t necessarily mean anything in the computer).  The Tigers are still very average in FBS at this point given how many teams are in the following categories: no losses at all, one loss to a team that (for now) appears better than Florida St., one loss that might be worse but with a win or wins that look better than LSU’s wins.

Top 25

Rank	Team	Last
1	Georgia	1
2	Alabama	2
3	Ohio St.	3
4	Clemson	4
5	Michigan	6
6	Ole Miss	7
7	Oklahoma	10
8	Kentucky	11
9	Arkansas	8
10	N Carolina St.	16
11	Oregon	—
12	Washington	—
13	Oklahoma St.	9
14	Michigan St.	5
15	Cincinnati	13
16	BYU	12
17	Maryland	20
18	USC	—
19	TCU	15
20	Wake Forest	18
21	Baylor	19
22	Oregon St.	22
23	Tennessee	23
24	Iowa St.	25
25	Penn St.	—
—	Mississippi St.	14
—	U. Miami	17
—	Marshall	21
—	Texas Tech	24