Week 10 Top 25 2023

I mentioned in the last blog that my ratings were delayed this week.  I realized while I was compiling them that not enough credit was being given for playing a series of good opponents.  I’m ok with giving undefeated teams or teams with very good records against mediocre to bad opponents the benefit of the doubt, but I’m not OK with James Madison being #6, Liberty being #11, and Troy being #17.  I think if any of those teams played a random selection of top 25 opponents every week, their record would be about 1-9 or 2-8 right now.  

Adjusted Approach to Top 25 and Possibly to Ratings

In recent years I added what I called weights to “good” games. 

To explain how this came about, my original formula from about 18 years ago was sort of based on a 10-point scale.  If you beat every team you played and those teams beat every team they played apart from you, you’d be between 9 and 10 depending on how good the opponents of the teams you beat were.  This was the entire rating at first, but it later became sort of the first round where I used that number to decide how much credit you got for a win or how much you got subtracted for a loss. 

Realistically the best teams can hope to be around 7 (Ohio St. right now is 6.676).  So what I did with the “weights” was if you played teams better than 5 points (which right now is 14 teams), you’d have a certain number added to your overall rating.  Another 16 teams are between 4.25 and 5, so I would add a smaller number for playing those teams. 

This was regardless of whether you won or lost because you already lost points, so getting some of them back because it’s a good team isn’t a bad thing.  I don’t just want to reward beating them.  I wouldn’t want to reward Texas for beating Alabama and losing to Kansas St. (if the Longhorns had lost over the weekend) where I would not reward another team (like LSU) for beating Missouri and losing to Alabama. I actually think it’s better if you consistently beat teams lower than you and only fall short if you have a very good opponent.

Anyway, I’m starting to question if that’s the best approach.  Wherever I draw the line is ultimately going to be kind of arbitrary. I mentioned the 5-point thing.  Kansas is 4.98.  How much less credit should you get for beating them than you do for beating Louisville at 5.01?

I also didn’t want to go backwards and introduce more subjectivity on my part.  What I decided to do was just to add that initial number to what I have been publishing as the computer ratings.  I could only use a fraction of that number because the other ratings right now tops out at 0.93.  For most top 25 teams, the largest number is about 10x the smallest number, so I though the fairest thing to do was divide the largest number by 10 and then add the two together.

I’m still giving myself the leeway to move teams up to three spots for the top 25.  I might go down to two next week, and I will let you know if I made a change to the published ratings.  I want to see how it plays out.  Sometimes when I make changes, they’re great for one week but I quickly see problems going from one week to the next.  That’s fine for my top 25, but I don’t think it’s good for the computer rating.  It’s good to be able to compare numbers over longer periods of time. 

Big Picture for LSU after Bama Loss

I had a couple other quick thoughts about Saturday’s game. I’ve mentioned LSU’s personnel issues on defense. I also mentioned that the LSU defense was put in a really difficult spot in the fourth quarter when Alabama received the ball at the LSU 25 after an interception only a few seconds on the clock after the previous Alabama offensive drive (3 minutes and 65 yards).

I don’t blame Jayden Daniels for trying to make a play, the ball getting tipped, etc., but giving up a touchdown after the quick turnaround is not proof of a bad defense in that moment. No LSU fan goes on about how bad the 2019 defense was, and no one wanted Dave Aranda to be fired; but LSU gave up 41 points in that game. The Tigers gave up three touchdowns in the fourth quarter and the SHORTEST touchdown drive was 75 yards. I highly doubt that if Joe Burrow threw an interception two plays after one of those drives that the defense would have stopped the Tide from scoring.

“Hot seat” isn’t nearly dramatic enough for Baton Rouge media personalities when they get worked up about something.

So I’m not on the “Fire Matt House” bandwagon that others are on. I know that in hindsight we should have tried to spy more because knowing what we know now, the offense didn’t get close to enough points for the defense that we played. Maybe LSU would have gotten lucky and there would have been a bunch of drops and bad passes. However, we don’t know if more open receivers would have backfired. I don’t hear anyone saying Nick Saban and his defensive coach are incompetent for sacrificing QB rushing yards for more pass coverage. Jayden Daniels ran for more yards than Jalen Milroe, and the former left the game with 13 minutes left.

If both teams had scored in the 40s in an LSU win like four years ago, everyone would be happy. But LSU commentators are going on the radio or on YouTube and saying giving up 40+ to Alabama is never OK regardless.

Even though he’s one of those who I think has been too much of an alarmist about the defense, Matt Moscona pointed out an interesting thing Kelly has been dealing with. You’d think no matter how badly things went off the rails, if you take over a team less than two years after a national championship, you’d have a pretty good recruiting class coming of age. But no, there are only three players left who were recruited in the wake of that championship. The rest of the team is either players Kelly brought in or players that came to play for a team that was going .500. The older players in the subsequent classes who stayed with the team are great. I always have a soft spot for overachiever types, but to think there isn’t a significant talent gap just because we escaped with a win over Alabama last year is silly. Having a better personality and recruiting in a better location than Saban was only getting Coach O so far.

Speaking of which, I want to compare with Saban for a moment. Saban went 26-12 (68.4%) in his first three years at LSU. Kelly is at 69.5% right now. Pretty good for having almost no junior class last year and almost no senior class this year. LSU has a chance to go 4-0, but let’s say they go 3-1 the rest of the way. That would give Kelly a 70.4% mark going into next season. In his last three Division I stops, there was a significant improvement in year three; but even if there isn’t, far too many fans are overreacting.

Granted, LSU had a worse record the two years before they hired Saban than they did the two years before they hired Kelly, but there wasn’t a transfer portal back then. There were good players who had come in after respective 9- and 10-win seasons in 1996 and 1997 who didn’t have a good option other than to stick it out. (By the way, there was only an 11-game regular season back then.). Gerry DiNardo, Saban’s predecessor, won 69.7% over his first three years, so it’s not like Saban blew away anything anyone had seen in recent years right away.

To make some less big-picture comments and get back to the rankings, I think it still makes sense to put Texas ahead of Alabama.  That may change if Oklahoma loses again and LSU wins out.  I’ve mentioned that LSU can get some meaningful positive points in each of the next few weeks.  They’ll definitely be favored in the next two and they haven’t lost to Texas A&M in Baton Rouge since 1994 (the year before DiNardo started), so chances are pretty high they’ll be favored in that one too.  Unfortunately, Georgia St. (who is in between Florida and Texas A&M) has lost two in a row though.  They still may be the second-best team in Georgia.

College Football Playoff Rankings

I think it’s ridiculous that the committee thinks Oregon is the top one-loss team. The Ducks have the 82nd-best schedule. I know they played undefeated Washington, but the Huskies have played the #99 schedule. I don’t even factor in opponents’ opponents’ records as much as many similar blogs do. Some count that equally to opponents’ record because it’s a much narrower range from team to team. Utah, the Ducks’ best win, has a top-50 schedule but two losses.

The big difference comes after Oregon’s marquee win. The highest-rated opponent after that is Colorado, which is #69 overall. Alabama and Penn St. have each beaten four teams who are better than Colorado. Ole Miss, Texas, and Louisville have each beaten five teams who are better than Colorado. I can understand giving some credit for having one close loss to an undefeated team, but it shouldn’t compensate for about every other game being against a team in the top half of the FBS versus about 20% of games being against such teams. Any other team that’s a candidate for the college football playoff would be all but guaranteed to be 8-2 against the Ducks’ schedule, and most would probably beat Utah, my number 20 and the CFP’s #18.

I also don’t think Oregon St., who played no one of note out of conference, is close to the best 2-loss team. I don’t know where they get the idea the Pac-12 is so great. Arizona lost to Mississippi St. and is now half a game out of third place. Notre Dame has suffered a third loss now, but they beat USC (who actually is third place) easily. Wins over Wisconsin and TCU (albeit by lesser teams) have lost their luster.

There isn’t reason to get too annoyed yet, but the committee’s disregard of quality of opponents is something to watch out for going forward.

Comments about My Top 25

I think Purdue is better than their record, but Michigan hasn’t added as many points per week as other major-conference teams do on average.  Even with USC’s struggles, they’re worth a lot more than Purdue.  Alabama and Texas both added high-quality wins as well.  Texas was a lot closer to losing at the end, but I don’t factor that in.  

Georgia and Michigan can each get a good number of points next week though.  Penn St. (who is playing Michigan) and Ole Miss (who is playing Georgia) are right behind them, but neither the Nittany Lions (Rutgers and Michigan St.) nor the Rebels (UL-Monroe and Mississippi St.) have nearly as many potential points to gain in the last two weeks of the season as the Bulldogs (Tennessee and Georgia Tech) and Wolverines (Maryland and Ohio St.) do.

The last time Ole Miss played Georgia, Rebel QB Chad Kelly led the team to a 45-0 lead in Oxford in 2016. Bulldog QB Jacob Eason (right) was only able to complete 44% of his passing attempts and failed to throw a touchdown. Somehow the Bulldogs’ long-awaited chance at revenge is not the SEC game of the week. I wish Ole Miss would go back to those uniforms. by the way.

So if you want to see an SEC team in the playoff, you need to be for Georgia (even if you’d rather see Alabama).  If you want to see a Big Ten team, you need to cheer for Michigan (even if you’d rather see Ohio St.).  I’m not saying the CFP committee always agrees with me, but high-quality wins are usually important to them in the end.  Even if two or three one-loss teams make it, I doubt either one will be Penn St. or Ole Miss.

The order of Kansas, Oklahoma, Oklahoma St. is mostly explained by what I said earlier about bad losses.

I liked not having to drop Missouri, Kansas St., and LSU too far.  Part of that is due to Tulane and Toledo playing fairly weak opponents (even though Tulane barely won again). Losses by USC and UCLA helped too. 

USC almost stayed in the top 25 given that the Washington loss didn’t hurt much, but there is only so much room for 3-loss teams.  The rest of the honorable mentions are from outside of the major conferences.

They didn’t make the honorable mentions, but Duke, Arizona, North Carolina St., and U. Miami are the other major-conference three-loss teams in the top 40.  North Carolina still only has two losses but has a relatively low schedule strength.  It’s interesting how many ACC teams are in the 30s.  Clemson (despite four losses) has a good chance of joining that group in the next few weeks.

Top 25

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

Out of Top 25: (18) Southern CA, (21) Air Force

Honorable mention: Tulane, Southern CA, Toledo, Memphis, Fresno St.

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

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

Final Pre-Bowl Ratings and Reaction to Major Bowl Selections

I don’t have that much to say about the LSU game itself.  I thought they would lose by single digits if they had a good day, and they basically would have lost by three if you take out two disastrous plays (and leave everything else the same): a blocked field goal from fairly close range that was returned for a touchdown, at least partly because all but a couple of players on the field forgot the rules (a 10-point swing), and an interception deep in LSU territory that resulted from a ball that was falling to the ground that hit an LSU helmet instead (this set up a fairly easy touchdown drive).

I’m not surprised that Alabama and Tennessee went ahead of LSU in bowl consideration given that they each only have two losses. I would argue if LSU had beaten Texas A&M, but my guess is that didn’t matter either. Rightly or wrongly (obviously wrongly in my view), Alabama was seen as the best SEC team after Georgia; and Tennessee’s win over LSU would have been a tie-breaker for a New Year’s Six bowl even if one didn’t punish LSU for the extra loss.

LSU is a superior team to Purdue, but sometimes it can be hard to be enthusiastic about playing such a game. I think the Boilermakers will be relatively excited to play in the game and probably would be to play in any bowl.

I do think Tennessee should have gone to the Sugar Bowl, but I guess we didn’t need another game between Alabama and Clemson to take place in the Orange Bowl. All the other New Year’s Six Bowls were fairly obvious match-ups according to the guidelines. USC vs. Tulane in the Cotton especially made sense as the two westernmost teams not bound to the Rose Bowl. They will play one another in a bowl for the first time since the Trojans won the Rose Bowl after the 1931 season. That game might have helped inspire the creation of the Sugar Bowl a few years later. USC and Tulane also split a home-and-home in the 1940s.

I had said Friday that Ohio St. should move up if another team fell out of the top four.  I didn’t realize that TCU and USC were far enough ahead of Tennessee and Alabama that they could afford a loss and stay in the top five.  Actually, my first draft of the ratings had USC ahead of Ohio St.; but then I realized that somehow Utah was being counted as a better opponent than they were. Not to bore the reader with the details, but I try not to penalize teams as much for losing a close game on the road, but that wasn’t meant to treat the winner as one of the top teams in the country as the weighted ratings do if not corrected.

The Trojans did beat one more top-25 team than Tennessee did.  It hurt the Vols that LSU lost in a way because now the Tigers are not in the highest classification of the weighted ratings.  Had LSU won, Georgia would not have fallen out of that classification (which right now is the top 8 teams).  In the bigger picture, USC beat 8 Pac-12 teams and Notre Dame whereas Tennessee only beat 6 SEC teams and Pitt. You can think the former is more impressive while still having the SEC as the best conference.

I’ve written about Clemson playing a deceptive number of quality opponents, so that’s why they’re ahead of Alabama.  The Tigers only beat one top 25 team (the same number Alabama has beaten), but they’ve beaten five other teams in the top 42 to Alabama’s one.  Illinois is #39 and was a missed field goal from beating Michigan, and #37 Pitt took Tennessee to overtime, so I’m not talking about opponents that anyone can take for granted.  (For an even better example, Florida is #51 and beat Utah.).  Alabama does have better losses, but that doesn’t make up for that volume of decent wins.

Florida LB Amari Burney intercepts a pass to win the game against Utah in Gainesville on September 3. In hindsight, it’s another reminder that there are a lot of teams (including those who fall well outside of the top 25) who are threats to some of the best teams, even eventual Power-5 conference champions. On Friday, the Utes beat USC to claim the Pac-12 title and eliminate the Trojans from Playoff consideration.

I think it’s appropriate that the respective Big XII and Pac-12 champions round out the top 10.  I don’t think Tulane, Troy, and UTSA would beat many of the 5 to 10 teams immediately below them, but I don’t mind that in my system teams like that are in the top 20 as long as they’re not in position for the Playoff.  I’m glad not to be in New Orleans to hear from the Tulane fans who don’t know anything about national college football listing all the SEC teams they’d beat with their one good team in a generation though. I have mixed feelings about Troy playing UTSA in the Cure Bowl. On the one hand, it’s good that they’re both playing a ranked team; but on the other hand, I wonder how they would do against one of the lower Power-5 bowl teams.

I know the Playoff is going to expand to 12 teams, but one or two of those teams being non-Power-5 champions is fine with me.  I will want most Power 5 teams to be eliminated with three or four losses.  This isn’t the NFL; I’m not willing to take a team seriously as the potential national champion if they lost 1/3 or more of their regular-season games.

I don’t like Oregon being ahead of Oregon St. even though I do think the Ducks have been the better team overall this year.  USC didn’t beat Oregon (both “civil war” teams played Utah), so it doesn’t hurt Oregon for the Trojans to lose.  USC did beat Oregon St.  It also helps that Oregon’s best non-conference opponent solidified its claim as the best team in the country.  Oregon St. played Boise and Fresno, and neither is as good as LSU anyway, so there wasn’t as much of a gain there (there was a slight improvement to strength of schedule though).

My formula did put the Egg Bowl rivalry in the “correct” order (according to head-to-head results) though, with Mississippi St. at #25 and Ole Miss at #26.  Of course, it helps that Mississippi St. played Georgia instead of Vanderbilt (all the other conference opponents were the same, and the two teams have the same record).

Some teams moved up or down more than they normally would given how many teams didn’t play.  I hadn’t worked on the weighted formula in a few years and it was still new before COVID, so there were still some kinks to iron out.  Given that most of the changes still made sense given the results and there was no turnover in the top 25, I don’t think I changed anything too abruptly.

I’ve updated the ratings after the Army-Navy game before, but this year I’ll just treat is as a bowl game since neither will play an actual bowl game.

Rank	Team	Last
1	Georgia	1
2	Michigan	2
3	Texas Christian	3
4	Ohio St.	5
5	USC	4
6	Tennessee	6
7	Clemson	9
8	Alabama	7
9	Kansas St.	15
10	Utah	14
11	Penn St.	8
12	Tulane	17
13	LSU	10
14	Troy	22
15	Texas	12
16	Oregon	13
17	Oregon St.	11
18	TX-San Antonio	25
19	Florida St.	18
20	Washington	20
21	UCLA	16
22	Boise St.	19
23	S Carolina	23
24	Notre Dame	21
25	Mississippi St.	24

For the ratings of all 131 teams and all FBS conferences (and independents), see here or click “Knights’ Ratings” above at any time while browsing this site.

Rivalry Week Top 25 and CFP Reaction

CFP Reaction

I ended up agreeing with the committee regarding the top 5.  I’ll be really surprised if two of the current top 4 lose this weekend.  I had said before last week that I thought Ohio St. would be one of the stronger non-champions were they to lose to Michigan.

Neither Tennessee nor Alabama, who each have two losses, had a non-conference game that was worth very much to compensate for the extra loss.  The SEC is better, but it’s not so much better that you don’t need either a very good non-conference game or a ninth conference game. 

I did think that LSU would have deserved consideration if they had finished with 2 losses, but the Tigers did get the ninth conference game when they qualified for the SEC Championship Game.  This would have given LSU a second win over a team who finished with a winning record in conference.

Anyway, as to who #6 should be, I disagree with those who have Tennessee behind Alabama.  Tennessee not only played the #1 team in the country by virtue of playing in the SEC East, but they also beat both of the top teams in the SEC West.  Alabama didn’t beat anyone in the top 6 (there are 7 teams per division) of the SEC East, and they also didn’t beat the only team with a winning conference record (LSU) in the SEC West.  The Tide did lose two games in the last second, but I think beating more good teams should count for more than how close the losses were.  Alabama didn’t have to beat a team like either team who beat Tennessee.  Texas was a better non-conference opponent than Pitt, but that doesn’t make up for Alabama playing Vanderbilt as the extra cross-divisional opponent while Tennessee drew LSU, not to mention Georgia and South Carolina.

Ratings and Other Thoughts

I don’t think this technicality matters as far as Playoff arguments but something else that annoys me is if you lose a tiebreaker for the conference championship game, you’re still considered a divisional co-champion.  Even though LSU lost after clinching the spot in the championship game, Alabama can now claim they’ve won the SEC West 10 of 11 years (the exception being 2019).  I prefer the NFL approach.  If you lose the tiebreaker to the team that advances as the winner of the division, you’re not called a champion or co-champion.  The previous time the Tide lost it outright was also to LSU, in 2011.  Since divisions will cease to exist in about two years, I hope we can get at least one more outright win in the next two years.

Back to my rankings/ratings, you may have noticed the “weighted rank” doesn’t penalize as much for losses anymore.  I’ve compensated for that by making it a smaller component of the overall total, but it still does take record into consideration to some extent.  For instance, Vanderbilt had to play four of the five best teams by conference record in the SEC and is only #39 in the weighted rankings because the Commodores also have 7 losses.  Alabama only played two of those teams and is #15 in the weighted rankings largely because there were no other losses.

So, although when I first introduced the weighted rankings they were meant to stand alone, in no universe did I think LSU was #1 last week or that Oregon St. is #2 this week (after Georgia); but those are the teams (other than Georgia) most deserving of bonus points if you will given a combination of a good record and quality opponents.  I also think it’s right that Clemson lost an extra spot (from what they are in the original unweighted formula) because their weighted rank fell to #24.  Clemson just barely edged out LSU and Oregon St. 

Sometimes you have to hold onto your hat in the last 20 minutes of a Rivalry Week game.

One might come to the conclusion that I don’t give conferences other than the SEC enough of a chance with the weighted component, but there are five Pac-12 teams in the weighted top 10 and only three SEC teams.  All things being equal, LSU and Tennessee having such tough conference slates would have caused them to finish lower than Alabama in the standings, but they both beat the Tide and ended up with the same number of conference losses as the Tide. 

USC was the only one of those five Pac-12 teams to have a better weighted rank than unweighted rank.  This was because the other four all finished with three overall losses.  It also helped that the Trojans played Notre Dame.  This compensated somewhat for USC not having played Washington and Oregon.

The other teams in the top 10 of the weighted rankings are Texas and Michigan.  Michigan is doing well being that they only played two teams in the top 40 in my overall ratings, but of course being undefeated helps.    Texas has the opposite situation: a number of top-40 opponents (4) but also a number of losses (4).  Texas has also played 5 teams that finished between numbers 41 and 65 with only one opponent (ULM) below #85.

There are only a couple of the lower teams I thought needed a little bit of explanation beyond the results of last week.

It really hurt Florida St. that Clemson and LSU lost because those games were largely responsible for the Seminoles’ having an unweighted ranking of 14 and a weighted ranking of 16 last week.  Notre Dame’s loss to USC also had some collateral effect upon the ACC as a whole as well given that the Irish beat both of the ACC title contestants and another team (Syracuse) who went .500 in conference and finished 7-5 going into the bowl game.

The only other team who seems somewhat out of place is Boise St.  The win over Utah St. wasn’t the most impressive (although to be fair, the Aggies had won 5 of 6 going into the game), but the three teams who had beaten the Broncos all had “good” weeks.  The Broncos’ worst loss, UTEP, is still not a good team; but the Miners improved their strength of schedule considerably by playing UTSA.  You probably know what happened with Oregon St. (who beat Boise St. in Week 1) and why their stock improved.  Also, BYU improved its strength of schedule with the win over Stanford (who played in a good conference and somehow beat Notre Dame…. Best wishes to departing head coach David Shaw, by the way. How he made it so long is beyond me).

Boise St. LB Ezekiel Noa sacks Fresno St. QB Logan Fife in the third quarter of what was at the time a close game in Boise on October 8. The Broncos outscored the Bulldogs 20-0 in the last 20 minutes of the game to win 40-20. A rematch will be played for the Mountain West title tomorrow, also in Boise.

I also noticed there were some games that weren’t included the last time or two I had updated the weighted rankings, so that may have played some role in why Florida St. fell after a loss and why Boise St. rose so far after a win over a now-6-loss opponent.  I think that’s also the main reason UCLA fell so much last week and rose so much this week. Without correctly factoring in how good USC was, it made the loss to the Trojans look worse than it should have; and this is now corrected.

Regardless, I like the process I’ve followed this year because it’s been a lot more stable.  I don’t like to say a given team is top 10 one week and not in the top 25 the next or that six or seven teams are in this week’s top 25 but weren’t in last week’s.  We don’t really find out that much about a team in one game, especially not when it’s 1 of 12 games, so I don’t like to see much volatility later in the year even if there are some adjustments in the methodology.

Top 25

Rank	Team	Last
1	Georgia	1
2	Michigan	4
3	Texas Christian	3
4	USC	7
5	Ohio St.	2
6	Tennessee	8
7	Alabama	9
8	Penn St.	10
9	Clemson	5
10	LSU	6
11	Oregon St.	16
12	Texas	18
13	Oregon	11
14	Utah	12
15	Kansas St.	21
16	UCLA	23
17	Tulane	20
18	Florida St.	13
19	Boise St.	—
20	Washington	24
21	Notre Dame	15
22	Troy	14
23	S Carolina	—
24	Mississippi St.	—
25	TX San Antonio	22
—	N Carolina	17
—	Ole Miss	19
—	Coastal Caroliina	25

For the detailed ratings of all 131 teams, see here or follow the link in the heading for “Knights Ratings” at any time while browsing the site.

The College Football Playoff Picture with Two Games Left

I wanted to start by saying happy Thanksgiving. I thought it was best to get this out today since there is only one game, which is probably not of crucial importance.

Because they have been so dominant until now, Georgia is the only one-loss team I can see finishing ahead of either LSU with two wins in the final games or USC with two wins in the final games.  The loser of Ohio St.-Michigan will not have anything on their resume similar to Georgia’s wins over Oregon and Tennessee.  It could be an interesting argument if TCU loses or if both LSU and USC lose though. I don’t automatically discount non-champions (even with the same number of losses), but I believe they should be looked at more skeptically.

Strength of Schedule

I touched on this last week, but something that many basic fans either don’t grasp or don’t bother to look into is how much schedules vary.  Most conferences are not like the Big XII where it’s a pure round robin; but even in the Big XII, there are still three non-conference games.

I wanted to go over who is on the schedule of the following teams that have a realistic chance at the playoff.  I’ll go over the top four teams of the respective conferences and the biggest non-conference game.  I’ll mention TCU last because I think most people’s sense of their schedule is accurate.

LSU: Georgia (plays December 3), Alabama (win), Tennessee (loss), Ole Miss (win), Florida St. (loss).

Georgia: LSU (plays December 3), Alabama (did not play), Tennessee (win), Ole Miss (did not play), Oregon (win).

USC: Oregon (not played; possible conference championship opponent {NPPCCO}), Washington (NPPCCO), Utah (loss), UCLA (win), Notre Dame (play on Saturday).

Ohio St.: Michigan (plays Saturday), Penn St. (win), Iowa (win, may play again), Purdue (NPPCCO), Notre Dame (win).

Michigan: Ohio St. (plays Saturday), Penn St. (win), Iowa (win, may play again), Purdue (NPPCCO), Connecticut (win).

Clemson: North Carolina (plays December 3), Florida St. (win), Pitt (did not play), Duke (did not play), Notre Dame (loss).

TCU has beaten the following: Kansas St., Texas, Oklahoma St., Baylor, and Texas Tech.  Out of conference, the best win was over 6-5 SMU.  As I discussed in the last blog, the Horned Frogs will play either Kansas St. or Texas for a second time in the championship game. 

Former walk-on Stetson Bennett IV (pictured above throwing on the run against Florida in Jacksonville last month) helped lead Georgia to its first national championship since 1980 and has the Bulldogs well-positioned for another.

Early Resume Comparison

I’m not making predictions about the remaining games, but I’ll discuss the teams as if I’m comparing them at the end of the season.  For instance, if I say LSU will have beaten Georgia, what I’m talking about is the only scenario in which LSU is a contender. I don’t expect LSU to come particularly close to beating Georgia.

The committee does not consider the wins a team would have at the end of the year, or Clemson and USC would be higher.  Those are the only two above who have two really decent opponents left.  I think it’s harder to have to win successive games like that.  Even moreso with USC because it would be three strong wins in a row: UCLA, Notre Dame, and then the #2 Pac-12 team.

If Iowa beats Nebraska, which is highly likely, LSU and TCU will be the only teams to have played every other top-five team of their respective conference.  I do think the quality of LSU’s top opponents would make up for the extra loss if TCU were to lose a game.

I know it doesn’t seem like either Big Ten team would be missing a big resume bullet point by not playing Purdue, but Purdue has one fewer loss than Illinois, which led Michigan with about one second left on the clock last week.  Also, if you’re not really missing any competition by not playing one of the top five teams of your 14-team conference, that doesn’t say much about your conference schedule.

As I suggested, I’ll be impressed by USC if the Trojans manage to win the next two weeks, and I would not be bitter about it if they were to edge out LSU.  I tip my hat to the committee for having LSU #5 right now.  I think it shows they understand the lists above, and if the last two games barely put USC ahead of LSU, so be it. 

That’s not to say I don’t think LSU would have an argument.  One key point is USC’s loss thus far.  Utah lost to a mediocre SEC team and beat USC.  That suggests to me that USC would have more than one conference loss if they played at least four teams who finished higher in the SEC than Florida did.

This comparison only takes place if LSU wins, so we would either have an SEC non-champion having blown out USC’s best win at the beginning of the year or we would have USC avoiding one of the more dangerous teams in its conference.

Teams Who May Lose Late and Be Considered; Why Clemson Might Deserve a Spot if They Do

Putting LSU aside, Ohio St. would be a very interesting contender if they lose to Michigan.  I think they would compensate for having two fewer games against the Big Ten West as a result of the non-conference game against Notre Dame.  This argument becomes even stronger if USC is knocked out of the running by Notre Dame.

Ohio St. WR Emeka Egbuka stretches for a touchdown against Notre Dame in September in Columbus. Although the Irish have had a couple of ugly losses since then, this still may be a key win for the Buckeyes.

One-loss Michigan would be a poor contender against anyone but a one-loss TCU though.  I know Connecticut beat Liberty and became bowl-eligible, but Connecticut is not a good team.  TCU is the only team in this discussion with a similar lacking best non-conference opponent.

Maybe the committee disagrees, but I would prefer a one-loss Clemson to a one-loss Michigan.  The ACC wouldn’t be the reason, but playing two non-conference opponents with the kind of quality wins that South Carolina and Notre Dame have would make the difference for me. It would be two good non-conference opponents to zero.

As I discussed in the previous blog, one reason I give Clemson more credit so far than others do is if you play a series of let’s call them high-medium teams (not ranked but above average) such as Louisville and Wake Forest, you’re still exposing yourself to risk of a loss to a higher degree with each game.  Just ask Tennessee and Ole Miss.  They didn’t show signs of being vulnerable to teams like that over the previous month or two, but they got to the point of playing too many teams that were high-medium or better and apparently didn’t get up enough for every one. 

On the other hand, based on the above, you can imagine what the committee has probably said.  Even if these other teams are in equal conferences (the ACC is probably the worst of the bunch), Clemson has only played one team in the top five of its conference, and they lost to the only team they’ve played so far who would be in the top five of their conference.  

This conversation would probably only come up in seeding, but I wanted to address it anyway.  Some are assuming that Georgia will definitely be ahead of LSU even if they lose to the Tigers, but I’m not so sure.  If Georgia had to play Alabama and Ole Miss, it’s certainly possible they’d be entering the championship with a loss.  Right now, I think the non-conference game against Oregon resolves any doubt; but it becomes a more open question if both Oregon and Florida St. have three losses at the end of the season.  This wouldn’t matter in my ratings, but obviously how that SEC championship game plays out would influence this discussion.

Week 12 Top 25 and CFP Reaction

First, I want to note that I’ve updated the LSU-Arkansas series blog. I didn’t mention that if you didn’t watch the game, the final score is misleading. The LSU defense was extremely dominant, and the 13-3 late edge seemed almost insurmountable, although of course one more late play could have made the difference in the game. This was the third consecutive game in the series that was decided by three points and the third consecutive win by the road team, both firsts in series history.

Assuming I have time, I’ll write more about potential playoff scenarios later, but I’ll just make general comments about the ratings. I did wait to publish this until after the College Football Playoff (CFP) rankings.

The Race for #5

Since someone will lose between Ohio St. and Michigan, both currently ranked highly enough to make the four-team playoff, there is a lot of interest in who #5 is or will be.

Although in my rankings (and in the CFP’s), LSU stayed ahead of USC, I don’t necessarily fault the rankings that allowed the Trojans to go ahead. Obviously, UCLA is significantly better than UAB and the combination of UCLA and Notre Dame is significantly better than the combination of UAB and Texas A&M; but I just hope that LSU and USC can switch places just as easily if LSU beats a much better team on December 3. Even in my ratings, I expect the Trojans will go ahead with a win (over Notre Dame) after the games this weekend.

The CFP committee doesn’t let us know how close USC is to overtaking LSU, so we will just have to guess there, but I do think if they didn’t move USC ahead now, it would indicate that either (1) they aren’t going to move the Trojans ahead next week either or (2) if they do, it would be a very close call and can be just as easily switched back by LSU beating a better team in the conference championship game.  Despite what Bo Nix says, I think Oregon (assuming they make the title game… more about the “civil war” opponent below) is still a good bit behind Georgia.  If Oregon loses, that makes it worse for USC regardless of whether the Ducks still make the championship game (I think they would need Washington to lose in that scenario.)

I do have Clemson ahead of LSU right now, but I also think a win over Georgia would overcome the deficit.  It may be closer than I would have thought previously given South Carolina’s win over Tennessee.  The Gamecocks have a reasonable chance of winning the in-state rivalry though.  That win by an SEC team would also give LSU a higher rating in comparison to other competitors for #4. 

I think I value many of the same things the committee does, but I think they have a dim view of Clemson for a few reasons. For one, they just don’t seem that capable of scoring the points to keep up with a good offense; and it’s just very rare that your defense can be dominant enough against a good team (and they were anything but against Notre Dame) to compensate. In my ratings, you can win every game 7-3 and you get the same number of points as if you win 77-3 or 77-73. (I do take off a little if you win close games by three or fewer at home though.). For another, although they have played a long list of above-average teams, they’ve only played two teams in the top 20, and they’re only 1-1 against those teams. Also, those two teams each have three losses apiece. When I add in the “weighted” ratings, that’s meant to give extra credit for playing some of the best teams; but the overall ratings do not have the extreme focus on best opponents that the committee has.

Shifting ratings of prior opponents has some impact upon teams moving up and down in my ratings, but I think they’re still pretty stable being that there were only two teams that fell out of the top 25 (and they both obviously deserved to).

Although I think every reasonable ratings system has Georgia #1, there are some shortcomings being that the Bulldogs didn’t play any of the top three teams of the SEC West. If they’d played Alabama or Ole Miss, it would help LSU more to win that game. At least before the Texas A&M game, Auburn (whom Georgia plays every year) looked like the worst team in the SEC West. Mississippi St. isn’t the best either, although maybe those Bulldogs will win the Egg Bowl. I think a two-loss LSU would be a deserving #4 regardless, but I’m just talking about the numbers right now.

Other Developments in the Rankings

Tennessee’s falling four spots was reasonable.  I think they should remain ahead of Alabama.  I don’t think head-to-head is a good reason alone (given that it means the worse loss is worse for Tennessee), but the fact that Tennessee has played Georgia and Alabama hasn’t is a good reason.  Both Tennessee and Alabama have played LSU in the same stadium, and we know how those games went.

It’s also helping LSU that Florida St. has been increasing its standing.  Although I generally like Florida St. better, I’m used to having more mixed feelings in their games against Florida because I usually want to make LSU look better.  But in this year, it’s the opposite since (although LSU has played both) I think it’s better if a team LSU lost to increases its rating instead of the fourth or fifth team the Tigers will have beaten doing so.

You might have expected some of the teams to fall more due to losses, but a loss to a good team this late in the year doesn’t hurt too much given that each successive game is a lower percentage of the total.  Even a loss to a team that is destined for a less-than-impressive bowl game isn’t catastrophic.  I have a couple of SEC results in mind.  If you’re Central Florida, you can’t lose to Navy though.

Oregon St.’s rise may seem unusual, but all of their best prior opponents have been improving. Fresno St. lost its first four games against FBS opponents but has won all six since then. Boise St. started 1-2 against FBS opponents and is now 7-3 in such games. Washington St. has won three games in a row to improve to 7-4 overall. You’re probably already familiar with the gradual improvements of USC, Utah, and Washington. Although USC was high in the polls all year, they didn’t justify it much until later in the season.

Without commenting on the Playoff, USC appears to be the team to beat west of the DFW Metroplex. After struggling to score at times in the first half, the Trojans scored touchdowns, including the one above by WR Kyle Ford on the first play of the fourth quarter, on their first four possessions in the second half to take a 10-point lead in the Rose Bowl on Saturday. After UCLA threw a late interception, USC held on for a 48-45 win.

Finally, Texas has improved in recent weeks as the Oklahoma win has gotten stronger and the Alabama and TCU losses have been hurting the Longhorns less.  Some may wonder how they could possibly be ahead of Kansas St., but you can’t just look at records and conference membership.

Even within the same conference, a better strength of schedule can compensate for a loss. Obviously, Alabama is a much better team than Tulane, and even Texas’s second-best out-of-conference opponent (UTSA) is comparable to Tulane (and they actually rate better as an opponent although not overall). It also helps that Texas did not play an FCS team. Kansas St. not only played an FCS team, but that team is only 3-7 within the FCS (3-8 overall). I think TCU playing Texas again would make for a better game, but I guess we’ll see how it goes.

The Horned Frogs finish with Iowa St. and most likely Kansas St., two of the old Big XII North opponents (only three of which remain in the Big XII after the departures of Nebraska, Colorado, and Missouri). The Wildcats play Kansas, the only other former Big XII North team still in the conference. If Kansas St. wins, they’re in the championship game. If not, they’d need Texas to lose to Baylor. Even though I already think Texas is the better team, I suspect the committee would like TCU better if they beat two-loss Kansas St. rather than three-loss Texas.

Top 25

Rank	Team	Last
1	Georgia	1
2	Ohio St.	2
3	Texas Christian	3
4	Michigan	4
5	Clemson	6
6	LSU	8
7	USC	9
8	Tennessee	4
9	Alabama	7
10	Penn St.	11
11	Oregon	14
12	Utah	12
13	Florida St.	18
14	Troy	20
15	Notre Dame	15
16	Oregon St.	—
17	N Carolina	10
18	Texas	—
19	Ole Miss	16
20	Tulane	23
21	Kansas St.	21
22	TX-San Antonio	23
23	UCLA	13
24	Washington	22
25	Coastal Carolina	19
—	Central Florida	17
—	Oklahoma St.	25

Week 11 Top 25

This is kind of a rushed post. I always add the new rankings Saturday night or Sunday morning even if it takes until it’s sunrise for some of you; but for those who subscribe by email, it will not notify you when that is posted. Feel free to check whenever you get up on Sunday. I don’t always manage to post the conference ratings until Sunday afternoon though. By that time, I’ve also usually checked to see if any teams are out of place to make any needed corrections.

Until now, the top 25 in the blog was different from the computer top 25; but now that I’ve added the “weighted” component of the ratings, that will no longer be the case.

I apologize for this being so late, but normally I don’t even have to respond to anything work-related after 4:30 Pacific, but I was given a bunch of work right before 4:30 since one of my colleagues is on vacation. I didn’t want to have to scramble around at the last minute on Sunday, and of course I don’t want to be at all distracted on Saturday.

I also didn’t have time to update the Arkansas rivalry blog, but I should be able to update both that and the Texas A&M series this weekend. Obviously the A&M one will need to be updated again in about 8 days, so it’s possible I might wait until then.

LSU players gather around the LSU/Arkansas rivalry trophy in Fayetteville on Saturday. I can’t tell who the players in the back are, but the ones in front are (l to r) WR Jaray Jenkins, P Jay Bramblett, and S Sage Ryan.

I’ll only comment briefly about the top 25 given time constraints of it being late and there being games in less than 14 hours.

Commentary about Rankings Changes

Tennessee has passed up Michigan, but this is rather academic being that the Ohio St./Michigan winner is expected to pass up the Vols and remain ahead until the bowl season. The loser is expected to be behind the Vols and stay there until the bowl season.

With the win over Ole Miss, Alabama has passed up the Tigers, but this also likely doesn’t mean much as to the final pre-bowl ratings. If LSU loses a third game and Alabama doesn’t (unlikely against FCS Austin Peay or Auburn), Alabama will be ahead. If LSU beats UAB, Texas A&M, and Georgia, LSU will be ahead regardless of what the Tide does. I’m not making promises aout the top 4, but LSU may also pass up multiple other teams, especially those who don’t play a championship game, with wins in the remaining contests.

I doubt it has a bearing on the national championship picture, but the Pac-12 is very interesting. I was correct in suggesting people pay attention to the Washington-Oregon game last week. Putting the Huskies’ new rating aside, the Pac-12 now has four teams between #9 and #13. That’s interesting enough, but all four of those teams play another one of those teams this weekend. There will be two one-loss teams and possibly three two-loss teams in the conference heading into the final weekend. The championship now involves the best two teams, so every two-loss team after this week may still have a realistic chance if one of the winners were to lose next week.

I don’t have a whole lot to say about Texas-San Antonio (who mostly has moved up by virtue of not losing in not-very-good conference, or Oklahoma St., who has been in and out of the top 25 due to inconsistent performance.

But there is another interesting new team, which is Central Florida. You may have heard of them. The Knights will potentially unseat Tulane from a New Years Six spot by virtue of beating the Green Wave; however, there is also some potential drama in the closing weeks regarding crowning a champion of the American conference. The Knights, who have beaten both teams already, will most likely play the winner of Cincinnati (which made the Playoff last year) and Tulane (set for November 26) in championship week.

I completely disagree with championship games that simply match the two best teams, particularly when they involve a rematch (which, if the winner has a better record, is completely unfair to whomever won the first time), but it does help make for some excitement.

Top 25

Rank	Team	Last
1	Georgia	1
2	Ohio St.	2
3	Texas Christian	3
4	Tennessee	5
5	Michigan	4
6	Clemson	6
7	Alabama	11
8	LSU	8
9	USC	9
10	N Carolina	15
11	Penn St.	17
12	Utah	13
13	UCLA	7
14	Oregon	10
15	Notre Dame	18
16	Ole Miss	12
17	Central Florida	—
18	Florida St.	18
19	Coastal Carolina	21
20	Troy	24
21	Kansas St.	20
22	Washington	—
23	Tulane	16
24	TX San Antonio	—
25	Oklahoma St.	—
—	N Carolina St.	14
—	Texas	19
—	Syracuse	22
—	Liberty	25

Week 10 Top 25 & Week 11 Preview

I got more views this week than I’ve gotten since the pandemic, so welcome to anyone who might be new here. Happy Veterans Day as well.

I thought about making this week the week where I removed the subjective input into the top 25 below (see here for the completely objective unweighted ratings as of right now), but the weighted rankings aren’t quite where I want them yet.  This coming week may clear up a few things.  I think the big game to watch will be in the SEC again, Alabama against Ole Miss.  I’m not one to be sympathetic to Alabama; but win or lose it was going to be hard for them to physically and mentally recover from Saturday and play another road game that could help decide the SEC West (somehow LSU is in the driver’s seat now though).

Oregon-Washington is an interesting upset opportunity.  The Huskies just beat a ranked Oregon St. team for their third straight win, and UO-UW is a rivalry game for both teams.  They’re often the two best Pacific Northwest teams, especially now that Boise St. has reverted to mediocrity, and both teams are a little more high-profile than their respective in-state counterparts.

Washington RB Sean McGrew is tripped up for a loss last year in Seattle. The Huskies were held to an average of 2.3 yards per carry and did not score a touchdown until the fourth quarter as Oregon won 26-16, the Ducks’ third straight win in the series. The previous two games in the series (2018 and 2019) were decided by a total of only seven points though.

It will also be interesting to see if Clemson bounces back against Louisville.  The Cardinals have won four in a row after a 2-3 start.

There are two other matchups of ranked teams according to the polls.  TCU travels down the I-35 to Austin, and Central Florida visits New Orleans to play Tulane.  I want to make sure not to over-rate TCU or Tulane for having good records but not playing great competition.  Either they’ll earn their ranking a little bit better or they’ll prove the skeptics right.

Also, I thought there was enough overhaul going on this week as is with the two big SEC games and the instability of the ACC and the Big XII.  It’s hard to balance record versus big games.  I want to make sure teams like Alabama aren’t penalized too much for losses to very competitive teams; but if I lessen the effect of “good” losses, Tennessee could be as high as #2.  I’m not sure that’s appropriate either. 

With Arkansas’s loss to Liberty, the Big XII is starting to creep up on the SEC.  We will know a lot more the last two weeks of the season though.  Almost half of the SEC plays out of conference in two weeks, and then there are the annual rivalry games the following week.  I at least expect Georgia to beat Georgia Tech, but anything can happen in the others: Kentucky-Louisville, Florida-Florida St., and South Carolina-Clemson.

Speaking of the Big XII and Rivalry Week, I like that KU and K-State are now playing one another at the end of the season unlike in prior years; and they’re both pretty good now.  TCU will likely finish in first place in the Big XII regular season being that the Horned Frogs are two games ahead, but K-State is part of a 3-way tie for second with Baylor and Texas (who play one another during Rivalry Week).  Kansas is tied for fourth with Oklahoma St.  Every team has three games left. There are no late bye weeks or late out-of-conference games like there are in the SEC.

Among the conferences (these are listed after the team ratings), the Pac-12 and Big Ten were almost tied for a distant third, but they’re both rather top-heavy.  The ACC is more split along divisional lines, and obviously the top ACC team took a big hit out of conference.  At least the ACC is still one of the top five conferences.  There is a big separation among the non-Power-5 conferences though.  The American, the Sun Belt, and the independents are leaning toward respectability, while the CUSA, Mountain West, and MAC lag way behind.

Top 25

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

Week 9 Top 25 and Final Thoughts about Saturday

I’ll have some things to say about LSU at the end, but a one loss team playing a two-loss team obviously takes a back seat to the match-up of unbeatens (Tennessee/Georgia) in Athens on Saturday. The two games will likely decide the participants in the SEC Championship Game (although Ole Miss will also control its own destiny if Alabama beats LSU), the winner of which has made every College Football Playoff thus far.

I didn’t want to put either one #1 at this point, but I do think it’s likely that whoever the winner is will pass up Clemson, who barely hung onto #1.

Top 25

Rank	Team	Last
1	Clemson	1
2	Ohio St.	5
3	Tennessee	2
4	Texas Christian	3
5	Georgia	4
6	Michigan	7
7	Alabama	6
8	Ole Miss	9
9	Oregon	8
10	UCLA	12
11	USC	10
12	Illinois	17
13	LSU	13
14	Utah	21
15	Tulane	18
16	Kansas St.	—
17	Penn St.	15
18	Syracuse	11
19	Oklahoma St.	14
20	N Carolina	23
21	Oregon St.	22
22	Wake Forest	16
23	N Carolina St.	20
24	Liberty	19
25	Maryland	25
—	Troy	24

Top 25 Comments

The Tigers did slip in the computer rankings, which is normal after a bye week, but I’m still including a subjective component.  Clemson also lost some ground due to losses by Wake Forest and Syracuse.

I have been calculating percentages of the best rating (after my input) every week without publishing them, but I really wanted to emphasize it this week.  The closest team to Clemson last week was Tennessee, who had 88.99% of Clemson’s score.  This week, there are five teams who are closer to Clemson than that:
Ohio St. 99.83%
Tennessee 99.59%
TCU 98.17%
Georgia 97.96%
Michigan 90.42%

After some difficulty in the first quarter, the Georgia defense easily contained QB Hendon Hooker (6.6 ypa passing and 0.4 ypa rushing) and the Tennessee offense in a 41-17 win last November in Knoxville. Tennessee was a much different team though, having entered the contest at 5-4. Just as last year, the Bulldogs enter the Tennessee game undefeated.

With the top teams this closely packed, it’s much easier for a team to jump from #3 or #5 to #1.

The other teams aren’t playing the most impressive opponents either.  Clemson plays Notre Dame, Ohio St. plays Northwestern, TCU plays Texas Tech, and Michigan plays Rutgers.  The only one of those with a winning record is Notre Dame, who is unranked at 5-3.  The Irish are the only one of the four who is even close to the top 25.  Northwestern is one of the 10 worst teams in my ratings.  Clemson is only as highly rated as they are with my subjective input, so it should be particularly easy for Tennessee to become #1 with a win.  There is a little bit more uncertainty with Georgia; but I think when I add my subjective input, it would be enough to for them to move up to #1.

Ohio St.’s win over Penn St. gave them more points than Tennessee’s or Georgia’s (or TCU’s) wins last week, but obviously that will be balanced out on Saturday.  Michigan didn’t play a good team, but it’s better than not playing any team, which is what Alabama did.

Most of the shuffle at the bottom of the rankings can be understood by the recent wins and losses.  The only particularly remarkable change was Kansas St., who enters at #16; but I was very skeptical about them given the loss to Tulane.  Also, the win over Oklahoma St. was by far their best win.   

The only team to fall out was Troy, who did not play last week.  It can be difficult for teams from the Sun Belt and similar conferences to get enough points to stay in the top 25 week to week.

CFP Reaction

I’m glad I wrote about Alabama earlier in the week and waited on the rankings so I could mention the CFP rankings.

First of all, I really don’t like how the media overhypes these.  It’s not any kind of serious drama or dispute if Tennessee is #1 and Georgia is #4 or the other way around.  Whoever wins Saturday will be ahead.  The loser Saturday will still have a decent chance if they go undefeated.  I do think it’s right to value one win over Alabama and another at LSU more highly than what Georgia has done thus far.  It’s great that they blew out Oregon two months ago, but that shouldn’t count for more than two big conference games in the last month.  Also, if you give Georgia credit for margin of victory over Oregon, you should take some credit away for Missouri and Florida.

LSU is 10^th, and I don’t think they’re that good; but there is an expected loss coming.  I think if LSU wins they should definitely be in the top 10.  If LSU finishes with three losses or fewer, they’ll be in a decent bowl.  That would be true if they were #8 right now or #12, which I think would be more appropriate.

Alabama is #6, and I don’t see what the problem is there.  We all know if Alabama has one loss and is the SEC champion (If they finish with only one loss, they’re guaranteed to be the champion; and it would take multiple bizarre results for them to win it with two losses) they will most be in playoff.  I don’t see what the gripe would be with Clemson, Michigan, or Ohio St.  Michigan of course plays Ohio St., and Clemson at least would pass up the loser of that game and at least the loser of the SEC championship.  I’ll be surprised if TCU finishes the year undefeated anyway; but even if they do, we can expect a lot of upheaval around them.  So again, I don’t think anyone is “snubbed” or has a reasonable grievance yet.

LSU/Alabama Final Thoughts

I wasn’t going to elaborate further after the previous blog about the Alabama/LSU game, but now that I’m discussing the teams, I did want to draw attention to a new entry of a vlog I mentioned before, “College Football Nerds”.  I don’t always appreciate what they have to say, but I at least like what the second guy said.  Alabama winning by a touchdown seems like the most likely single outcome.

I am not expecting a great defensive struggle though. Some people thought that about Mississippi St., Ole Miss, and Florida.  The only game that really was a defensive struggle was Auburn, but I don’t think that’s likely to repeat itself.  If the LSU offensive is ineffective, I think eventually the defense will be overwhelmed like it was against Tennessee.  I mentioned before that I don’t think Bryce Young is Jaxson Dart or Robbie Ashford or Will Rogers where the defense is going to crack the code and Alabama will suddenly be unable to score for 40 minutes or whatever.

LSU QB Jayden Daniels suffered some knee problems, which seemed to limit his confidence and his ability to keep plays alive, and left the October 1 game at Auburn early. Daniels has not seemed similarly affected in subsequent games.

Too much was made of the Auburn game.  LSU did give up a fair number of yards in that game, but they were just on a few plays early on.  Auburn’s inability to have sustained drives was still an issue.  Also, LSU’s lack of passing yards in that game probably isn’t applicable to other games either.  They were in extreme ball control mode that they will not be in against Alabama unless LSU has a lead well into the fourth quarter.  It was also that way because Jayden Daniels was playing hurt and then started having trouble walking, so Brian Kelly took him out.  The coaches don’t trust Garrett Nussmeier, the backup, to throw downfield.  As long as Auburn couldn’t score, there was no reason to allow him to.  Alabama won’t go 40 minutes without scoring like Auburn did.

Then the hosts of College Football Nerds tried to bootstrap the Auburn game into the Tennessee game to make it seem like it wasn’t a unique circumstance.  One of them said something like, “Sometimes you get the Auburn/Tennessee LSU, and sometimes you get the Ole Miss/Florida LSU.”  Just because they were both low scoring outputs for LSU doesn’t mean they were similar games.  LSU had 300 passing yards against Tennessee and 80 against Auburn.  LSU got well into Tennessee territory multiple times, but they were never in a situation where settling for field goals or trying to focus on ball control made any sense.

It’s also not really surprising that the LSU offense seems more comfortable at home.  There are multiple transfers, including Daniels; and there are two freshmen on the offensive line not including the primary receiving tight end.  Nonverbal communication doesn’t take place as well with players who are less familiar with one another, and verbal communication is a challenge in a hostile environment.  This happened on both sides of the ball in the Auburn game especially.  That was LSU’s first true road game.

If this game were in Tuscaloosa, even though LSU has historically done better there than in Baton Rouge, Alabama should be favored by 14 or more.  Alabama also can be a different team on the road than they are at home.  The game could play out exactly like the Tennessee game did, so I’m not saying to bet the farm on LSU beating the spread; but I think if that game were played 10 times, that would have been one of the largest margins of victory.  Every key moment went against LSU.  Alabama seems like a similar team to Tennessee.  It was just luck of the draw at the end between the field goal kickers, and the game was in Knoxville.  I don’t see any way at all the game Saturday looks like the Auburn game though.