Preseason/Week 0 Top 25 2023

I know Georgia is the defending champion,  but I need more continuity if I’m going to consider them the #1 team going into next season. Amost everyone knows the quarterback will be different, but the offensive coordinator is gone and so are most of the targets and running backs.  They might gel by the end of the season, but I think preseason rankings shouldn’t just be guesses as to which programs have been good enough in recent years to probably finish near the top.

Georgia and Ohio St. were arguably the two best teams last season and provided the historic moment above, where the deciding kick in the semifinal was kicked by Ohio St.’s Noah Ruggles in 2022 and landed in 2023. If you have amnesia, it missed and Georgia won, 42-41, before defeating TCU in a blowout for the national championship.

Ryan Day is still at Ohio St. though.  The Buckeyes will also have a new quarterback, but I trust Day to have whoever it is ready right away more than I trust (old and) new Georgia OC Mike Bobo.  Day might even have backups who can win Heismans at other schools.  I also think the Buckeyes have better continuity in the roster.  I hope for their sake they have a kicker who’s a little better from 50 yards, but that’s what separated them from a relatively easy pick to stay #1 going into the season.

I’ll stay in the Big Ten for #3 Michigan.  It’s a weird situation where the Wolverines were top five the last two seasons and Alabama was not.

Michigan’s resurgence is mostly based on defense, and the good thing about that is it’s not centered around one player.  They seem to be solid everywhere but linebacker.

On offense, Big Blue does have a returning QB and players to block for him, so expect another quality game against the Buckeyes.  I have been a little less impressed with Michigan’s consistency though, so this is why I couldn’t justify putting them higher.

While I’m pretty confident the winner of Michigan and Ohio St. will be the team to beat in the Big Ten (no offense to Penn St., who has a habit of being really good one year but mediocre the next) if not the entirety of college football, I don’t feel the same way about the SEC.  Of course I’d be surprised if anyone other than Georgia won the East, but I don’t have a strong feeling about the West.  

LSU certainly has the talent to do so.  Somehow the Tigers managed to pull it off last year even though Brian Kelly basically took over a JV team that was embarrassed in the bowl in January 2022.  I don’t think LSU was actually the better team overall last season though.  They were the day of the Alabama game, but they definitely were not in the first week  against Florida St. or the last (regularly-scheduled) week against Texas A&M.  

I don’t think this was the actual play, but Alabama LB Henry To’o To’o was not able to contain QB Jayden Daniels in Baton Rouge last season. Daniels scored in overtime in this fashion before completing a pass to Mason Taylor to the same corner of the field for the two-point conversion in the 32-31 LSU win.

Like the change of fortune I expect for Ohio St. and Georgia, my instinct is to reverse the order here and give the nod to the Tide.  I am skeptical this will be the first time that there will be back-to-back failures by Alabama to either win the SEC West or the national championship under Saban or the first back-to-back divisional wins by LSU ever.  LSU also hasn’t won three of five against Alabama since 2007-2011.  

I think Kelly has things headed in the right direction, but I still think there will be growing pains before the Tigers are in a playoff position.  Of course I hope I’m wrong.  

I’m not saying that the playoff will be only two conferences, but I think these will at least be the best 4 teams before the Ohio St.-Michigan game (and including LSU, the best 5 before the LSU-Bama game).  I don’t feel strongly about any candidate outside of those two conferences.  There are several teams that could be this year’s TCU (maybe not as big of a surprise, but someone from outside the SEC and Big Ten whose record is too good to pass up), but it’s hard to be confident in any one of them.

A lot of people have USC as the top team outside of those two conferences, but I think the main reason (other than hype) the Trojans were so high at points last season was the overall lack of competition.  I recognize they lost to Tulane in flukey circumstances, but it was about time for someone other than Utah to expose their weaknesses.  I don’t see USC beating any of the five teams I’ve mentioned.  

One that I could see as more likely to win the necessary big games to make a Playoff is Clemson.   If another one-point game had gone differently, they probably would have done so last season.  

On offense, all the skill players should be improved, and it seems the OC position will be upgraded.  Broyles Award winner Garrett Riley of the aforementioned Horned Frogs takes over that job.  There may be some issues with depth, but the Tigers also have a talented defense.  It might not be enough to contain a playoff offense, but it may be enough to get them there.  Most playoff games are won by the more efficient offense anyway.

The USC defense has a lot to prove, but I apply a similar analysis to the Trojans.  If things go well, it may be hard to turn them down for a Playoff spot.  I think Dabo has shown more ability to do something once there than Lincoln Riley has.  Like with Brian Kelly, I’m a little skeptical that all of the cultural problems will be gone in Riley’s second season.

Clemson RB Phil Mafah did not get around the end (Jordan Burch, in this case) quite as easily against South Carolina in Clemson last season. In hindsight, this game is probably what kept the Tigers from a playoff position. South Carolina won, 31-30, ending a 7-game losing streak in the series.

So I think those are the main Playoff contenders at the moment. 

I did want to note that Washington will probably be lower on the list than they are in some other places since they had a major injury to Cam Davis, who would probably have been the star running back in the Pac-12.

Speaking of the Pac-12, Utah is another team to watch, but my concern would be they peaked last year and may not have the staying power of my top 7.  

I think it makes some sense in preseason to give the benefit of the doubt to programs that have been the most successful of late, but I don’t agree with treating teams that way just for being good last year.

There could be a team out of left field again that makes or at least competes for a playoff spot, but I’m not going to go into detail about any of the others on the list below.  It’s just going to be snap judgments based on last year’s results and known quantities who are returning.  

Ole Miss (who entered the bowls at #26) ended up being the worst team on my list going into the bowls last season that did not win its bowl game, so that gives you an idea of how seriously I tend to take predictions of miraculous transformations from December of one year to September of the next.

Pitt and Texas Tech were too far out to make the final top 25 last season (see below) despite quality bowl wins, but they were impressive enough and seem to have enough coming back to make the top 25 now. The only teams I dropped out to make room for them and Ole Miss were the Group of 5 teams who all happened to start with T. Boise St. seemed most likely to maintain its success, so I did leave the Broncos in.

I did complete my top 25 before the Florida/Utah game, but I didn’t want to just rush out a low-quality blog.  I didn’t complete it before Notre Dame/Navy or USC/San Jose St., but those did not affect my rankings.  I didn’t consider Florida because they didn’t finish in the top 50 of my last ratings anyway.  That was my cutoff to be considered.

I never did a final top 25 for last year, but you can figure out what it was below. The teams I had as #26 to #31 and #33 to #35 going into the bowls all lost their bowl games, so there weren’t any changes to the teams that made up the top 25 after the bowls, just the order.

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

Out of Top 25: (9) Tulane, (15) Troy, (20) TX San Antonio

Week 2 Top 25 and LSU (P)review

LSU Recap and Preview

I will not be giving any details about the Bulldogs, just about what is going on with LSU. I have updated my Rivalry Series blog in light of the upcoming game though.

LSU has either lost to or barely beat the Bulldogs in every game recently except for the two years in which Joe Burrow was the starting quarterback.  If we win at all, I’ll be satisfied.  If we win somewhat comfortably, I’ll be very encouraged.  A loss won’t necessarily be devastating, but LSU should beat unranked SEC opponents at home (even though I think the Bulldogs should be ranked) even in a mediocre year.  I know it’s easier said than done, but it should be an expectation.  

Malik Nabers carries the ball in the fourth quarter last year in Starkville. Nabers was the leading wide receiver in the game against Southern on Saturday.

One of the LSU shows found the biggest LSU naysayer they could.  Even he picked LSU to win this game (and lose all the other SEC games).  So while I do think the Bulldogs are underrated, I won’t be resting easy if LSU loses. 

Usually I’d barely mention an FCS opponent, but I hope it gave the coaches more data to make better decisions in the future.  What was done in the Southern game may also be a bit of a preview of what they’ll try to do against Mississippi St.  I’m not going to preview the Bulldogs though.

LSU did shore up some concerns in the game against Southern even though obviously what works against Southern may not work in ANY future games.  I think we can compare it to an NFL preseason game.  Cuts to an NFL roster and to some extent decisions about plays and the depth chart are made based on performances against opposition players who themselves often aren’t going to be playing a whole lot in the NFL.  Similarly, most Southern players could not get meaningful playing time at an SEC school (though a couple of former FCS players play for Florida St. and at least one plays for LSU).  But I think going through the motions of a game against at least some competitive athletic talent can tell you a little bit. 

It certainly gives you a basis for comparison of one player to another.  It provides some data points by which to determine who plays where in future games.  Coaches have a better idea of whom they can trust during the game.  You can’t always know that from practices and scrimmages alone.

I don’t know if the new center Charles Turner will be better than Garrett Dellinger, the center in the Florida St. game; but I didn’t notice any problems with snaps, and the coaches seem to like how he communicated.  Dellinger will still get a lot of playing time, but it will just be at guard instead.  I don’t think anyone is pretending we know how well Turner will block an SEC defensive lineman at center because he did an adequate job against Southern, but they could see how he handled the game environment and worked with his teammates.

Jayden Daniels did leave the game early enough that I think we were able to get some information about where he is compared to the backup Nussmeier.  Kelly said before the Florida St. game that they were 1-A and 1-B rather than 1 and 2 on the depth chart.  I’m pretty sure that was a lie.  We didn’t see Nussmeier at all in the Florida St. game even after the Tigers.

LSU only came up with 3 points in the first half; and although Nussmeier ended up throwing for more yards against Southern, he completed only 59% of his passes compared to Daniels’s 91%.  Daniels did not commit a turnover in either game, and Nussmeier threw two interceptions. Daniels threw three touchdowns, and Nussmeier threw none.  I don’t always think QBR is that great of a stat, but when one guy is near 100 and the other is under 20, I think that sums it up pretty well.

Again, I’m not banking on this counting for anything; but the starters did absolutely all they could.  It has been 129 years since LSU first played intercollegiate football, and the Tigers had never scored 37 points in a quarter before.  It only took 40 seconds of the second quarter to get to 44 points.  As for the defense, Southern didn’t score until one of those Nussmeier interceptions was returned late in the third quarter.  The LSU defense didn’t give up points until about 8 minutes remained in the game.  That was probably the third or fourth team by then. 

Micah Baskerville (23) blocks a punt late in the first quarter against Southern in Baton Rouge on Saturday.

Some players who weren’t even starters in the first game played great.  For instance, the game ball went to Micah Baskerville, who blocked a punt (which resulted in a safety) and returned an interception for a touchdown.  I’m told he was only in about a dozen plays against Florida St.  I don’t care if it was against easy competition, doing both of those things in the same season is hard to do, not to mention the same quarter.  Freshman 5-star recruit Harold Perkins, Jr., whom LSU just barely kept from going to Texas A&M, had a good game too with 7 tackles.

Malik Nabors was relieved of punt-return duties after two turnovers in that role against Florida St., but it was nice to see him score a touchdown on one pass and go for 60 yards on another.  Even if the latter were his only catch, Nabors would have led both teams in receiving yards.  It’s good that the ball was spread around by both quarterbacks too.  Hopefully it will keep the receivers more engaged and facilitate better communication and trust than we saw against Florida St.

Also, importantly, LSU had no major injuries and a couple of key players are actually available against Mississippi St. when they were not against Southern.  This includes RB Jon Emery, Jr., and DE BJ Ojulari.  DE Ali Gaye was suspended for a half for targeting, so he will be back as well.

Top 3

This first section ties into last week about certain SEC opponents looking more like winnable games than they did at first blush, but it’s also relevant as to why I’ve made a change at #1.  I did think it was a little unfair that Alabama had to play Georgia in a rematch, but maybe it was the SEC championship game that was the aberration last year.

Alabama has rebounded from looking vulnerable and even losing in September before; but even if by some miracle LSU had been able to convince Saban to come back (there is a contingent of LSU fans who had been trying to orchestrate that for 15 years… I think they finally gave up now that Kelly has a 9-figure contract and Saban is 70 years old), we probably would have had to start thinking about the future by now anyway.  Alabama may still win the national title, but the close win over Texas can be added to the following somewhat concerning close games last season (with final record of opponent and margin of victory):

7-6 Florida, 2 points

8-4 Texas A&M, LOST by 3 points

6-7 LSU, 6 points

9-4 Arkansas, 7 points

6-7 Auburn, 2 points

I haven’t changed my mind about Oregon (Georgia’s big win) being overrated in preseason.  I would have liked to have seen more Georgia Bulldog offense against Samford, but the defense can’t do anything better than a shutout. 

The reason I made the change is that Alabama won by a single point (and as I mentioned probably deserved to lose), and obviously the shine is taken off of Ohio St.’s win over Notre Dame given the Marshall game.  A team can win by one possession in a fluke, but the Irish had to score in the final moments of the game just to make it close.  So that’s really a similar type of game to what the Irish did in Columbus.

Remainder of Top 25

The rest of the top 10 remained intact.  Kentucky had a decisive road win against Florida, so that’s why the Wildcats moved up so much.  BYU’s win over Baylor was at home in overtime, and Baylor was one of the teams I was doubtful about (along with Texas A&M, Oklahoma, and Oklahoma St.).  The Cougars still got credit for beating a ranked team but not as much as what Kentucky did.

Apart from Baylor (whom I didn’t want to drop double digits for an understandable close loss), the rest of the top 20 is made up of teams who moved up by default.

Marshall is obvious.  Oregon St. may not be, but I had Boise St. as one of the top unranked teams going into the season, and the Beavers beat the Broncos handily in Week 1.  Last week, Oregon St. went on the road to Fresno St. (who won 10 games last year) and won, albeit in a close contest.

Oregon St. WR Silas Bolden escapes a Fresno St. defender during a touchdown play in the first half in Fresno on Saturday.

Tennessee wasn’t great against Pittsburgh, but it’s still a Power 5 road win, so I gave the Vols the Panthers’ former spot.

Houston was also on my waiting list in preseason, so I went ahead and gave Texas Tech a spot for beating the Cougars.

Iowa St. didn’t look a whole lot better than South Dakota St. had against Iowa (both games in Iowa City); but the Jackrabbits were one of the best FCS teams last year.  As for the Cyclones, while they had needed the Hawkeyes to miss a field goal to escape with the win, I was still impressed by the defense.  Iowa’s one score was on a very short field.

I give Texas A&M some credit for their defense against Appalachian St. (who put up 40 points in one quarter against North Carolina after all) as well and considered leaving the Aggies in the Top 25 instead.  Although I do think the Aggies would likely beat the Cylones, 2-0 beats 1-1.  Texas A&M will go ahead of the Cyclones with a win this weekend anyway, so I also don’t mind giving Iowa St. the benefit of the doubt for now.

Speaking of the Aggies, I learned a couple of facts I wanted to share. (1) Jimbo Fisher makes more than 20 times as much per year as Appalachian St. head coach Shawn Clark. (2) Texas A&M has 56 players who were either 4- or 5-star recruits out of high school, but Appalachian St. has just 1.

Rank	Team	Last
1	Georgia	3
2	Alabama	1
3	Ohio St.	2
4	Clemson	4
5	Michigan St.	5
6	Michigan	6
7	Ole Miss	7
8	Arkansas	8
9	Oklahoma St.	9
10	Oklahoma	10
11	Kentucky	20
12	B. Young	17
13	Cincinnati	13
14	Miss. St.	16
15	TX Christian	18
16	N. Carolina St.	19
17	U. Miami	21
18	Wake Forest	22
19	Baylor	11
20	Maryland	25
21	Marshall	—
22	Oregon St.	—
23	Tennessee	—
24	Texas Tech	—
25	Iowa St.	—
—	Texas A&M	12
—	Notre Dame	14
—	Iowa	15
—	Pittsburgh	23
—	Florida	24

Maybe the Grass Isn’t Greener After All

I don’t know what the rankings will be yet with all the upheaval, but I couldn’t help but be amused by some of the results over the weekend.  It was a bad day to be a fan of a ranked team from Texas (I’ll mention the two big ones, but Houston and Baylor also lost), and it was a good day for Sun Belt teams to notch some historical road wins.  (I only recently realized Marshall had joined the Sun Belt after previous stints in the MAC and CUSA.)

Bryce Young of Alabama miraculously avoids a safety against Texas in Austin on Saturday.  He should have been flagged for intentional grounding, but he was not.  The Tide eventually defeated the Longhorns 20-19

The grass was really looking greener to LSU fans who wanted Jimbo Fisher or Billy Napier, for instance.  I think Notre Dame fans (even if they are genuine about having grown tired of Kelly) were insecure about their choice of Marcus Freeman, who had never been a head coach before; but their way of expressing it in most cases was to attack Brian Kelly any way they could and pretend to be overjoyed that he had been replaced.

Last week (last two sections in the link below), I wrote about reminding myself as an LSU fan not to take anything for granted.  Wearing the jersey and helmet and playing in Tiger Stadium might all but guarantee you beat Southern, but it doesn’t guarantee you anything against an SEC schedule. 

LSU/FSU Reactions and Season Outlook

More on Nebraska

I also mentioned in a separate blog how unless you were Oklahoma, Nebraska was pretty much untouchable for most of the 1970s and 1980s.  I think there is a lesson here for some of the LSU fans who are always unhappy with whomever the coach is. 

Rivalry Series: LSU vs. Florida St.

I didn’t mention it because they didn’t play LSU after that, but the Huskers kept it going through the 90s (I found out they had the second-best record among FBS teams in the decade after Florida St.) and had some good teams in the early 2000s.  After having two losing records (both on the recent end) from 1961 to 2014, the Huskers have only finished with a winning record once since then. 

To get to their current situation, they just lost to Georgia Southern, who was playing in the Southern Conference of FCS 10 years ago.  It wasn’t just one fluke loss either.  The Huskers have now lost eight consecutive games against FBS opponents.  The last such game that was a win was over Northwestern, 56-7.  You would have thought that at least the Huskers could stay better than that team, but they lost to the Wildcats at a neutral site just a couple of weeks ago.

After I wrote the above, Nebraska decided to part ways with head coach Scott Frost.  Mickey Joseph, who for whatever reason stayed loyal to Ed Orgeron and LSU from 2017 to 2021 as the wide receivers coach, will step in as the interim head coach.  He was obviously not retained by Brian Kelly but was classy all the way.  I wish him the absolute best of luck in that position.  If he doesn’t end up being a head coach, I wouldn’t be surprised if he returned at some point.

Joseph is the sixth man to coach Nebraska (including interims) since Frank Solich was fired in 2003.  Solich was the last coach to leave Nebraska after successfully avoiding a losing season for his tenure.  Only two men (Bob Devaney and Tom Osborne) coached Nebraska over the 36 seasons before Solich was hired.  There was another LSU connection as former Tigers defensive coordinator Bo Pelini was hired from Les Miles’s staff after the 2007 season.  Let’s just say he experienced mixed reviews, but he has had far and away the best winning percentage and longest tenure since Solich left. 

Another more indirect LSU connection: Solich employed Joe Burrow’s father Jimmy (whom he first hired as a graduate assistant at Nebraska) as defensive coordinator at Ohio from 2005 to 2018.  Solich himself retired after the 2020 season.

Recent Comments by LSU and Notre Dame Fans

Speaking of Joe Burrow, 2018 and 2019 (which his father had retired to witness) had the best combined winning percentage (89.3) of any two back-to-back seasons in LSU history.  Even though I think an average Power 5 head coach could have managed to go over .500 the next two seasons and Orgeron didn’t, it still looks bad that those great seasons only bought him two additional years.  I don’t know who they think is coming to the rescue if they run Kelly out of town without a fair shot at building the program back up.

At least one of the notions they had got knocked down a peg this weekend when Jimbo and Texas A&M lost at home to Appalachian St., a program Les Miles beat easily (with probably his worst team) the year after they upset Michigan in 2007.

Freeman, we were told, had already begun to correct for Kelly’s various misdeeds in recruiting and game strategy even though he started 0-2.  Well, Oklahoma St. (in the bowl last season) and Ohio St. (who beat the Irish in the opener) were certainly much better teams than Florida St. at least.  That last sentence is true enough, but I’m not so sure you could say the same about Marshall.

Marcus Freeman with his players after the home loss to Marshall on Saturday. After Notre Dame led 28-7 a minute before halftime of the Fiesta Bowl last season–Freeman’s first game as head coach–the Irish have been outscored 70-38.

The Jimbo crowd started going nuts last year when the Aggies knocked off Alabama (and LSU struggled in some early games) and then pretended the losses didn’t matter.  I think I prefer the way things have been at LSU.  When we beat Alabama, we’re going places that season.  These are the wins over Alabama since Saban was hired and the season results:

• 2007, National Championship (12-2)
• 2010, won Cotton Bowl to finish 11-2
• 2011, National Runners-up (to Alabama, 13-1)
• 2019, National Championship (15-0)

Texas A&M did go 11-2 in 2012, also winning the Cotton Bowl, but didn’t even keep the Tide from winning the SEC West as LSU at least helped to do all four years above.  Alabama finished fourth in the West in 2010, but they were still very much alive for a berth in the SEC title game (with wins over LSU and Auburn, to whom they would later lose by only a single point) when they visited Tiger Stadium that year.

Though I would take 8-4 before the bowl any kind of way this season, finishing 8-4 despite beating Alabama seems like a waste in your fourth year somewhere like A&M.

Kevin Sumlin, Jimbo’s predecessor, beat Alabama exactly once too.  He had a slightly better record in his first 50 games than what Jimbo has after 50 games with the Aggies.  This is despite the fact that Texas A&M has increased the head coach’s salary by about 50% since Sumlin left.  Almost two years of additional salary was paid to Sumlin to go away.  Jimbo’s most-recent extension takes him through 2031.  This makes his contract very similar to the one Kelly has.  Kelly makes $1 million more in base salary, but I’m not sure how the overall compensation compares.  Regardless, I’ll be interested to see which head coach has more success over the next 10 seasons despite Jimbo’s four-year head start. 

Jimbo Fisher, with former Texas A&M QB Zach Calzada (who is now third string at Auburn), during a similarly disappointing offensive performance in Denver last season

Good and Bad News from the SEC

Anyway, while in a way I’m disappointed that the SEC didn’t look nearly as good this week as it did in Week 1, I am somewhat encouraged by seeing some vulnerability in a few of the teams on LSU’s schedule in addition to Alabama (more on them later in the week) and Texas A&M:

• Tennessee needed overtime to beat Pitt, and that was against a backup QB who seemed like he was playing hurt after the starter had to leave the game.
• Kentucky beat Florida by 10 in the Swamp after the Gators failed to score an offensive point in the last 35 ½ minutes of the game. (Tennessee and Florida are LSU’s only two SEC East opponents.). Oh by the way, yet another contingent of LSU fans (they may overlap with some of the others) was angry that the Tigers didn’t hire Billy Napier, the former coach at UL-Lafayette and new coach at Florida.
• Auburn only beat San Jose St. by 8 points at home after trailing at halftime.

Interestingly, those five teams all had the same home/away status last week as they will against LSU.  So hopefully Alabama and Tennessee continue to have trouble on the road and the others continue to struggle at home.

I’ll have more to say when I post the rankings later in the week.

2021 Week 12 Top 25

I tried to change something at the last minute last week, and that messed things up for this week.  I don’t like when there are dramatic shifts from one week to the next.  According to the original top 25 last week, I created some unnecessary changes and then in a few cases there were dramatic changes back this week.  I shouldn’t have tried to intervene and temporarily alter my formula last week, so I took the unusual step of changing the rankings for last week.

Redoing the previous final rankings is why I couldn’t get this out sooner, but it’s here now.

Michigan did not lose last week, but the Wolverines got relatively few points for beating Maryland.  This allowed other teams to pass them up.

Oklahoma St. beat Texas Tech, which is a good but not great opponent.  I think it was more helpful that Baylor has now won five of six since losing to the Cowboys and that Boise St. has won four games in a row. 

Also, Cincinnati is still feeling a negative effect from their games against Indiana, Notre Dame, and Navy.  Although when the Bearcats play East Carolina next week, the Navy/East Carolina game won’t really matter, for now it hurts Cincinnati that the Pirates won.  Notre Dame didn’t slip enough in points to fall a spot (especially without Michigan gaining very much), but their value as a win went down and will go down again.  Indiana still only has a single win against an FBS opponent.

Although Alabama beat a decent team in Arkansas, many SEC teams took a hit to their respective strengths of schedule this past week, so the win was not quite enough to put the Tide ahead of the Bearcats.  Auburn is slightly better than East Carolina, so I do expect the Tide to move up with a win.

C.J. Stroud threw for 6 touchdowns (all in the first half) and 432 yards with and only 3 incompletions in 35 attempts for the game. Three different receivers had over 100 receiving yards. Ohio St. also had over 200 rushing yards.

Ohio St. shot up in many rankings because of their margin of victory over Michigan St., but as much as that helped, don’t forget that they lost to Oregon.  So it hurt the Buckeyes in my rankings that the Ducks lost.  It will probably help the playoff ranking though, because they intentionally lowered Ohio St. for losing to Oregon given that Oregon had the same number of losses.  With this logic (not mine), it’s better to lose to 2-loss Oregon than 1-loss Oregon.  None of this really matters if they beat Michigan and Wisconsin.  I don’t see any scenario where that wouldn’t be enough to put Ohio St. in the top 4.  Same thing if Michigan beats Ohio St. and Wisconsin.

I didn’t investigate why Appalachian St. went up so much, but I believe it’s because of prior opponents such as U. Miami and Coastal Carolina.  The Mountaineers have a much better strength of schedule than UL-Lafayette.  The reason the “weighted” ratings are so named is they provide extra points as the scores of the best opponents improve, so it’s harder to see the direct correlation between what happened last week and the new ratings.  Also, the loss to Texas hurts UL-Lafayette (who didn’t play Coastal Carolina) more every week.  The Ragin’ Cajuns play the Mountaineers on Championship Saturday anyway, so they can confirm if they really are better.

The only other movement that may seem a little strange is San Diego St. dropping three spots.  The Aztecs played UNLV, so they didn’t get many points from that, and other teams were able to pass them.  There was a similar logic to Texas A&M falling two spots.

Anyway, this is basically the formula I’m going to follow the rest of the year.  The only slight tweak is that it’s not a perfect average between the weighted and unweighted ratings, the latter of which make up maybe 55% of the overall rating.  I could change the weighted formula so the bonus points aren’t so high, but it’s just easier to do it this way.

I noticed based on the Massey comparison site that I give the majority of the MAC better ratings than the other ratings represented on Massey’s site (at least as of Sunday evening). I double-checked every team to see if there was any problem and couldn’t find one.

rank	team	last
1	Georgia	1
2	Notre Dame	2
3	Oklahoma St.	6
4	Cincinnati	4
5	Alabama	5
6	Ohio St.	7
7	Michigan	3
8	Wisconsin	10
9	Ole Miss	12
10	B. Young	9
11	UTSA	15
12	Baylor	16
13	Oklahoma	18
14	Iowa	14
15	Michigan St.	11
16	App. State	22
17	Boise St.	19
18	Wake Forest	8
19	UL-Lafayette	20
20	SDSU	17
21	Oregon	13
22	Utah	25
23	Texas A&M	21
24	Purdue	24
25	Houston	—

Out of Rankings: (23) Utah St.

1-130 computer ratings

2021 Week 11 Top 25

NOTE: These rankings have been redone, so some of this commentary is moot. I had subtracted extra points for losses, but upon reflection, I believe consistency is a better approach. The main team that I thought justified doing so only moved a couple of spots anyway.

I spent a lot of time considering what the best approach is for this week. When in doubt, I think it’s better to follow the recommendations given to me by incorporating what I call the weighted formula of my ratings. Rather than giving each team a score based on wins relative to strength of schedule and a set amount for beating or losing to a team of a certain quality and leaving it at that, the weighted formula gives additional credit for beating very good teams.

I do think the less “big” games don’t get enough attention though (such as the “conventional wisdom” regarding teams like Oregon… more on that in a moment), so I only consider the weighted ratings as part of the overall picture. I think it’s too distorted to look at them by themselves. The overall rating is a sort of average between the two placed on a 10-point scale. Since Georgia is the clear #1 in both, I set their value at 10 exactly. I think this makes it easier for an outside observer to understand what the numbers mean.

In hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have let Alabama go up so many spots last week. I didn’t even look up their opponent this week. Although they went almost down to where they were before (New Mexico St. isn’t much more valuable than a bye week), I decided to only drop the Tide one spot below last week. Arkansas (Alabama’s next opponent) is a good bit better than SMU (Cincinnati’s opponent) or Texas Tech (Oklahoma St.’s opponent). Weird coincidence that all three are playing former Southwest Conference teams. Arkansas would be #25 if I strictly followed the computer.

Ohio St. is the other team I decided to keep the Tide ahead of. The Buckeyes have the best pair of opponents for the last two weeks of the regular season of any team; but with the degree of difficulty in winning both (and the fact that one is currently ahead), I think it’s fair to keep them where they are. I don’t mind if Ohio St. makes a leap after one or both wins.

Although neither opponent is bad, Cincinnati has the second-worst pair of opponents among teams that I think should be under consideration for the playoff.

The worst pair of opponents belongs to Notre Dame. I think the Irish would beat Georgia Tech and Stanford even if their coaches and top players stayed home.

So given the weakness of Cincinnati’s and Notre Dame’s remaining schedules (they get even worse when you consider Notre Dame will not be invited to a conference championship and Cincinnati will play the American West champion) and given the likelihood of at least one loss for Ohio St. in the coming few weeks, I thought it was good to keep them where they are for now.

Why keep Notre Dame so high though? One reason is although Michigan is better than Ohio St. right now, I am not confident enough in the Wolverines beating Ohio St. to put the Wolverines #2. Alabama would be too high relative to their computer rating to be #2 and also has an above-average chance of losing. Oklahoma St. has too high of risk of losing “Bedlam” and/or the Big XII championship. In short, I’m comfortable keeping Notre Dame where they are because (although I expect them to slip) they’ve already beaten the several teams most likely to beat them. Michigan and Oklahoma St. haven’t even played the single respective teams most likely to beat them.

Kyren Williams of Notre Dame stretches for a 20-yard touchdown that put the Irish up 21-0 before halftime on Saturday in Charlottesville. Williams led all rushers for 70 total yards. Notre Dame may have peaked relative to other teams, but I believe they’re a deserving #2 at the moment.

Oregon did a little bit better with the weighted rankings, but there is only so much credit I’m willing to give for a single game. They play fairly good (but not great) opponents in the final weeks, but I don’t see the Ducks joining what I think the Playoff conversation should be without significant upsets, such as Notre Dame or Cincinnati losing one of those games, such as Michigan losing to Maryland and then beating Ohio St., such as a loss by Alabama, such as a 2- or 3-loss team winning the Big XII. Every team in front of them doesn’t have to lose but a lot do.

One reason teams like Oregon are higher now is that I decided to punish a little more for losses. Wisconsin has three, so that’s why the Badgers have fallen despite being a very good team in recent weeks. (The Buckeyes shouldn’t exactly be cocky against them either.) The Badgers also don’t have wins over particularly impressive teams, which is a limitation in the weighted formula.

Texas A&M also has three losses now. Like Oregon, the Aggies do have the one impressive win. Also like Oregon, one struggles to be even mildly impressed with the other wins. They beat Auburn (who now has 4 losses, and Bama would make 5) at home; but LSU (who may well finish with 7 losses) should have done the same and Mississippi St. dominated at Auburn (in the second half anyway). TAMU’s non-divisional schedule is hard to be impressed with: Kent St., Colorado (whom they only beat 10-7), New Mexico, Missouri, South Carolina, and Prairie View. Anyway, the reasons for their fall go a lot deeper than losing to Ole Miss. A couple of weeks ago, A&M went up 10 spots in one week. In hindsight, that shouldn’t have happened.

The Aggies remain ahead of Arkansas and Mississippi St., the other two opponents who beat them. This was regardless of whether I rigidly followed the computers, but I did decide for the purposes of the transition to keep A&M ahead of the newly added teams. Usually I don’t have transitions like this so late in the season, but I usually do a lot of things that I haven’t been able to do. It’s been a weird couple of years… in these challenging times, etc.

rank team last
1 Georgia 1
2 Notre Dame 2
3 Michigan 4
4 Cincinnati 5
5 Alabama 3
6 Oklahoma St. 6
7 Ohio St. 7
8 Wake Forest 12
9 B. Young 8
10 Wisconsin 11
11 Michigan St. 13
12 Ole Miss 17
13 Oregon 15
14 Iowa 16
15 TX-San Anton’ 14
16 Baylor 19
17 San Diego St. 18
18 Oklahoma 10
19 Boise St. 24
20 UL-Lafayette 22
21 Texas A&M 9
22 App. State —
23 Utah St. —
24 Purdue 20
25 Utah —

Out of top 25: (21) Penn St.. (23) Auburn, (25) Pittsburgh

2021 Week 5 Top 25

rank team last
1 Alabama 1
2 Georgia 2
3 Penn St. 4
4 Cincinnati 7
5 Iowa 8
6 Ohio St. 6
7 Oregon 3
8 Oklahoma St. 14
9 B. Young 9
10 Coastal Car. 10
11 Arkansas 11
12 Oklahoma 12
13 Notre Dame 13
14 Michigan 17
15 Texas 15
16 Ole Miss 16
17 Michigan St. 18
18 Kentucky —
19 Florida 5
20 Arizona St. —
21 Auburn —
22 San Diego St. 25
23 Wake Forest —
24 Texas Tech —
25 W. Michigan —

Out of rankings: (19) Texas A&M, (20) Baylor, (21) Fresno St., (22) Louisville, (23) C. Florida, (24) UCLA

I don’t really have time to elaborate. I will try to get my computer rankings online this weekend, so I want to allow as much time as possible to work on those. Usually I have them started earlier, but it’s been hard to get back into the habit of things this year.

I had a general rule of no 2-loss teams; but I had to make an exception with Florida, who had two close losses, both to currently undefeated teams (including by 2 points to Alabama, my #1).

Kentucky’s Chris Rodriguez, Jr., scored what turned out to be the winning points in the fourth quarter in Lexington on Saturday. It was the Wildcats’ first home win over the Gators since 1986.

Week 9 Top 25; Key Games and Race for #1

LSU/Auburn

I think my one-paragraph prediction about this game (last paragraph here) was exactly right.  There were some things that were somewhat surprising though.

I’ve updated the records here.  I had forgotten that other than Alabama, the only two teams that have beaten Auburn a majority of the time (with at least 10 games played) are from Louisiana: LSU and Tulane.

I advised taking Auburn and the points.  I said that I wouldn’t have been surprised if Auburn scored about what Florida did and actually thought Auburn might have scored more.  What I didn’t expect was that 24 would have been enough to win.  The visiting Tigers were still most of the way to Florida’s point total of 28. 

I said that Auburn would probably stop LSU from scoring a couple of times more than Florida did. LSU had four scoring drives rather than six, so that was correct.  I didn’t expect LSU would get to what would have been field-goal range last year about six times with no points to show for it though.

That’s the second game in a row in which LSU struggled to score touchdowns after driving deep in the opponent’s territory, especially early.  I don’t know if that’s a long-term issue or those were just two pretty good defenses with a relatively short field.  I know Mississippi St. has given up a lot of points over the course of the year, but some of that was the fault of their anemic offense.  The Bulldog defense at least seemed fresh with home crowd behind it for 25 minutes against LSU before the Tigers scored two touchdowns late in the first half last week.

Clyde Edwards-Hellaire, with 136 yards, was the top rusher of the game as LSU was able to control time of possession for one of the only times this season.

I was surprised that LSU committed two turnovers, one of which set up an Auburn touchdown.  There were also two officiating decisions that assisted in that score (both the turnover and the touchdown itself), but I’ll talk about officiating later.  Anyway, that actually brings up one unexpected positive for the Bayou Bengals.  I didn’t think Auburn would be incapable of a touchdown drive beyond 22 yards in the first 57 minutes of play.

The sacks and tackles for loss didn’t shock me. I knew that was an area that Auburn was good at.  I still think LSU has a good offensive line, but it’s not going to stop a really good front seven (possibly the best LSU will face) every time.

I did like how Burrow ran and threw across the backfield to avert the pass rush.  I knew that would be necessary to avoid some of the rush. Having more quick, short-yardage plays helped LSU win the time of possession.  This was more of a traditional LSU win in that way.

Another positive was the halftime adjustments.  A good offensive coach like Dan Mullen or Gus Malzahn can come up with a scoring drive to start the half, but Florida didn’t score a second time in the whole half and Auburn didn’t score a second time until about 24 minutes of play later.  Mississippi St.’s only score of the second half was in the closing minute.  Northwestern St. and Utah St. were completely shut out in the respective second halves.

I hope that LSU is at least within a couple of scores of Alabama after the Tide’s opening drive of the second half.  The Tigers could be ahead for all I know, but it really hurt their chances when Alabama scored a touchdown 75 seconds before the half last year to make it realistically a three-score game (two touchdowns and two two-point conversions isn’t necessarily realistic).  Nine points instead of 16 would have mattered there.  Nine points was the halftime deficit against Auburn two years ago, so I think that’s a good bare-minimum goal if we don’t have a good first half.  I think the defense would give the offense a chance to catch up in the third and fourth quarters in that scenario.

Tua Tagovailoa ran for more yards on this play than LSU had rushing yards in the whole game last year in Baton Rouge. Alabama also had over 100 more passing yards.

Going back to the Auburn score to open the half, I thought that even though Auburn scored, it was a moral victory of sorts for the defense to come up with a stop inside the 10.  LSU has been good at that this season.  Auburn was good too, but hopefully Alabama isn’t as good at that if the Tigers have such chances in Tuscaloosa. LSU responded by driving to the one-yard line when they were stopped at fourth and goal, but the ball pretty much stayed on the Auburn half of the field until LSU scored to take the lead for good.   

I’m not going to go into all the calls, but the officiating was terrible, so I was glad LSU was able to withstand that. 

The hit on Burrow looked bad.  I thought helmet-to-helmet hits when a guy is going out of bounds was against the rules.  The TV rules expert said Burrow wasn’t defenseless, but I’ve certainly seen other players being tackled or going out of bounds ruled as defenseless.  Those guys seem more like PR agents for the refs than unbiased arbiters anyway. 

There was also kind of a hip check by an LSU defender that was called pass interference.  I didn’t think it denied the opportunity to catch the ball, and the receiver wasn’t even looking for the ball.  Pass interference should only be called when it conceivably could have been a catch without the interference, which was the case when there was a non-call in the end zone at the end of the first half.  I’m not saying everything they called or didn’t call was in Auburn’s favor, but they definitely favored the visitors. 

We had a couple of players, Tyrion Davis-Price and Derrick Dillon, who reacted to what should have been penalties on other players.  That accounted for 30 of the 118 yards of penalties called on LSU.  If the ref doesn’t call something, a player doesn’t need to make it worse by having them call a penalty on LSU.  You also can’t count on offsetting penalties even when they’re deserved (which was a big part of the reason LSU lost to Alabama in 2014).  The flags themselves were justified though.

Top-10 opponents

Anyway, LSU is now 8-2 against top-10 opponents over the last three seasons. You can guess who the two exceptions were.  Alabama is 6-2 (losses to Clemson and Auburn), and Ohio St. is 6-1 (loss to Oklahoma).    Those three teams happen to be in close to a three-way tie atop the AP poll this week.

The Tide has not played a top-10 team this season, and LSU has played three top-10 teams.  How is this possible when they’re in the same division of the same conference?  Alabama has not played Auburn yet (obviously), their best out-of-conference opponent was Duke (LSU’s was Texas when the Longhorns were still undefeated), and their annual cross-divisional rival is Tennessee (LSU’s is Florida).

Before someone says I’m wrong about the top-10 opponents, I know there was an ESPN graphic posted after the Florida game about how Alabama and Ohio St. had more wins over top-10 teams; but that was going back to 2016, the year that Les Miles coached 4 games before giving way to Orgeron. LSU beat three ranked teams that year, but none were in the top 10.  This gave the other programs a head start, and I don’t think it’s really fair to expect an interim coach to beat top-10 teams anyway.

Race for #1

Most teams have played 8 games.  A couple have even played 9.  I think we’ve progressed far enough into the season to completely ignore last year from now on.  That being the case, although Clemson is still what I’d call a good undefeated team, I no longer consider them #1.  LSU’s best two opponents (Auburn and Florida) are better than Ohio St.’s best two opponents (Cincinnati and Wisconsin), but the Buckeyes have had a better schedule week to week.  Indiana rates higher than Texas (I don’t care how they were ranked at the time of the game), Michigan St. rates higher than Utah St., Florida Atlantic rates higher than Mississippi St., and Nebraska rates higher than Georgia Southern.  I don’t think anyone lower is worth mentioning. 

I don’t put much of a premium on margin of victory, and it has nothing to do with why Ohio St. is #1 in my computer formula; but the way the games have played out also indicates to me that there are fewer teams that Ohio St. would struggle against than teams that LSU would struggle against.

Ohio St. is the clear #1 in both the weighted and unweighted versions of my formula as well.  For instance, in the unweighted system, only 0.007 separates Penn St. from Clemson.  In the weighted system, 0.24 separates the two.  Ohio St’s respective leads over LSU are 0.093 (over 13 times the difference between Clemson and Penn St.) and 1.911 (about 8 times the difference between Clemson and Penn St.).

My educated guess is that if LSU and Ohio St. both win in two weeks, LSU will finally have enough points to go ahead, but it matters how prior opponents of the respective teams do and how opponents of those teams do over the next two weeks as well.  Also, there is more reason to be skeptical that LSU will beat Alabama than there is that Ohio St. will beat Maryland.

I mention two weeks instead of next week because #1 Ohio St., #2 LSU, #4 Penn St., #6 Alabama, and #7 Minnesota all have byes next week.  #3 Clemson plays Wofford, so I don’t think there is any concern of a major change among the top teams next week. If #5 SMU beats Memphis, the Mustangs may move up a spot or two; but that will probably be temporary given that SMU will not stand to gain many computer points by being East Carolina on November 9. 

Kansas and the Big XII

Baylor, an undefeated team I haven’t mentioned much and possibly the last good hope for the Big XII (at least unless a series of losses by others puts one-loss Oklahoma back in the top 4), starts a challenging three-game stretch on November 9 as well.  Unfortunately, they won’t be playing SMU since the Southwest Conference disbanded in 1995; but they travel to Forth Worth on that day before hosting Oklahoma and Texas in the subsequent two weeks.  November 23, which is the day Baylor plays the last of those teams, is also a big day for currently-undefeated teams since Ohio St. plays Penn St. on that day.

I don’t know whose idea it was for Baylor to travel to Lawrence, Kansas, on Rivalry Week unless they thought it was basketball; but Les Miles’ Jayhawks have been looking good the past couple of weeks under new offensive coordinator Brent Dearmon.  It might seem far-fetched for a team with only 3 wins right now to beat a team who’s currently undefeated, but something similar happened during Rivalry Week in 2001.  Les Miles’ first Oklahoma St. team entered the game against #4 Oklahoma with only 3 wins and yet beat the Sooners. Games like that can be tough when it’s the closest thing the opponent will get to a bowl game.

KU would need some luck, but they certainly had that last night.  I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a team have the potential winning field goal blocked only to simply try again from a closer distance on the next play.  Combined with the game in Austin I mentioned here, it was the second consecutive week that a field goal on the final play decided the winner in a Kansas game.  Also, although Texas and Oklahoma may have seen better years, I don’t know how many teams can beat the two in consecutive weeks and still be ready to ward off a potential upset on the road.  Maybe Baylor is just that special, but I have my doubts.

The ball peaks just a few yards downfield from where it was kicked by Kansas after being blocked on the second-to-last play by Texas Tech. The Red Raiders would fumble the ball; and Kansas would recover, allowing the Jayhawks to win on the last play.

Top 25

NOTE: I only gave myself leeway of two spots from the computer ranking. This was only done for a handful of teams though.

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

Out of top 25: (25) Texas

LSU More Qualified for #3 Seed Than Kansas

For more background about LSU, see my blog before last week’s games.

I started seeing LSU projected as a three-seed when they beat Tennessee, but I’ve been waiting on probably the most famous prognosticator Joe Lunardi to put the Tigers there.  As of Friday, he still had not done so (I’m using archived links because these pages are updated frequently).  A ton of fans say their team should be higher and are vague about what team should move down in their stead, but I’m not.  It’s Kansas. 

LSU’s substitute point guard Javonte Smart (with ball) was fouled with about 1 second left before hitting the winning free throws against Tennessee.

Some people may say it’s Houston now that it lost to Central Florida (and that would be a convenient excuse to move LSU up without having to deal with Kansas fans), but I’m not making that argument.  Although it was in December, the Cougars beat LSU.  I know the first reaction to Central Florida is “This isn’t football,” but they are a top-30 team according to the NET (Warren Nolan’s version anyway), which I guess is the new and improved RPI (which I was never a huge fan of because it gives teams a ton of credit for the games they lose).  I’ll grant that it’s late in the year to record a loss like that, but I don’t think Houston was exposed all of a sudden.  There is no reason to believe that’s a game Kansas or LSU couldn’t have lost in past couple of weeks.

Losses by Marquette and Nevada may also help LSU going forward, but like I talked about in the last blog, new things happen in basketball all the time, and my blog process isn’t that fast. I’d also note that Jerry Palm (whom I’ll mention later) now has LSU as a #2 with KU still a 4-seed.

I don’t think Lunardi is doing this intentionally and it may well be the same subconscious bias the committee holds, but I can’t help but think Kansas is getting some “blue blood” special treatment. 

Worst Loss

Normally I wouldn’t quibble too much about the worst lost, I’d just say both lost to a bad team and leave it at that.  But in this case, Oklahoma St. is 24 spots higher than West Virginia in the NET, and we have the benefit of them being in the same conference, so it’s not like the two have had vastly different opportunities. 

I think a good example of these teams is their respective February trips to Lubbock.  Texas Tech is a similar team to LSU, so I think that makes it a particularly good point of comparison (what the teams can do when they get up for a game).  Oklahoma St. took the Red Raiders to overtime while West Virginia lost by 31.  In Kansas’s defense, they did play the Mountaineers much closer than LSU played the Cowboys; but a bad loss in November means a lot less to me than one in mid-January. 

Oklahoma St.’s Lindy Waters’ hit four threes in the final minute, including the tying shot as time expired against Texas Tech; but the Cowboys fell in overtime.

When LSU lost to Oklahoma St., they were playing their third night in a row and just off a disappointing overtime loss to Florida St.  We may see in the SEC tournament if that third night in a row is the problem, but for sure the Tigers won’t be playing the day after a loss.  Also, the most you play in the NCAA tournament is twice in a week.

I started writing this on Friday, but it so happened the Cowboys also played Kansas close, so that furthers my argument, while on Saturday LSU got a slightly more impressive road win over Alabama.  I think beating teams in the NCAA field on the road is impressive even if they end up being 11 or 12 seeds. 

Let’s talk about the second-worst loss.  LSU’s was against Arkansas.  Absent winning the SEC tournament or at least winning 4 or 5 more games, Arkansas will not be an at-large team.  However, the Razorbacks just got a pretty decent win over Ole Miss for their 6^th win in conference play.  Also, if you throw Kansas a bone for only losing to West Virginia by 1, certainly it’s more understandable to lose to Arkansas by 1.

Other Losses

Kansas’s second-worst loss is slightly better, but Arizona St. just lost by 28 points to Oregon.  The Kansas-Arizona St. game was over two months ago, and Arizona St. is a higher-ranked team than Arkansas; but the disparity between Arizona St. and Arkansas is much less than that between Oklahoma St. and West Virginia. 

LSU’s other 3 losses are all against the NET top 30: (4) Houston, (23) Florida St., and (29) Florida.  Only one game in this group of losses (Florida, if you couldn’t guess) happened after December 12.

Kansas’s other losses: (5) Kentucky, (10) Texas Tech, (14) Iowa St., (28) Kansas St., and (36) Texas.  All the losses in this group have come since January 5.

Key Wins and Conclusion

According to Palm at CBS Sports, Kansas had two more “Quad 1” wins as of Friday morning.  Quad 1 wins consist of home games against the top 30, neutral games against the top 50, and road games against the top 75.  Since it was a road game, Alabama qualifies as a Quad 1 win, reducing the margin to 1.  Oklahoma St. is not in the top 75.

Although Alabama hit two late 3s, Tremont Waters (no relation to Lindy) led the Tigers to a 5-point victory in his first game back.

Kansas has the best non-conference strength of schedule in the nation, so a lot of these key wins took place before the new year, and as mentioned a lot of losses took place after.  I think analysis of the losses and when the games took place more than compensates for Kansas’s single additional Quad 1 win, and I hope Lunardi’s new projections give LSU the #3 ahead of Kansas.

Of course if LSU loses two (or more) of the next three games and Kansas wins out in the Big XII, Kansas will belong ahead; but I think it’s getting close enough to Selection Sunday that it’s a concern if you’re not giving teams proper credit for what they’ve done as of right now. 

Top 25 after Week 4

LSU had a good first 22 minutes and a good fourth quarter against Louisiana Tech, but it’s concerning to give up 21 consecutive points to two opponents in a row.

Apart from the touchdown drive at the end of the first half against Southeastern (SLU), LSU has not played well around halftime and the third quarter in any of its first four games.

The Tigers were way out in front of U. Miami and SLU; but in the case of U. Miami, ending a game with no touchdowns in your last 8 drives (not counting the kneel-down at the end) isn’t desirable in my opinion no matter what the score is. LSU may have been shut out in the second half against SLU if they had not recovered a fumble at the SLU 18 late in the fourth quarter.

The troubles started against Auburn after about a quarter and a half instead of two quarters, and that’s the same thing that happened against the Bulldogs on Saturday. We were up 24 against the Bulldogs instead of the 10-point lead at Auburn, but the play from that point until the fourth quarter was similar with identical results (outscored 21-0 in both instances). So there is a wide range of teams that could blow out LSU if the Tigers were to play like that for a full game. To look on the bright side, LSU could probably beat anyone if they eliminate that mid-game lag.

If the Tigers don’t play better, they may well lose the next game against Ole Miss. See here for more about that rivalry.

That said, I don’t see anyone other than LSU I want to put #4. Clemson’s game against Texas A&M and Oklahoma’s game against Army were more concerning, and no one has the pair of top-10 wins the Tigers have.

I thought about dropping Ohio St. due to not having played anyone except a team that just got beaten soundly by Texas, but I may have gotten some flak if the first three teams were all in the SEC. The Buckeyes’ strength of schedule should improve significantly in the next two weeks though, so I’ll leave them where they are for now.

Army’s ground game and ball control were almost enough to beat Oklahoma in Norman on Saturday.

I know I ranked Army #25 last week, but that’s not really a good excuse for Oklahoma to go into overtime against the Knights/Cadets at home. After an uninspired win at Iowa St. the week before, I’m not really feeling the Sooners right now. I’m phasing out the feeling element of this as I always do in late September, but going solely by the numbers wouldn’t even put OU in the top 10. I haven’t been impressed with other Big XII teams either, but the toughest games may be away from home: TCU, Texas Tech, West Virginia, and Texas (in Dallas). The remaining home schedule is Baylor, Kansas St., Oklahoma St., and Kansas.

Auburn didn’t do anything wrong; but even assuming they win next week, 3 of their four wins will be Alabama St. (who has lost by at least 34 to every Division I opponent), Arkansas (who probably still won’t have any FBS wins), and Southern Mississippi (whose only FBS win is over Rice). It’s just time to start factoring in strength of schedule more. Auburn has Georgia and Alabama later of course, but they won’t get credit until they play one of them.

Central Florida, the (AU) Tigers’ opponents in the Peach Bowl, and Michigan were even further from a ranking in my formula, so they dropped more.

Mississippi St. lost to a team I already had ranked, so I thought a 10-spot drop was enough even though the Bulldogs are also not on my computer list.

After that, I knew which teams I wanted to rank (they were all selected from the top 25 of my computer), but when I couldn’t decide the order, I just ranked them by how good the teams who beat them are. For instance, Texas Tech and Maryland (which beat Texas before the Longhorns’ big wins of the past two weeks) had lost to unranked teams. Ole Miss (which beat Texas Tech) has only lost to Alabama, and Temple (which beat Maryland) lost two games, one of which was to Villanova—and it wasn’t in basketball—so that was pretty easy to sort out. I think Oklahoma St. lost to a better team than Texas Tech did, but I couldn’t put the Cowboys ahead of a team who just beat them 41-17 in Stillwater.

The five teams that are in the computer top 25 but not in this one are (in order): Buffalo (beat Temple; see above for discussion about Maryland and Texas), Indiana (lost to Michigan St. but is the only team to beat Virginia), Michigan St. (beat Indiana, although the Spartans lost to Arizona St.), San Diego St. (beat Arizona St., only loss is to Stanford), and North Carolina St. (nothing too special, but they are the only team to have beaten James Madison or Marshall; they play Virginia next).

San Diego St. has a bye week, so they will be staying out; but any of the others could make it in by winning. I know it sounds silly, but this is especially true of Buffalo, which plays Army. Who knew New York could field decent college football teams, not to mention (possibly) three of them? The third is undefeated Syracuse, who fell just a few spots outside of the top 25 and will attempt to beat Clemson for the second year in a row on Saturday.

rank/team/prev.
1 Alabama 1
2 Georgia 2
3 Ohio St. 3
4 LSU 5
5 Stanford 6
6 Oklahoma 4
7 Clemson 7
8 Notre Dame 12
9 Penn St. 11
10 Auburn 9
11 Duke 15
12 Kentucky 24
13 UC-Berkeley 18
14 BYU 19
15 Wisconsin 20
16 UCF 13
17 Michigan 14
18 Miss. St. 8
19 S Carolina —
20 U. Miami —
21 Washington —
22 Texas —
23 Texas Tech —
24 Okie St. 10
25 Maryland —

Out of Top 25:
(16) Minnesota, (17) Iowa, (21) Boise St., (22) TCU, (23) Indiana, (25) Army

Top 25 after Week 1 (and Week 0)

I don’t usually change the rankings too much after the first week, but I’ve modified my approach somewhat. I’ll explain with LSU and U. Miami, which of course was the main game I wanted to talk about anyway. I think U. Miami, for instance, is better than 25th; but they lost and didn’t play very well. That puts them behind most teams at the moment, so it’s a balance between the potential upside of this season and where you are after the one or two results each team has so far (none of the teams below have played two games yet.) In years past, I would have put both teams toward the middle of the top 25.

Nick Brossette’s 50-yard run was the only touchdown of more than one yard by the LSU offense against U. Miami (Brossette scored the other one as well).

I don’t want to put LSU in the top 15 though since there were still some weaknesses (mostly due to inexperience) exposed. It’s concerning that the Tigers had a worse third-down conversion percentage, fewer first downs, fewer pass completions, fewer yards per pass, and fewer total yards. Without the two interceptions (LSU committed no turnovers themselves), the Tigers would have had a very good chance of losing at the end. It would have changed the final score to 23-17, and that’s if U. Miami didn’t score on the drives in which the interceptions took place and if we assume a late Hurricane punt (rather than a fourth-down-conversion attempt) wouldn’t have given U. Miami good enough field position to score again.

Although no one in the top 25 had as disappointing a result as the Hurricanes did, there weren’t any performances by unranked teams that I thought merited them a spot in the top 25.

I have to say I was impressed by the performance of the SEC. Tennessee lost as expected, but they kept the game close for longer than I thought they would (West Virginia led only 13-7 at the half). Auburn-Washington was a bit of a coin flip, but I certainly wasn’t counting on that one. I thought LSU and Ole Miss (in Houston against Texas Tech) were likely to lose, but both won easily. I also wouldn’t have been shocked had Vanderbilt lost at home against Middle Tennessee, but they won by 28.

Kentucky committed 4 turnovers and was threatened in the first half by Central Michigan, but every other team won by more than I expected.

Notre Dame-Michigan was the only non-SEC game between ranked teams. I felt the need to put Michigan behind LSU, but I still expect the Irish and Wolverines to finish close together, as I had them in my preseason rankings.

The other major movement in my rankings was in dropping Penn St. and Michigan St. I was concerned by the level of experience in both respective teams, and the close results of their games (Penn St. beat Appalachian St. in overtime, and Michigan St. beat Utah St. by 7) raised my level of concern. Iowa and Maryland did better than I expected, so I’m not down on the Big Ten overall though. They’re both on my rankings watch list, as are Minnesota and Northwestern.

In the ACC, I feel vindicated by not ranking Florida St.; but Virginia Tech is another team I have my eye on. Duke is another possibility. There aren’t any other unranked teams worth mentioning right now, but that can always change with upsets.

rank/team/prev.
1 Alabama 1
2 Clemson 2
3 Georgia 3
4 Wisconsin 4
5 Ohio St. 5
6 Oklahoma 7
7 Stanford 8
8 Auburn 10
9 Notre Dame 12
10 USC 14
11 Washington 6
12 Miss. St. 16
13 Florida 17
14 Boise St. 18
15 Fresno St. 19
16 UCF 20
17 LSU 24
18 Michigan 13
19 Penn St. 15
20 Mich. St. 9
21 TCU 21
22 Memphis 22
23 S Carolina 23
24 Okie St. 25
25 U. Miami 11