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

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

Brian Kelly Timeline and New Rankings

Brian Kelly Timeline

In the last blog, I decided not to speculate on some aspects of how the deal that brought Kelly to LSU materialized (through his agent) when and how it did.  I’m glad that I didn’t because more information has come out.  It’s not completely different from what I thought, but the picture is more complete now. 

Brian Kelly made an interesting comment to Rece Davis in an interview on GameDay.   He said that his agent Trace Armstrong told him about several inquiries that he had received; but he only discussed this at the end of the season.  Unless his agent called his wife and cleared it with her first, I don’t think he meant the very end of the season.  I suspect that he wasn’t so overwhelmed with the stress of Notre Dame’s looming game against 3-8 Stanford that he took a little bit of time to have conversations with his agent and his family during the week prior to that game.  It is plausible that the only direct conversation with Woodward was after the Stanford game though, and it makes sense that everything had to become settled relatively quickly.  My conclusion about Kelly having some prior conversations is also supported by LSU grad Booger McFarland, who said the deal with Kelly (or at least the formal offer) was already on the verge of being finalized on Saturday.

Rece Davis interviewed Brian Kelly in a meeting room on the LSU campus. The interview aired on GameDay yesterday.

I think Armstrong knew Kelly and Woodward were keeping quiet, so he had the opportunity to fill the void by suggesting the job was actually going to Riley.  Riley was probably going to USC at that point anyway, but Armstrong was able to get a more favorable contract approved more quickly than he would have otherwise.  It didn’t hurt Kelly that he was able to stay under the radar as long as he did.  Whether Riley’s name floating around helped Woodward to secure the funding I’m not sure.  Some have speculated that Woodward knew a long time ago, perhaps before even taking the job or at least before the Orgeron announcement, the money was going to be in place.

I imagine someone at LSU other than Scott Woodward had to be apprised of the situation to finalize the deal even though Woodward was given broad latitude.  At that point a leak was inevitable.  Any major news about LSU football gets all over town very quickly.  I’m not saying the leak was out of malice.  It might have just been to calm down some of the hysteria regarding Riley going to another team.  Some worried that Riley was the guy Woodward was counting on all this time and that he didn’t have a backup plan.

There was an article by former LSU beat writer Ross Dellenger, who now works for Sports Illustrated.  It says that Woodward made one last phone call to Jimbo Fisher prior to the weekend before proceeding with hiring Kelly.  I hope that isn’t true; but if it is, I’m glad Jimbo said no.  I know Woodward likes to hire champions, but Fisher left Florida St. as it was going down the tubes in the years after his national title there.  I certainly think his is an improvement over the previous coaching staff in College Station, but you don’t pay someone a salary like that to go 8-4.  I’m not certain Kelly will do better, but I’d rather have the uncertainty than the knowledge of what Jimbo has done in recent years.  If he were available, I think it would have cost a lot more than the Kelly deal did anyway.

Ratings and Playoff Commentary

I mentioned last week that Alabama did not schedule well out of conference; but the Tide played 6 games against SEC West opponents, all of whom were bowl-eligible and which included #9 Ole Miss, as well as otherwise-undefeated Georgia and 7-5 Tennessee. 

I explained last week that Oklahoma St. had a very good schedule, and it was even better than Alabama’s.  This is why the Cowboys are ranked higher than Notre Dame despite the additional loss.  To illustrate this point, Virginia and West Virginia are both 6-6 with almost identical strengths of schedule.  Notre Dame beat Virginia, while Oklahoma St. beat West Virginia.  Notre Dame only beat two teams that were better: Purdue and Wisconsin.  Oklahoma St. beat four teams that were better: Boise St., Kansas St., Baylor, and Oklahoma.  Both teams won 2/3 of their games against better teams, but being tested more often should give Oklahoma St. the edge. Even if we expand it to the top 80 (we are still talking about risky opponents here—#76 TCU beat Baylor, #77 Illinois beat two ranked teams on the road, and #70 Florida was a field goal away from beating Alabama), Oklahoma St. still played almost twice as many in that range.

Baylor does belong lower than Notre Dame though.  Although BYU was a good non-conference opponent, the Bears scheduled Texas St. (who went 4-8 and is my #111) and Texas Southern (who only beat two other FCS opponents).  Although they essentially played the game conference schedule as Oklahoma St. did, losing to bad teams is punished a little more harshly.  As mentioned, TCU is #76.  Iowa St., who beat Oklahoma St., is #49. 

All three are relatively close though.  There is more than twice as much separation between #4 Cincinnati and #5 Oklahoma St. than there is between #5 Oklahoma St. and #7 Baylor.  There is just under twice as much space between #7 Baylor and #8 Ohio St.

There is a consensus about who the four semifinal teams should be and since the focus of my ratings is creating a fair objective top four, I could not be more satisfied.  You can quibble about how high UL-Lafayette and UT-San Antonio are—I think teams like Michigan St., Oklahoma, and Utah would beat both easily—but I don’t mind giving credit to successful seasons.  Even with an expanded playoff, I wouldn’t want teams with more than one or two losses this season in it, so I don’t mind if 1-loss ULL or 1-loss UTSA are higher than teams who would be highly favored to beat them.

I also think if Cincinnati played number 5 through 10 they’d be lucky to win one or two.  On the other hand, the Bearcats are 1-0 against that group; and a lot of people would have told you out of 10 tries Oregon would beat Utah 9 or 10 of them.  If you missed it, the Ducks had two shots at the Utes and fell far short both times.  Anyway, I also don’t think a two-loss non-champion would be more deserving of a slot in the top 4 even if they look better to me.  Oklahoma St. and others had their chances and fell short. About a foot short in the case of Oklahoma St. against Baylor.  The best Cowboy teams always lose to Iowa St. though. This also happened 10 years ago when the Cowboys missed the top two in favor of the Tide.

Houston stayed close with Cincinnati for a while, so I don’t love the fact that they fell out of the top 25; but Utah St. deserved to move back into it after their solid win over San Diego St. for the Mountain West title.  I like seeing some stability as far as which teams are in the top 25.  In the last three weeks, only four teams have fallen out.  Utah St. was one of those four, so there are only three different teams than there were three weeks ago. 

Championship losers San Diego St., Appalachian St., and Wake Forest all managed to stay in the top 25.  There needs to be a penalty for losing; but just like I’m glad Oklahoma St. didn’t fall out of the top 5 in favor of Notre Dame, I like that it’s not so harsh that any of the three fell below enough idle teams to fall out of the top 25.  

Alabama QB Bryce Young drops back to pass in the SEC Championship Game against Georgia in Atlanta on Saturday. Alabama is now the consensus Number 1 team going into the bowls. The Tide will play Cincinnati in the Cotton Bowl on December 31.

I wrote everything above last night, but I just wanted to respond briefly to Michigan being placed ahead of Georgia.  It doesn’t really matter who #2 and #3 are, but it’s the only difference between the respective top fours, so I wanted to address it.

Georgia Tech isn’t even in that top 80 group I was talking about, but the Bulldogs are in luck because that’s the third-best team they scheduled out of conference.  I have Clemson just outside of the top 25 and UAB at #50.  Of course they avoided Alabama and Ole Miss in the regular season. Imagine the arguments if they had played Alabama.  Anyway, Arkansas and Auburn as the non-divisional games still aren’t bad.  Michigan’s Big Ten schedule did include some bad teams though.  Rutgers, Nebraska, Northwestern, and Indiana all have losing records compared to just one in-conference opponent for Georgia that had a losing record.  Michigan’s one Power Five opponent rates worse than Georgia Tech.  MAC champion Northern Illinois was a help and Western Michigan rated similarly to UAB, but it should not be enough to put them ahead.

That said, if the committee made the decision based on the team that will take the field at the end of the month being harder to beat rather than resume, I do agree with Michigan being ahead.  They finished very strong.  If they play the way they played against Ohio St. and Iowa, they can beat anyone.  If Georgia plays the way they played against Alabama, especially with the turnovers, they won’t have much of a chance.

Top 25

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

Out of Rankings: (23) Houston

1-130 computer ratings

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 Weeks 9 and 10 Top 25

Week 9

As I mentioned in the last blog, I was coming back from vacation this week. I was able to get the computer ratings for last week done, but it was too late to write a blog. With the complications of coming back and my other obligations in life, I wasn’t able to feel caught up on work enough to even start working on the ratings (for Week 9) until after 5 on Friday.

I did want to make a couple of comments about last week. I think after Georgia, it was more appropriate to list the best few major undefeated ahead of Notre Dame and Michigan. Michigan had lost to Michigan St., so that part was obvious. I guess the computer was trying to tell me something, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.

This was what I considered to be the top 10 going into Week 10:

1. Georgia
2. Michigan St.
3. Wake Forest
4. Michigan
5. Cincinnati
6. Notre Dame
7. Ohio St.
8. Alabama
9. Oklahoma
10. Oklahoma St.

Wake Forest was already in the top 3 of the computer in Week 8, so I didn’t do anything special there. Michigan St. and Cincinnati were placed ahead of teams they beat. Since Oklahoma didn’t beat any really good teams in a single game AND doesn’t have a series of good wins (and struggled in some of their poorer wins), I didn’t move them ahead of anyone by virtue of being undefeated. By the way, expect Cincinnati to fall down on my list even if they don’t lose.

Michigan St. RB Kenneth Walker III (9) runs through the secondary in the second half in East Lansing on October 30. Walker ran for nearly 200 yards in the game. The Spartans then played Purdue, apparently the worst possible opponent after a big win.

I understand the argument that if two teams are roughly similar, you put the head-to-head winner first. That’s part of the reason why Michigan St. and Cincinnati were ahead of Notre Dame and Michigan. That logic doesn’t apply to Oregon and Ohio St. The computer separated the two by 8 spots (now 9). Losing to a team that’s 7-1 should hurt a lot less than losing to a team that was 3-5 going into Week 10 (and now has a sixth loss), and the quality of wins are also not really close even with Oregon having the one good one. I don’t think there are any other good teams in the Pac-12. “Fair to middling” basically describes the whole conference apart from Oregon and winless Arizona. The rest had between 2 and 5 wins going into the week.

“Why play the game” is a non-argument. As a result of playing the game, Oregon is in the top 20 and Ohio St. is not in the top 5. Why give one week more importance than the other 8? I guess that’s not as simple and cliché, so not as many people will mindlessly repeat it.

Forty percent of the top 50 teams in Week 9 either had a bye or a loss, so there was some turnover as the natural sorting-out process takes place. Also, this was the first week where no team had an extra playing week due to having played in “week zero”, so that helps make the ratings more in line with quality of play. Except for Army, who has an extra playing week after conference championships to make up for two byes so far, all teams had either 8 or 9 playing weeks going into Week 10.

Beyond the top 10 I just followed the same order as the computer had going into this week (meaning Week 10). You can go to the ratings page or just determine what last week’s list looked like with the “previous” column below.

Hopefully the rest of the season and next year will be back to normal. I don’t usually have two full vacations during football season, but they were both a long time in the making. Even though the “15 days to flatten the curve” was nearly 20 months ago, I’m also still feeling a domino effect from that in both personal and work schedules.

Week 10

Moving onto the current week, I know Alabama jumped what might seem like an inordinate number of spots for beating (not very impressively) LSU, but the Tigers are better than Indiana (Michigan’s opponent), Nebraska (Ohio St.’s opponent), and Tulane (Cincinnati’s opponent). Michigan St. and Wake Forest both lost, so that accounts for all 5 spots. With the amount of data we now have as far as wins and losses, how impressive a game was on the field or in the final score doesn’t really matter at this point.

It also helps Alabama that Texas A&M has played well since their meeting with the Tide. The Aggies had another one of the more significant gains after beating Auburn, another team LSU finished one score behind, by the way.

Although Navy isn’t a great opponent either, Notre Dame was a solid enough #2 despite the loss to Cincinnati earlier in the season. I didn’t think it made sense to unconditionally keep Cincinnati ahead based on that one game. It also doesn’t help Cincinnati that Indiana just keeps losing. That was their other big foray into major competition. Nonetheless, I did move the Bearcats up two spots from the computer list to keep them at #5. I suspect that we will see other teams like Alabama pass up both the Irish and the Bearcats anyway.

I also moved up Oklahoma from the computer list. The Sooners had lost a few spots due to the bye week. They have two potentially big opponents for points left though, Baylor and Oklahoma St. I would think that they are likely to beat Baylor, but I wouldn’t bet a house on it.

Usually at this point of the season, I don’t make any changes after the top 10, but I did make an exception at #25. If North Carolina St. is able to beat Wake Forest, they’ll be in easily next week. If not, I don’t like for a team to join the top 25 for the first time just to fall out right away for losing to a higher-rated team.

The Wolfpack are overrated in most rankings because they beat an overrated Clemson team back in September. Clemson plays Wake Forest in two weeks, so we will also see what they and the Demon Deacons are really made of. I think it’s safe to say Clemson isn’t really one of the top 10 teams regardless though (they were ranked #9 before the NC St. game).

Although I did complete the Week 9 computer ratings Friday night and the Week 10 ratings Sunday morning, this blog was delayed because I noticed I had a discrepancies with the records. If you’re interested in the technicalities, I’ll elaborate. If not, feel free to skip to the top 25.

Corrections

The only affected team in or close to any computer top 25s was Oklahoma St., but with the way the formula works, they were affected the least. The week they beat Missouri St., it essentially went down as beating a winless FBS team instead (except without hurting the strength of schedule). Since Missouri St. has six wins within the FCS, they count for more than a winless FBS opponent. The Cowboys gained two spots with the change, but I still preferred to put Michigan and Cincinnati ahead below.

Something similar happened with the Wyoming Cowboys. I had to start with A (Air Force) and go all the way down the alphabet to find that mistake. The good news is I was forced to double check every schedule. I did not double check each of the 600+ games that were played to make sure the right opponent was entered (each team has a number designation and on rare occasions I’ll enter the wrong number), but there is an entry for each win and loss. Since there weren’t any positives to counteract the lost win, those Cowboys lost two spots instead.

So this meant there were two teams with extra losses, Florida St. and Tulane. These were affected more dramatically, but thankfully it was two teams that were not even in the top 95, not to mention the top 25. If I give a team an extra loss but don’t set up my spreadsheet for that loss, it results in a disproportionately large number being subtracted.

Notre Dame played Florida St., and both Cincinnati and Oklahoma have played Tulane, so those three have benefited most from these adjustments among teams that I would say are competing for the Playoff. Notre Dame and Cincinnati benefited even more from the increase in opponents’ opponents’ quality.

I think what happened in Tulane’s case was that I lost track of losses because there were so many. Also, I didn’t catch the missing bye week because the Green Wave had played two games on Thursdays (one before and one after the bye). Tulane went up 9 spots to #116.

In Florida St.’s case, I think I accidentally counted the loss to Jacksonville St. twice. Normally an FCS opponent gets put in a separate category, but not when it’s a loss. Maybe the Seminoles deserved two losses for that game anyway. With the correction, Florida St. went up 17 spots to #98.

Final Notes and Week 10 Top 25

Anyway, since all of that is now sorted out and I don’t have any major time constraints, I might see how the weighted ratings look next week. These give teams extra credit for performance against very good opponents. I think they bring my ratings closer to what the Playoff committee looks at.

I don’t like to look at that before this time of year because the top teams are still too volatile (for instance, I’m glad I didn’t give a team a ton of credit for having played Michigan St. or Wake Forest in the Week 9 ratings).

Rank/Team/Last

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

Out of rankings: (18) Kentucky, (22) Air Force, (23) Fresno St., (24) Minnesota, (25) Appalachian St.

2021 Week 8 Top 25

The computer rankings are still a little more volatile than I’d like, so there are still some manual adjustments on my part, though not as much as last week. Part of the reason is that the middle of the top 25 is very close together.  This is why Penn St. fell 11 spots, which is unusual when it’s almost November, even though Illinois is a pretty bad team to lose to.  Auburn fell 7 spots just for having a bye week.  I was merciful to both and put them both a spot higher below, but that was mostly because I didn’t think it made sense for Virginia to jump ahead.  It’s not like Georgia Tech (the Cavs’ opponent on Saturday) is a powerhouse right now. Also, they will have the opportunity to prove me wrong against any of their next three opponents, who are all currently ranked.

For illustration of how close the middle of the rankings are, Michigan is further ahead of Wake Forest (#3 in the computer ratings) in points than #9 Kentucky is ahead of #20 BYU.  Also, #10 Oklahoma is as far ahead of #23 Auburn as #1 Georgia is ahead of #2 Michigan. 

Illinois WR Casey Washington celebrates the winning catch in the 9th “overtime”/6th round of 2-point conversion shootout in State College, PA, yesterday.

Speaking of which, Oklahoma once again didn’t look much better than one of the worst teams in the computer ratings.  In week 1, the Sooners were a score away from losing to now-#127 (that’s 4^th-to-last) Tulane at home.  Yesterday in Lawrence, #115 Kansas led OU going into the fourth quarter and was within one score until the final minute of the game.  Anyway, I guess reasonable that Oklahoma isn’t that far statistically from the bottom of the top 25 even though they look secure if you just look at the number of spots. 

It’s also a reminder that being near the bottom of the list doesn’t mean a team is not capable.  You can understand why a team like Tulane was bowl-eligible a couple of years ago.  This is why it doesn’t bother me that undefeated teams that aren’t very tested on paper have found their way in to the top 20.  There may be a few teams near the bottom pf FBS and some FCS opponents who aren’t as capable as Tulane and Kansas, but a good record is more meaningful to me now than it used to be since this year has shown just how deep the capable teams go. It might have something to do with good players who don’t get a chance at the top schools being able to find a team in the transfer portal, I’m not sure.

As I indicate in the intro to the computer ratings, it will likely be over a week before you hear from me again.  I will try to figure out a better way of publishing them than what I have now.

I made the right decision not to include either Western Michigan or North Carolina St. in my list last week. I made a similar judgment this week. I decided to keep Arkansas in the rankings in lieu of replacing them with Wisconsin. It will be interesting to see if the Razorbacks can return to their level of play against Texas A&M. Regardless, the Badgers have an opportunity to get the necessary points against Iowa.

Top 25

rank team last
1 Georgia 1
2 Michigan 2
3 Alabama 9
4 Wake Forest 13
5 Cincinnati 5
6 Oklahoma St. 3
7 Iowa 7
8 Oklahoma 4
9 Kentucky 6
10 Michigan St. 8
11 Notre Dame 11
12 Ohio St. 12
13 Ole Miss 14
14 San Diego St. 22
15 Baylor 16
16 TX-San Antonio 21
17 Texas A&M 23
18 Oregon 24
19 Pittsburgh 18
20 B. Young 19
21 Penn St. 10
22 Auburn 15
23 Virginia —
24 Air Force 17
25 Arkansas 25

Out of top 25: (20) Purdue

2021 Week 7 Top 25

Obviously the ideal is not to publish my rankings on Saturday morning, but I was so close to completing all the team records for the first round of my computer formula I had to finish. 

I did a pretty good job of anticipating how this might look with my rankings last week; but I still didn’t want to abruptly transition to following the computer formula to a T, especially since I didn’t complete every component of the computer rating yet.

To be more specific about what I looked at (skip this paragraph if you don’t care for technical details), this is only the unweighted portion of the formula.  I use the weighted formula more to differentiate the top teams at the end of the season.  Also, I did not go through the records of the FCS/I-AA teams.  I just gave them all a record of 1-1 unless they were completely winless. I wanted to make sure a completely winless FCS team didn’t count for more than a completely winless FBS team, although both winless FBS teams (Arizona and UNLV) lost to FCS opponents anyway.  In this year more than other recent seasons, it seems the bottom of the FBS is worse than the top of the FCS.  There are a few other FBS teams whose only wins were over FCS opponents.  I think they rate similarly as opponents to the generic FCS opponent’s rating I gave.

Anyway, as a result of this being part of the transitional phase, I allowed some deviation from the computer formula.  I did not move any team more than 4 spots from where the computer placed them.  I didn’t move any of the top 6 more than one spot from where the computer had them.  There was a little bit of subjectivity here and there, but mostly the changes to ranking were (1) to give deference to the teams with fewer losses, and (2) to avoid drastic swings from last week to this week without something that happened on the field to justify it. 

For instance, congratulations to Texas-San Antonio for beating Memphis (which beat Mississippi St., which beat Texas A&M, which beat Alabama) earlier in the season, but nothing about beating Rice should catapult you from not being considered at all into the top 20.  They were one of only a couple of teams that I moved down the maximum number of spots. 

In the most decisive major upset of the season, Purdue put a stop to the Iowa offense in a 24-7 win in Iowa City last Saturday. In the above picture, Purdue DT Branson Deen brings down Iowa QB Spencer Petras. One of Purdue’s Twiter accounts said the Boilermakers beat the #2 out of the Hawkeyes.

Another was Iowa.  The Hawkeyes are somewhat overrated by the system because they have not had a bye week and have not played an FCS opponent.  I have a feeling the loss to Purdue may weigh them down more as the season goes on as well.  I moved two undefeated teams (Cincinnati and Oklahoma) and one 1-loss team (Kentucky, whose only loss was to clear #1 Georgia on the road) ahead of Iowa.  Even if Purdue is better than I think (and this isn’t just a somewhat bizarre outcome like when the Boilermakers beat Ohio St. a few years ago), it definitely makes sense to look more negatively at a loss to them than a loss to Georgia.

By the way, I wanted to mention that Georgia is such a “good loss”, that a team could lose to them twice and still not be penalized as many points as they would be for a loss to Mississippi St.

I decided not to put Michigan St. ahead of iowa since the Spartans have a bye week, which usually causes teams to drop in the ratings anyway.  Also, all of the teams the Spartans have beaten so far have losing records, at least the way I calculate it.  There is no strong reason to believe they would have a better record with Iowa’s schedule.  They very well could have three losses against Iowa’s schedule, in fact.  The Spartans have plenty of opportunity left to prove themselves.  Four of their five remaining opponents are ranked in this list, and three of those are in the top 12. If they make it through that with no losses (or maybe one loss), there is a good chance they can settle their differences with Iowa on the field in the Big Ten Championship anyway.

Also, I kept Michigan St., Alabama, Penn St., and Notre Dame in the same order I had them last week.  The computer did not have them in that order, but that’s part of the logical transition in my mind.  Ohio St. was after Notre Dame; and the Buckeyes do have a loss to a lower team anyway, so I didn’t mind taking them out of order compared to last week. 

I prefer not to put any new entrants above #15, so that required a couple of adjustments compared to the computer as well.  Also, I didn’t want Oregon to fall from #15 all the way out. Stanford isn’t very good, but some shady things went on in that game.  The computer doesn’t care of course, and ultimately the computer wins; but for now I think it’s accurate to keep Oregon in the top 25.

Overall, I’m satisfied that I was able to do this without either deviating a lot from the computer or from last week’s list.  Often the first week where I’m this loyal to the computer as the most turnover by far, but five is a very reasonable number.  I had six new teams two weeks ago, and five two weeks before that.  Also, no team moved more than 10 spots on paper.  I don’t know for sure who my #26 team was last week, but it could well have been Baylor. 

I’m only using one picture because I want to get this up and take my morning nap before the games start.  Hopefully the uninterrupted stretches of text aren’t too unpleasant to gaze upon.

Top 25

rank team last
1 Georgia 1
2 Michigan 3
3 Oklahoma St. 4
4 Oklahoma 5
5 Cincinnati 7
6 Kentucky 6
7 Iowa 2
8 Michigan St. 9
9 Alabama 10
10 Penn St. 11
11 Notre Dame 12
12 Ohio St. 8
13 Wake Forest 13
14 Ole Miss 17
15 Auburn 25
16 Baylor —
17 Air Force —
18 Pittsburgh —
19 B. Young 16
20 Purdue —
21 TX-San Antonio —
22 San Diego St. 22
23 Texas A&M 24
24 Oregon 15
25 Arkansas 19

Out of top 25: (14) Coastal Car., (18) Arizona St., (20) Texas, (21) Florida, (23) SMU

2021 Week 6 Top 25

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to make much progress on my computer ratings. I didn’t want to just keep making case-by-case changes in the rankings though, so I followed a simpler process. For about the first 18 teams I looked at how many wins their FBS opponents had, and I subtracted the number of losses (if any) the teams who beat them suffered. In a few cases, I kept teams in the previous order if they weren’t too far apart (such as Kentucky being ranked after Oklahoma and Oklahoma St.). Michigan was too far ahead in my impromptu formula though, and I can already tell the Wolverines will have some good opponents’ opponents ratings.

After the best undefeated and one-loss teams, I added the best two-loss teams without following the same process. Texas A&M was not in my estimation one of the best two-loss teams because losses came to Arkansas (who has two losses themselves, albeit to good teams) and Mississippi St. (who lost to Memphis and LSU, two teams that are not even close to being ranked).

Likewise, Alabama fell farther than they did in other rankings because of how unimpressive the Aggies had been prior to the game. In mid-October, I don’t give teams like Alabama credit for the last decade or so. As much as possible, I try to restrict all considerations to what has happened on the field this season. See the stats cited in the caption below.

Texas A&M QB Zach Calzada isn’t normally a rushing threat but gained 11 yards on this play in College Station on Saturday. In two previous starts against SEC opponents, Calzada threw 46 passes for 286 yards with one touchdown and two interceptions. Against Alabama, he threw 31 passes for 285 yards with three touchdowns and one interception.

Don’t get me wrong: Alabama absolutely can come back and win the West if not the national championship. That doesn’t change the fact that their pass defense was just made to look worse than New Mexico’s (who Calzada threw fewer yards against; also, the Lobos sacked him three times while the Tide could not sack him at all), so it doesn’t bother me to drop them to #10 even subjectively.

The fact that I’m not giving credit for status is also part of the reason Ohio St. continued to fall. Another reason was that I’m no longer going to punish teams like Kentucky just because I happen to be more skeptical that the Wildcats can make the College Football Playoff than I am that the Buckeyes can.

Other teams went up as I’ve begun to attach less importance to margin of victory. This is why Notre Dame went up a spot while most one-loss teams went down. I can promise you it has nothing do with the history of the program.

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

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.