Week 7 Top 25 2023

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Top 25

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

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

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

Rivalry Week Top 25 and CFP Reaction

CFP Reaction

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

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

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

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

Ratings and Other Thoughts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Top 25

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

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

Week 12 Top 25 and CFP Reaction

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

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

The Race for #5

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other Developments in the Rankings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Top 25

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

Week 10 Top 25 & Week 11 Preview

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Top 25

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

Weeks 4 and 5 & Return to Objectivity

Top 25s

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LSU, Tennessee, Auburn, and Objectivity

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Week 2 Top 25 and LSU (P)review

LSU Recap and Preview

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Top 3

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

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

7-6 Florida, 2 points

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

6-7 LSU, 6 points

9-4 Arkansas, 7 points

6-7 Auburn, 2 points

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

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

Remainder of Top 25

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

2021 Week 1 Top 25

I’m still a bit thrown by last year’s COVID season. I was on vacation recently, but even if I weren’t, I don’t really know how to do a preseason ranking when I had no real method of comparing teams last year with vastly different lengths of seasons and many major-conference teams playing one or no inter-conference games. Also, because of that vacation, I didn’t get to complete my blog about the previous academic year. I’ll get to it, but I didn’t want to just put up a list without talking about it.

The last time I didn’t have a previous season of my own rankings to look at was the first time I started ranking teams myself back in 1995; so like then, I’m just relying on a vague notion of how good teams are as reported by others.

Since Clemson lost, I felt it was only right to put the two most credible teams on an annual basis who aren’t Clemson in the first two spots. Those are Alabama and Ohio St. For #3, why not the team who beat Clemson? Georgia is also no stranger to big games and major bowls in recent seasons. Tulane was theoretically the home team, I’m not on the Boomer Schooner after a 5-point win over the Wave in Norman. I have to stay with the current SEC even though that makes three of four. #4 for me is Texas A&M based on last year’s 10-1 season and Orange Bowl win combined with a lack of drama in Week 1.

In what was supposed to be the big heavyweight match-up, there was one touchdown.. by a defensive player (Christopher Smith, #29). Either things are changing in college football or maybe they’re not such heavyweights after all.

Clemson needs to find more offense somewhere, but I can’t find any other credible #5 team at the moment.

Cincinnati also only lost one game last year on the way to the Peach Bowl, also losing to Georgia in that game, so they’re #6.

Penn St. started out with a true road game against a good program in Wisconsin, so I’d like to give them credit. Unlike the polls, I don’t feel some obligation to only move them up a limited number of spots.

Iowa also won an early Big Ten contest between ranked teams, beating Indiana at home. Indiana probably isn’t a huge player on the national scene permanently, but it’s something.

Florida and Oklahoma seemed like two appropriate teams to round out the top 10 since both went into the Cotton Bowl as top 10 teams last season. Since Oklahoma won by 35, I’ll give the Sooners the nod for #9. Tulane isn’t great, but they went .500 going into the bowls last season, so they may be better than Northern Iowa (who lost narrowly to Iowa St.), for instance.

In that process, I’ve ranked two teams who played 10 or more games last year with only a single loss: Texas A&M and Cincinnati.

Next I’m just going to rank the teams in that category who haven’t lost yet this year. Again, I don’t operate with similar constraints to the polls. Even though polls technically don’t matter anymore there is still this custom of not ranking teams without major conference schedules very high because what if they keep winning? Because later someone might have to cogitate a bit and not just automatically move teams up for not losing. That doesn’t bother me at all.

Also, I’ve already listed almost every team that finished ranked with two losses last season if that team has not yet lost this season. Other than Iowa St., the highest-ranked team in the AP poll with 3 losses (Texas) was only #19, so I don’t feel like I’m being unfair to teams with better schedules than these.

11. Liberty, which won the non-major Super Bowl over the next team…
12. Coastal Carolina
13. BYU

Liberty handed Coastal Carolina its only loss last season on this blocked field goal in overtime by #55 Elijah James.

Maybe it’s because when I first watched college football, there were still ties, but overtime wins don’t sit well with me. I don’t regard those as 100% wins. But Notre Dame didn’t lose in Week 1 and the Irish did only lose two games last season, one to Clemson, so I’ll put them #14.

The next group is the 3-loss teams that finished ranked last season. Of those, I will put U. Miami last since they lost, but losing to Alabama isn’t really evidence the Hurricanes don’t belong.

15. Texas
16. Iowa St.
17. Oklahoma St.
18. U. Miami

The next two teams had really good seasons last year, especially for them, so I’m not going to be too harsh as a result of losing to teams already ranked above.

19. Indiana
20. UL-Lafayette

So far, I have not considered any Pac-12 teams. They didn’t play enough of a season last year and certainly didn’t do enough against other conferences to warrant inclusion. The only two that I will rank happen to be cross-town rivals. Oregon played in a major bowl with only 4 wins. In my view, they shouldn’t have even been considered. Beating Fresno by 7 in Week 1 this year doesn’t make me feel any differently.

21. USC
22. UCLA

Two other teams won bowl games last year after entering the bowls with one loss. They didn’t play full schedules either, but I think they deserve some recognition. They also happen to be in the same conference as one another.

23. Ball St.
24. Buffalo

Looking at last year and the preseason consensus, the best team that I won’t rank is probably North Carolina. I won’t rank the Tar Heels because they lost to…

25. Virginia Tech

Virginia Tech QB Braxton Burmeister ran for one touchdown and threw for another in the first half, but the Hokies’ game against North Carolina was also largely a defensive struggle. The Tar Heels were defeated by a score of 17-10.

I think this is a reasonable mix of teams from various regions and conferences giving due regard to last season’s level of success and the Week 1 opponents. You might not like which teams I put in what order, but this makes a lot more sense to me than the way the polls do things.

Most if not all of the non-major teams would probably finish near the bottom of the SEC, but we don’t know how good much of the SEC is right now. LSU might beat every single one of the non-majors above, but they lost to a team that rightly was not ranked. LSU and the other SEC teams rightly were not ranked last season and have done nothing yet to show things are different this season. Ole Miss had a great bowl win last year, but they still finished behind LSU in the SEC. Lamar Jackson hasn’t played for Louisville in a few years, so I’m not giving the Rebels (are we still allowed to call them that?) a spot in the top 25 for beating the Cardinals.

I think after one game it’s OK to still largely consider last season. Also, many of the non-major teams were willing to play whomever was available. It’s not their fault that conferences like the SEC wouldn’t even give them a chance to schedule opponent from that conference. It would be different if some of these conferences played 10 games against the SEC and lost every single one of them last season. I don’t think it’s appropriate to look back to before last season to support rankings this season.

Also, since I’m not considering any rankings from last season official, I want to give credit to those teams that took advantage of the opening last season provided to show something special. UL-Lafayette, for instance, deserves recognition even though I don’t think they’ll ever be the best team in the state talent-wise or a serious national contender. They couldn’t play an SEC opponent last year, so they played a Big XII opponent, and not even a close one. Still they traveled there (to Ames to play Iowa St.) and won. I’m not going to take that away from them because they lost to another well-regarded Big XII team to start out this season.

If the Cajuns deserve to be where I put them, then teams that didn’t lose their opener are appropriately placed here too.

A 12-team Playoff Is a Horrible Idea

As you might have noticed, I didn’t blog much last year.  My main interest in writing about college football is to discuss methods of evaluating and ranking teams, especially my own system.  I don’t think there is any good way to do that when some teams play 5 games and others play 12 games.  I don’t think there is any good way to do that when several major conferences don’t play any (or at least not any meaningful) interconference games.

I was going to wait until after the College World Series for my next blog.  In past years, I’ve done sort of a summary of the major sports for the academic year.  I guess this year I’ll include the 2019 football season since that was the only major championship in the previous academic year.

Anyway, those plans changed when I saw the proposal to triple the size of the College Football Playoff.  It so happens that at least LSU baseball is over for the season today, but I started writing this Friday.

The best argument for expanding the Playoff AT ALL (putting aside adding 8 teams) is that the current format doesn’t give access to teams from outside of the Power 5 (P5; SEC, Big XII, ACC, Big Ten, and Pac-12) conferences. 

I’ve criticized the committee for going out of its way to denigrate Group of 5 (G5; the other football conferences) teams, but nothing about even an undefeated G5 team like Central Florida made me question the legitimacy of the 2017 Playoff, for instance.  The last two games the Knights played that year, they needed two overtimes to beat then-#20 Memphis in Orlando and won another close game over 3-loss Auburn, who was then ranked 7^th. 

Shaquem Griffin sacks Auburn Quarterback Jared Stidham during the Peach Bowl on New Year’s Day 2018.

The Knights had a great season, don’t get me wrong, but playing exciting games against teams like that doesn’t mean people need to you see playing for a national championship.  Even if we assume the same result would have taken place had the game been at Auburn in early December, I don’t think being blown out by Alabama or Clemson in the quarterfinals would have made any team feel better or been enjoyable for the fans.

Regardless, if we went back to a more statistical model like the BCS (which was originally half objective and later reduced to 1/3), there would likely be G5 teams who finished in the top 4. 

In 2010, for instance, TCU (which was then in the Mountain West) actually finished third in the BCS.  All of the people who happily responded to the abolition of the BCS because they didn’t have to do math anymore should re-evaluate that decision rather than giving the committee control over the postseasons of 12 teams rather than 4.  Let’s also remember that it wasn’t the objective criteria that put two teams from the same division in the championship in 2011: it was the voters.

Based on what we’ve seen from the committee, any G5 team will have to play on the road against a team the committee ranked #5-8.  Then if they win that, they can then be one of 8 teams to play for the championship.  Since it would require 4 wins, one on the road, that’s not an extremely realistic path to a national championship.  It would be a much better path to have a neutral-site game between the #4 P5 team and the best G5 team every year for the last spot in a 4-team Playoff (meaning 3 total wins, all at neutral sites).  In short, adding 8 teams to the equation rather than one isn’t the best way for a G5 team to have a chance, so let’s drop that pretext.    

The quality of the arguments for this arrangement goes down from there.

One is the conference championship games (CCGs) should be for a spot in the Playoff.  Unless all 10 conferences are sending teams, that just deepens the separation between the P5 and the G5. 

Do people remember how bad some teams in major conference championships have been?  In 2011, UCLA had to get a special exemption just to be bowl-eligible when the Bruins fell to 6-7 after losing to Oregon.  Obviously, the Bruins didn’t win the game, but upsets between teams that shouldn’t be close on paper have happened in these games.  One of the big CCG upsets was back in 2001 when LSU (with 3 conference losses) beat Tennessee.  It was very exciting that the Tigers got back to the Sugar Bowl (or any major bowl) for the first time in 15 years, but it would have been silly (and potentially embarrassing) for them to play for a national championship.  They also played another conference champion, Illinois.  The Big Ten has been good lately, but that wasn’t always the case.  Wisconsin won the Big Ten despite 5 losses in 2012.  Having a shot at winning the Rose Bowl wasn’t reward enough?

LSU quarterback Matt Mauck, not to be confused with former Missouri quarterback Maty Mauk, evades pressure in the 2001 SEC Championship Game. Mauck ran for 50 yards and threw for 67 in relief of Rohan Davey before being named MVP of the game.

Those were entertaining bowl games, but Numbers 1 to 4 shouldn’t risk injury by having to beat such a team just to get into the semifinals.  I think it’s actually one of the good things about college football that you can win a major post-season game and end your season on a high note without winning the whole thing.    Winning the Rose Bowl or the Sugar Bowl in a non-championship year will be little more than a participation trophy for a top program if in order to even be in the game, you have to be outside of the top 12.  I think both bowls have been cheapened enough by mediocre teams who finished second or worse in their conference but who made the game because the better conference teams were in the Playoff.

The last thing I want to mention isn’t really a rebuttal, but it’s an important argument against the expanded Playoff.  It’s the fact that you take the importance out of the regular season. 

If you do give the automatic bids to winners of conferences, non-conference games become even more like preseason games.  If you want your team to last through a 9-game conference schedule (in most major conferences), a CCG, and 3 or 4 more post-season games, why take your chances with another major-conference opponent?  As I mentioned earlier, this also takes away an important tool in comparing teams.  I don’t actually want conferences like the SEC to get by on their reputation.  We should try to figure out who the best teams are every year and not just guess that the SEC champion is automatically one of the top 4 teams. 

I’ll give an even older example from my many years of following LSU.  In 1988, the Tigers won the SEC despite 2 non-conference losses.  This is completely unthinkable now, but the SEC evolved into the best conference from being rather mediocre back then.  Even 16 years later, Auburn went undefeated and couldn’t play for the championship.  Important context is when LSU shared the national title with USC the prior year, it was only the SEC’s fifth national title since 1980 (it would have only been 4 had the BCS been adopted in 1996).  Another important aspect was that there were only three non-conference games in 2004.  The Plainsmen played The Citadel, Louisiana-Monroe, and Louisiana Tech.  But I think adding additional games to the end of the season will make such a selection of opponents commonplace, especially as compared to LSU intentionally playing teams like Ohio St. and U. Miami (which finished #2 in both polls) in 1988.  So without something to show changes in conferences, evaluations will be more about prior years than the current year.

I’ve been told people will still insist on maintaining big rivals and will still prioritize them, but I don’t believe that.  Think how many annual rivalries have been lost as conference schedules have grown and realignment has taken place.  Texas doesn’t play Texas A&M, Pitt doesn’t play West Virginia (or Penn St., for that matter), Auburn doesn’t play Georgia Tech, Notre Dame doesn’t play Michigan, and Oklahoma doesn’t play Nebraska (although they will this year).  I don’t have a dog in any of those fights really, but they were still games I would often look forward to and enjoy.

Even rivalry games that will continue won’t mean as much.  I can assure you from my vivid memory of 10 years ago that it’s more important for LSU to finish ahead of Alabama during the post-season than during the regular season.  That game would have been much less exciting if it were known that the loser was overwhelmingly likely to play for the national championship anyway.  Michigan-Ohio St. in 2006 was another game that would have been much less exciting.  People discussed the possibility that there could be a rematch (and that the loser could still win the national title), but it was far from a guarantee and didn’t happen. 

#1 Ohio St.’s Beanie Wells breaks a tackle to get into the secondary in the second quarter against #2 Michigan in 2006. Wells would score on what would be a 52-yard run. The Buckeyes ultimately won, 42-39, to get into the BCS title game, which they would lose to Florida.

It might be difficult, but let’s imagine for a moment that Michigan isn’t as good as they were in 2006 and played Ohio St. after already being eliminated from conference and national contention.  How exciting might it be to potentially keep Ohio St. out of the Playoff?  The Buckeyes might still win the conference and a major bowl, but Michigan would still have that accomplishment if nothing else.  If Ohio St. is guaranteed a spot in the Playoff by winning the Big Ten the next week anyway, it won’t mean much.  There would even be an argument that Ohio St. should rest some of their key players.  It wouldn’t even be very good bragging rights.

In some cases, it could be better to lose a regular-season game and not make the CCG.   Alabama was in the top 2 in 2011 after not making the CCG, and then they were in the top 4 in 2017.  So if the top 4 teams get a bye into the quarterfinal anyway, an Alabama would essentially get two byes. 

If it’s a situation where a non-champion doesn’t get a bye, they could still have an advantage over whatever team they play in the first round if that other team had to play a CCG.  I don’t think it would be four rounds of playoffs starting in late December.  The first round would probably be at campus sites the week after CCGs.  So let’s say Penn St. loses to Ohio St. and they don’t have a great strength of schedule since they don’t have to play the best two teams from the Big Ten West.  Would it be really fair if they had a week off and then played Georgia, who just lost to Alabama the week before or Oklahoma, who just won the Big XII CCG? 

The only reason I was for a top-2 or top-4 national championship was so we didn’t leave teams who may very well win national titles out of the process. In 1994, there was an undefeated Penn St. team who didn’t get a shot at Nebraska because they had to go to the Rose Bowl.  That kind of thing happened many times.  I mentioned the 2004 Auburn team who couldn’t get into the top 2.  Maybe there is some team that will be a big sob story and cast a shadow over a winner of the 4-team playoff, but I haven’t seen anything like that yet.  If such a scenario is at risk of happening, which I doubt, why is the solution to add 8 more teams instead of one or two?

The college football big-wigs should just admit this is just a cynical ploy for more money.  Not likely, I know, but fans could at least not do their bidding by concocting weak arguments in favor of this proposal even if it means their team has a better shot to make the 12-team playoff than it does to make the 4-team playoff.

Week 12: Not Rivalry Week Yet

Apart from some remotely possibly upsets of top teams (I mentioned Clemson and Notre Dame in the Rankings blog), I’m not wildly excited about any of the matchups this week.   I still thought of somethings I’d like to talk about. 

The Former Rivalry Week

I miss the days where this was THE main rivalry week. 

The Big Ten used to finish up for good, but now they have 3 more weeks including the championship.  Tomorrow it will be exactly 11 years since Ohio St. beat Michigan, probably with no suspicion that they were about to be involved in the craziest ending to a college football season in recent memory.  Although the Buckeyes were ranked only #7 going into that final game, they would enter the bowls as the #1 team in the BCS standings.  Despite its second loss coming in the last regularly-scheduled game, LSU would become the surprise #2 after winning the SEC championship on the same day Numbers 1 and 2 in the BCS (Missouri and West Virginia) both lost. 

LSU LB Ali Highsmith gets to the ball before Ohio St. QB Todd Boeckman can throw it in LSU’s 38-24 championship win in New Orleans on January 7, 2008.

Anyway, I bring that up because the normal time of year for Ohio St. to play Michigan going back to the 1930s was between about November 17 and November 24.  2007 just happened to be the last time the game was on the 17^th.  The end of the Big Ten season got pushed closer to the end of November in 2010; and then with the start of the Big Ten Championship game in 2011, the Big Ten season now extends into December.. 

Some Big Ten teams finished conference play even earlier.  For instance, in 2005, Wisconsin played its last Big Ten game on November 12.  There were 11 teams in the Big Ten then, so I guess the Badgers were the odd men out for the rivalry week.  Other end-of-season rivalries in the Big Ten were Minnesota-Iowa, Michigan St.-Penn St., Purdue-Indiana, and Illinois-Northwestern.

Althoughit was often played later (and only became the traditional final regular-seasongame in 1977), Florida played Florida St. on November 17 as recently as 2001.  2001 was also the last time UCLA played USC onNovember 17.  Sometimes there was a latergame for one or both schools, but it was the second-to-last Saturday inNovember going back to the 1970s.

17 Nov 2001: Kevin Arbet tackles Craig Bragg as USC upsets UCLA 27-0 to qualify for a bowl game in Pete Carroll’s first year with the Trojans.

Another big rivalry that used to be the second-to-last Saturday in November was Oklahoma-Nebraska.  It was permanently moved to the last Saturday in November in the early 1990s before it stopped being an annual game in 1998.  Of course Nebraska was a much more important team in those days than they are today.  The date would sometimes vary a week or so, but the rivalry had been played around that time of year since the 1940s.

The Iron Bowl was played between November 17 and November 23 every year from 1993 through 2006.  Those were the first 14 seasons in which I had a meaningful interest in college football on the national level, though I followed LSU for about 5 years before that. 

Anyway, so I think that’s enough explanation of why I always feel like something is missing this week, especially since it became the week for the SEC to take it easy. 

How the SEC Schedule for Mid-November Deteriorated

Although it had been done occasionally a few times before (for instance, South Carolina played Middle Tennessee the week before Clemson in 2006; and LSU played Conference-USA opponents before Arkansas a few times in the 1990s), Alabama led the way with a real commitment to this trend. 

Startingin 2007, the Tide has usually had a bye before the LSU game, so since theycouldn’t have another bye before Auburn, they played UL-Monroe.  The ended up losing to LSU, Auburn, and ULMin 2007; but that didn’t deter Alabama from that strategy.  In 2008, the Tide did the opposite (byebefore Auburn, non-conference game before LSU), and it worked.  Alabama only went a combined 3-3 against LSUand Auburn between 2009 and 2011, but they’re a combined 11-2 in regularly-scheduledgames against the two rivals since.

For itspart, LSU played Tulane the week before the Alabama game in 2008 and 2009,which did not work.  Then LSU went to thebye before Alabama (which worked for two years and hasn’t worked since), but theprecedent was already set.  Sometimes it’sin late October instead of November, but the Tigers have had a late-seasonnon-conference game most of the years since. They did not have one in 2016 only because of rescheduling that resultedfrom the hurricane that hit Florida. 

Auburn has been more consistent.  Except for 2013 when the Plains-Tigers were able to use a second bye before Alabama, Auburn has had a non-conference opponent the week before Alabama every year since 2011.

Georgia originally scheduled its late-season non-conference opponent before Auburn, but in 2014 the Bulldogs changed it to the week before Georgia Tech.  I’m not sure why it wasn’t done that way last year, but Georgia is back to that pattern this year. 

A few of the less significant SEC programs are still playing regular games, but the SEC schedule leaves a lot to be desired…

Ole Miss-Vanderbilt Headlines This Week’s SEC Schedule

Anyway, so we are now at the stage where the big SEC rivalry game this week is Ole Miss-Vanderbilt.  I’ll explain why.

Arkansas has played Mississippi St. annually since 1992, but the Bulldogs have won 5 of 6 in the series, and the Hogs are only 2-8 on the season.  Arkansas could back into a single-digit game like they did against LSU last week, but I hardly expect high drama.  So that’s not a game to watch. 

Missouri and Tennessee (the CBS game of the week) have slightly better combined records than Vanderbilt and Ole Miss, but that’s only been a rivalry (of sorts) since Missouri joined the SEC in 2012.  It hasn’t been a very interesting one either.  Missouri ended both 2015 and 2016 really badly and lost to the Vols in the process.  The Tigers won the other games.  The only game of the six decided by fewer than 8 points was in 2012 (when each team would finish 5-7).

Ole Miss and Vanderbilt, however, is a competitive longstanding rivalry between fairly evenly-matched teams. Since 2005, the only SEC team against which the Commodores have a winning record is Ole Miss (7-6).  Vanderbilt won 5 of 6 in the series from 2007 to 2012, but Ole Miss responded by winning the next 3.  The two programs have exchanged home wins over the past two years.  The Commodores have won 4 of the last 6 games played against the Rebels in Vanderbilt Stadium. 

The three touchdowns by Vanderbilt RB Ralph Webb (#7) were the difference in Nashville two years ago. The Commodores had ended a 3-game series winning streak by the Rebels.

As for this year’s respective teams, both are near .500 and have identical 1-5 conference records.  Nonetheless,Vanderbilt could still guarantee a bowl game by finishing the season with home wins over the Rebels and the Volunteers, their two biggest historical rivals.  The Rebels are still on probation and ineligible for a bowl, but I’m sure there is motivation to avoid a losing record and potentially finish with a winning record (which they could do by beating Vanderbilt and winning the Egg Bowl over Mississippi St.).

LSU and Rice Renew a Rivalry Few Missed

One other rivalry I’d like to mention is LSU-Rice.  It was before my time, but this used to be an annual series.  Other than in-state (former/sporadic) rival Tulane, LSU has played Rice more than any other team that is currently outside of the SEC. LSU and Rice played each other every year between 1932 and 1952 and every year but one between 1955 and 1983.  The only meetings between 1983 and this season were in 1987 and 1995.

Rice has only beaten the Tigers once since 1966.  However, despite LSU winning a national championship in 1958, it was a competitive series between 1955 and 1966.  Rice had a 5-4-2 record against LSU during that span. 

The most notable Rice win was in 1961.  The Owls denied the Tigers a chance at second national championship in four seasons.  After losing the opener to Rice 16-3, LSU would win the next 10 games including the Orange Bowl.  Rice would finish 7-4 and lose in the Bluebonnet Bowl, the Owls’ last bowl appearance until 2006.

Rice made 5 bowl games from 2006 to 2014, winning 3 of them, their only wins in bowl games since 1953 (they also lost the 1957 Cotton Bowl and the 1960 Sugar Bowl). 

The Owls have returned to their prior form since that 2014 bowl win though.  After falling just one win short of qualifying for a bowl for the fourth consecutive year in 2015 (with a 5-7 record), Rice has only won 5 games since the start of the 2016 season.  Two of those wins were over FCS opponent Prairie View A&M, including in the opener this year, which was Rice’s only victory in its last 21 contests.  Two of the other wins since 2016 were over UTEP, which finally ended a 20-game losing streak two weeks ago against Rice. The fifth win was over UNC-Charlotte, which only began playing in the FBS in the past few years.  

Week 6 Top 25

As I mentioned last week, I’m on a trip, so this will be pretty minimal for the next week or so.

The next top 25 will be almost exclusively computer-based. In preparation, I made a rule that all teams had to be within 5 spots of their computer ranking to hopefully ease the transition. This early in the season though, the rankings are still volatile, so there still may be future 15-point swings.

Last week’s ranking listed after team name.

1 Alabama 1
2 Clemson 2
3 Georgia 3
4 Penn St. 5
5 Michigan 7
6 TCU 8
7 Central Florida 17
8 San Diego St. 15
9 Washington St. 24
10 Navy –
11 USC 4
12 Florida 9
13 Oklahoma 6
14 Wisconsin 18
15 Notre Dame –
16 Ohio St. 10
17 Oklahoma St. 25
18 U. Miami –
19 Oregon –
20 Michigan St. –
21 Washington 19
22 Kentucky 13
23 UCLA –
24 South Florida 14
25 Maryland –

Out of rankings: (11) Virginia Tech, (12) Texas Tech, (16) Wake Forest, (20) Louisville, (21) Memphis, (22) Mississippi St., (23) Vanderbilt