College Football Rankings Update and Analysis: Week 7

College Football Rankings Update and Analysis: Week 7

October 13, 2015 – by Seth Trachtman

Another exciting week of college football led to more big changes in both our rankings and the AP Poll.

Here’s how things stand entering Week 7.

Quick Rankings Primer

To review, when we refer to the TR rankings, we mean our college football predictive ratings, which are our core measure of team strength. These rankings are designed, as the name implies, to predict future outcomes of games.

Our rankings are driven by margins of victory. Unlike human voters and opinions, they don’t care only about wins and losses, which can be highly influenced by luck (e.g. a poorly timed fumble). More specifically, this means:

A team that loses a game can still move up in our rankings (e.g. if they lose by less than expected)A team that wins a game can still move down our rankings (e.g. if they win by less than expected)A team with several losses can still be ranked highly (e.g. if they have faced a tough schedule, or potentially just had a few fluke losses)

In addition, our rankings factor in a blend of season performance to date plus each team’s preseason rating, since the results of a small number of early season games can often be misleading. However, the impact of the preseason rating (which you can find in our 2015 preseason college football rankings post) decays as the season goes on.

General Highlights Entering Week 7

Baylor overtakes Alabama as No. 1 in our rankings. The Bears have yet to be challenged with their weak schedule thus far, but their easy 66-7 demolition of Kansas on the road still helped their standing. Favored by 45 points in Vegas and by 39 points according to our predictive ratings, Baylor outpaced expectations for the third straight game. Alabama also took a small step back, beating Arkansas by only a 13-point margin in a game that the predictive ratings had them winning by closer to 20 points.Several teams made big statements, including Michigan, Clemson, and Boise State. The Wolverines shut out a good Northwestern team, winning 35-0 leading up to their matchup vs. AP Poll darling Michigan State next week. Clemson had another big win, beating Georgia Tech by 19 points. On the strength of their difficult schedule and high preseason rating, 2-4 Georgia Tech still remains No. 23 in our rankings, but the win for Clemson boosted the Tigers’ predictive rating by over 2 points. Boise State dominated Colorado State on the road by 31 points, and also got an indirect boost from Washington’s win over USC, as the Broncos beat Washington in Week 1.USC is almost certainly the most controversial team in our rankings right now. After their second loss of the season, the Trojans’s ranking only slipped from No. 3 to No. 4. However, a closer look presents a good lesson in why it’s always more informative to look at team ratings (which represent how good we think teams are, in terms of points above/below average) vs. rankings (just the rank ordering of the team ratings, which can be skewed by clusters of similarly-rated teams). After the close loss to Washington, USC’s rating fell nearly 3 points — that’s a big drop, almost three times the ratings penalty Alabama suffered after losing at home to Mississippi. So, yes, we penalized USC a lot. At the same time, it just so happens that other closely rated teams (e.g. Oklahoma and TCU) also played worse than expected this week, and suffered ratings drops as well. So USC’s ranking didn’t drop a lot, even though its rating did. Meanwhile, human voters are undoubtedly punishing USC further for their current head coaching drama, while our ratings only care about the team’s performance on the field, and still give weight to USC’s strong preseason rating after only five games.Right now there’s a top two, and everybody else. Baylor and Alabama are the clear top two teams in the nation right now according to our ratings. Then, after a significant dropoff, follows a big cluster of very good, yet second-tier, teams — teams rated closely enough that you shouldn’t read too far into their relative rankings.

Biggest Gainers Last Week

Team	Rating	Change	New Rank	Old Rank	Result
Wash State	-1.3	+4.8	72	84	W 45-38 @ #49 Oregon
Utah State	3.0	+4.2	58	72	W 56-14 @ #114 Fresno St
Washington	10.6	+4.1	29	44	W 17-12 @ #3 USC
Texas	3.3	+3.6	55	69	W 24-17 vs. #4 Oklahoma
S Florida	-5.1	+3.4	83	95	W 45-24 vs. #63 Syracuse
Arizona	7.0	+3.1	40	55	W 44-7 vs. #80 Oregon St
Connecticut	-8.0	+2.9	97	101	W 40-13 @ #103 Central FL
Baylor	26.0	+2.9	1	2	W 66-7 @ #117 Kansas
Minnesota	1.4	+2.7	62	73	W 41-13 @ #88 Purdue
Texas Tech	10.0	+2.6	31	35	W 66-31 vs. #74 Iowa State

Washington State was the biggest gainer after shocking Oregon in two overtimes on Saturday. The Ducks, despite their recent struggles, were still 15 point favorites according to our ratings. Mike Leach’s squad beat Oregon in Eugene, and their Week 1 loss to FCS school Portland State also doesn’t look quite so bad after that team beat North Texas by 59 points on Saturday.Texas was one of last week’s biggest losers after an embarrassing loss to TCU, but they showed how quickly things can change. They beat rival Oklahoma, previously our No. 4 rated team, by 7 in the Red River Showdown, in which the Sooners were favored by about 16 points according to our ratings. Texas doesn’t have much time to celebrate, though, facing a Kansas State team that nearly took down TCU on Saturday and sits at No. 30 in our predictive ratings.Offensive powerhouses Baylor and Texas Tech beat the bottom feeders of the Big 12, but their bigger than expected margins of victory helped them jump up in the ratings.

Biggest Losers Last Week

Team	Rating	Change	New Rank	Old Rank	Result
North Texas	-30.6	-6.5	128	127	L 66-7 vs. Portland State
Central FL	-14.7	-3.7	109	103	L 40-13 vs. Connecticut
Iowa State	-5.4	-3.2	84	74	L 66-31 @ #35 Texas Tech
Oklahoma	16.3	-3.1	14	4	L 24-17 @ #69 Texas
Syracuse	-2.2	-3.0	76	63	L 38-0 @ #12 Michigan
Fresno St	-19.0	-3.0	116	114	L 56-14 vs. #72 Utah St
Middle Tenn	1.4	-2.9	61	54	L 58-28 @ #37 W Kentucky
USC	19.7	-2.8	4	3	L 17-12 vs. #44 Washington
S Mississippi	-6.6	-2.8	87	77	L 31-10 @ #71 Marshall
Oregon St	-7.0	-2.8	89	80	L 44-7 @ #55 Arizona

North Texas is now the ultimate loser, as they’re at the bottom of our predictive rankings and it’s not very close. The Mean Green sit a full five points below No. 127 Charlotte in our ratings, and have found themselves on the biggest losers list three weeks straight. This week, they lost by 59 points to FCS opponent Portland State at home, and they’ve lost by at least two touchdowns in every game so far this season.Central Florida and Fresno State are two mid-majors that have had hard falls over the last two years. UCF stands at 0-6 just two years removed from making the Fiesta Bowl with Blake Bortles at quarterback, and set a new low by losing to UConn (a team that hadn’t scored more than 22 points this season) by 27 points, and giving up 40. Fresno State has only one win so far, vs. FCS opponent Abilene Christian, and otherwise haven’t come close to winning a game. The Bulldogs had only one loss during the 2013 regular season.Middle Tennessee, scorers of 70+ points in two games, already made the biggest gainers list once this season. But they went the other way this week, losing by 30 on the road to Western Kentucky in a game our ratings expected them to lose by about a touchdown. That means WKU achieved the honor of beating the Blue Raiders by more than Alabama did at home. That means Western Kentucky must be a better team than Alabama, right?

The TR Top 25: Week 7 Edition

New Teams: NoneTeams Dropping Out: NoneTeams We Like Better Than The AP: Baylor, Alabama, USC, Michigan, Mississippi, Boise State, Notre Dame, Stanford, Oklahoma, Georgia, Tennessee, West Virginia, Georgia Tech, Mississippi State, WisconsinTeams The AP Likes Better Than We Do: Ohio State, Utah, Clemson, LSU, Michigan State, Florida, Texas A&M, Florida State, Oklahoma State, Iowa, Northwestern, Toledo, California, Houston, Duke

While the teams in the TR Top 25 only repositioned themselves, the human voters added two teams to the AP Poll (Houston and Duke). Other notable changes:

Michigan is flying up the rankings. They made a big jump in both our rankings and the AP Poll, though the TR Top 25 had them higher than the human voters last week, and has them higher again this week. Human voter perception of the Wolverines may catch up with our ratings if they beat Michigan State this weekend.Michigan State — now ranked No. 7 by the AP and No. 35 in our rankings — remains a huge difference between us and the AP. The fact that at publication time Michigan was a 7.5 point favorite in Vegas to beat Michigan State this week should be a clue to the human voters that their perceptions of the Spartans are likely too favorable.Overall, the AP Poll seems to be in love with the Big Ten. Five teams from the Big Ten currently rank in the AP, and four of those teams rank much higher than they do in our rankings. Defending champs Ohio State are still No. 1 in the AP, although their number one votes (27) have fallen off with each passing week. The Buckeyes fell 1.5 points in our ratings after beating Maryland by 8 points less than expected, according to last week’s predictive ratings.

The Complete TR Top 25 (as of Mon 10/12)

“Predictive” refers to the team’s predictive rating, which indicates points better than an average team on a neutral field“SOS” refers to the team’s strength of schedule rating for games played so far this season

Team	Rank	AP Rank	TR Change	AP Change	Rating	Resuilt	SOS
Baylor (5-0)	1	2	+1	+1	26.0	W 66-7 @ #117 Kansas	0.7
Alabama (5-1)	2	10	-1	-2	24.3	W 27-14 vs. #27 Arkansas	10.3
TX Christian (6-0)	3	3	+2	-1	20.4	W 52-45 @ #29 Kansas St	5.8
USC (3-2)	4		-1		19.7	L 17-12 vs. #44 Washington	6.3
Michigan (5-1)	5	12	+7	+6	19.2	W 38-0 vs. #31 Northwestern	5.1
Mississippi (5-1)	6	13	+2	+1	18.2	W 52-3 vs. #125 N Mex State	8.7
Clemson (5-0)	7	5	+7	+1	18.0	W 43-24 vs. #19 GA Tech	7.1
Boise State (5-1)	8	21	+7	+4	17.9	W 41-10 @ #83 Colorado State	1.9
Notre Dame (5-1)	9	14	+2	+1	17.7	W 41-21 vs. #41 Navy	6.5
Stanford (4-1)	10	15	-4	+1	17.6	DNP	7.9
Ohio State (6-0)	11	1	-4		17.4	W 49-28 vs. #97 Maryland	-0.1
Texas A&M (5-0)	12	9	-3		17.2	DNP	4.4
Utah (5-0)	13	4	-3	+1	16.7	W 30-24 vs. #32 California	6.0
Oklahoma (4-1)	14	19	-10	-9	16.3	L 24-17 @ #69 Texas	5.8
Florida (6-0)	15	8	+3	+3	15.8	W 21-3 @ #53 Missouri	5.6
LSU (5-0)	16	6	+1	+1	15.3	W 45-24 vs. #61 S Carolina	4.0
Georgia (4-2)	17		-4		14.9	L 38-31 @ #22 Tennessee	6.7
UCLA (4-1)	18	18	+3	+2	14.2	DNP	2.8
Tennessee (3-3)	19		+3		13.6	W 38-31 vs. #13 Georgia	8.1
Florida St (5-0)	20	11		+1	13.5	W 29-24 vs. #36 Miami (FL)	-0.5
Oklahoma St (6-0)	21	16	+4	+5	13.5	W 33-26 @ #16 W Virginia	3.6
W Virginia (3-2)	22		-6		13.3	L 33-26 vs. #25 Oklahoma St	4.3
GA Tech (2-4)	23		-4		13.1	L 43-24 @ #14 Clemson	9.4
Miss State (4-2)	24		-1		12.0	W 45-17 vs. #116 Troy	5.0
Wisconsin (4-2)	25		-1		11.8	W 23-21 @ #38 Nebraska	3.3

Week 7 Conference Strength Rankings

As a basic measure of conference strength, we can average the predictive ratings of every team in a conference. Here’s how the conferences compare after Week 6, along with their recent change compared to last week.

Conference	Avg Rating	Avg Rating Change
SEC	+10.9	-0.3
Big 12	+8.6	+0.2
Pac-12	+7.9	+0.4
ACC	+6.4	-0.1
Big Ten	+4.3	-0.1
AAC	-3.2	+0.2
MWC	-7.0	+0.2
MAC	-7.9	-0.0
CUSA	-10.8	-0.6
Sun Belt	-13.9	-0.3

The changes this week were small, with Conference USA showing the largest movement. The Big 12 has started to close the gap on the SEC, with a difference that was more than four points only three weeks ago.

The teams with the best odds to win their conference right now include Florida (SEC), Baylor (Big 12), Stanford (Pac-12), Clemson (ACC), Michigan (Big Ten), Temple (AAC), Boise State (MWC), Toledo (MAC), Western Kentucky (CUSA), and Appalachian State (Sun Belt).

There were changes to the favorites in the SEC and Big Ten. You can view our full conference winner odds, updated daily, on our college football projected standings page.

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