SportsRatings: College Football

Week 5 Bayesian Ratings update: Starting to conform to AP?

While our pre-season rankings didn't always agree with the AP, the more we update based on actual performance the more some teams move closer to the polls. Let's not forget, these ratings aren't supposed to resemble the AP, which quickly becomes more of a "reward"-based ranking. These are meant to predict future performance while using the pre-season ratings as a base.

Stanford is a good example. The Cardinal were ranked lower on our pre-season list than the AP, but with their blowout of Washington State they finally move into our top ten at #8, up 8 this week and 11 in all since August. An example of the AP conforming to our ratings? Notre Dame, which started at #14 in the AP but only #22 in ours. The Irish fell out of the top 25 in our first Bayesian update, but only just this week drop from the AP Top 25. The Irish have underperformed in every game according to our pre-season rankings and after losing to Oklahoma they fall to #42. The Sooners are up 6 to #9 in our rankings, and up to #11 in the AP.

Clemson is one team that doesn't agree between the AP and our updated ratings. We had the Tigers fairly low at #14 and despite a big win over Georgia in week one they have lagged; they're up 6 spots this week after destroying Wake Forest 56-7 but still are only #16.

The very top of our rankings isn't quite the same, either; Oregon holds on to our #1 spot here, and AP #1 Alabama is only #3. Baylor remains at #2 (the Bears were idle this weekend) and is just #16 in the AP. AP #2 Ohio State rises a spot to #4 on our list as Texas A&M drops a couple of spots to #6 for not dominating Arkansas sufficiently to warrant a top five placing. Georgia slips a couple of spots after beating LSU by a field goal, and the Tigers are right behind at #11.

The big winner last week, surprisingly, was Utah State (3-2) who moves up 12 spots to #14 after beating San Jose State 40-12. The Aggies lost close road games to Utah and USC but have done well enough in their three wins to more than make up for it, and they're up 24 spots since the pre-season.

The big loser in the top 25 was Oklahoma State, upset by West Virginia 30-21. The Cowboys fall 12 spots to #21. That's exactly where they are in the AP this week, too. Makes you wonder if the mind of an AP voter, or at least the AP aggregate, could be successfully modelled with Bayesian updating?

Week 5 Bayesian update to pre-season 2013 ratings:

pre	Week1	Week2	Week3	Week4	Week5	Team	wk5chg	total	Rating
2	2	2	1	1	1	Oregon	0	+1	80.58
28	13	4	4	2	2	Baylor	0	+26	80.08
1	1	1	2	3	3	Alabama	0	-2	78.29
7	8	6	7	5	4	Ohio State	+1	+3	70.68
9	9	9	6	6	5	Florida St	+1	+4	70.65
3	3	3	3	4	6	Texas A&M	-2	-3	70.61
26	21	16	16	7	7	Louisville	0	+19	68.79
19	19	15	23	16	8	Stanford	+8	+11	68.35
21	17	20	15	15	9	Oklahoma	+6	+12	67.09
4	4	5	5	8	10	Georgia	-2	-6	67.03
18	16	12	10	10	11	LSU	-1	+7	66.99
8	7	7	8	12	12	Arizona St	0	-4	66.60
23	20	19	11	11	13	UCLA	-2	+10	64.83
38	43	40	29	26	14	Utah St	+12	+24	64.63
11	12	24	12	13	15	Mississippi	-2	-4	63.72
14	15	22	22	22	16	Clemson	+6	-2	63.69
13	14	14	13	14	17	South Carolina	-3	-4	63.26
16	18	18	18	19	18	Florida	+1	-2	62.71
12	10	10	14	20	19	Washington	+1	-7	62.37
27	31	29	25	21	20	Wisconsin	+1	+7	62.36
6	6	8	9	9	21	Oklahoma St	-12	-15	61.74
30	29	17	17	18	22	Arizona	-4	+8	61.60
17	22	21	21	27	23	Miami FL	+4	-6	60.58
33	30	28	31	25	24	Missouri	+1	+9	60.46
60	53	37	33	23	25	Utah	-2	+35	60.35
50	42	33	27	24	26	Texas Tech	-2	+24	60.12
34	24	23	19	17	27	Georgia Tech	-10	+7	59.54
15	11	11	20	28	28	Michigan	0	-13	59.32
5	5	13	24	29	29	Texas	0	-24	58.63
66	64	66	59	38	30	Iowa	+8	+36	57.63
31	35	25	26	32	31	BYU	+1	0	57.03
52	44	44	38	42	32	Virginia Tech	+10	+20	56.54
45	56	47	47	50	33	Boise St	+17	+12	55.64
37	41	45	34	33	34	Michigan St	-1	+3	55.62
72	70	57	48	34	35	Maryland	-1	+37	55.54
20	25	31	28	30	36	Southern Cal	-6	-16	55.11
25	28	26	30	35	37	Northwestern	-2	-12	54.99
53	45	42	39	41	38	Central Florida	+3	+15	54.90
51	49	43	37	36	39	Auburn	-3	+12	54.42
29	33	32	42	37	40	Kansas St	-3	-11	54.33
24	27	34	45	48	41	TCU	+7	-17	53.21
22	26	27	32	31	42	Notre Dame	-11	-20	53.21
55	51	50	51	44	43	Penn State	+1	+12	52.80
41	48	46	54	45	44	Nebraska	+1	-3	52.78
39	40	53	57	46	45	Mississippi St	+1	-6	52.11
62	61	65	53	47	46	Syracuse	+1	+16	52.05
10	23	30	35	43	47	Oregon St	-4	-37	51.76
61	60	61	62	64	48	East Carolina	+16	+13	50.89
69	54	48	58	52	49	Bowling Green	+3	+20	50.80
42	34	52	40	51	50	Indiana	+1	-8	50.72
58	50	49	50	53	51	Marshall	+2	+7	49.75
57	57	51	41	39	52	Washington St	-13	+5	49.21
32	32	41	43	56	53	Vanderbilt	+3	-21	48.78
43	46	39	46	49	54	Tennessee	-5	-11	48.64
46	38	58	49	54	55	Cincinnati	-1	-9	48.64
36	37	36	52	65	56	Northern Illinois	+9	-20	48.61
95	92	86	87	72	57	Houston	+15	+38	48.57
78	71	62	61	59	58	Ball St	+1	+20	48.46
108	103	76	67	69	59	Illinois	+10	+49	48.43
83	68	68	65	63	60	Arkansas	+3	+23	48.28
35	36	35	36	40	61	North Carolina	-21	-26	47.51
47	59	60	69	70	62	Iowa St	+8	-15	46.80
48	55	56	56	58	63	Fresno St	-5	-15	46.03
76	69	72	75	74	64	North Carolina St	+10	+12	45.63
40	39	38	44	55	65	Rice	-10	-25	45.36
68	66	67	64	60	66	Toledo	-6	+2	45.23
63	52	55	60	57	67	Minnesota	-10	-4	44.90
56	58	59	63	66	68	Boston College	-2	-12	44.73
74	87	81	76	67	69	Colorado St	-2	+5	44.42
64	72	64	66	68	70	Kentucky	-2	-6	43.77
82	85	87	80	80	71	Pittsburgh	+9	+11	43.37
102	100	90	70	71	72	Navy	-1	+30	43.30
65	77	78	68	73	73	LA-Lafayette	0	-8	42.88
97	88	85	77	61	74	Wyoming	-13	+23	42.77
85	82	82	81	75	75	North Texas	0	+10	42.37
96	86	74	78	81	76	Colorado	+5	+20	42.28
77	67	77	92	76	77	Western Kentucky	-1	0	42.23
75	65	69	72	79	78	Rutgers	+1	-3	41.96
103	99	100	91	89	79	Florida Atlantic	+10	+24	41.92
73	83	70	73	95	80	West Virginia	+15	-7	41.91
44	47	54	55	62	81	San Jose St	-19	-37	40.66
79	74	63	71	78	82	Duke	-4	-3	40.35
71	63	71	74	77	83	Virginia	-6	-12	40.31
84	80	89	83	85	84	California	+1	0	40.06
91	91	96	95	86	85	Memphis	+1	+6	39.51
67	78	80	84	83	86	SMU	-3	-19	38.98
49	76	84	85	82	87	San Diego St	-5	-38	37.95
90	90	92	86	91	88	Kansas	+3	+2	37.46
86	79	99	104	100	89	Buffalo	+11	-3	37.23
89	97	94	94	93	90	Ohio U.	+3	-1	37.19
109	109	106	99	98	91	South Alabama	+7	+18	36.89
105	102	103	100	107	92	Tulane	+15	+13	36.61
80	84	88	90	90	93	Middle Tennessee St	-3	-13	36.44
59	75	73	88	87	94	Tulsa	-7	-35	36.32
98	95	91	93	84	95	Texas-San Antonio	-11	+3	34.97
70	81	83	79	88	96	Purdue	-8	-26	34.91
87	73	79	89	96	97	Arkansas St	-1	-10	34.56
110	113	113	102	97	98	Akron	-1	+12	34.41
111	107	95	96	101	99	Hawaii	+2	+12	34.37
101	98	105	106	106	100	Texas St.	+6	+1	34.01
94	104	101	98	94	101	Wake Forest	-7	-7	33.83
107	101	109	101	103	102	Army	+1	+5	33.51
106	108	98	109	99	103	Nevada	-4	+3	33.36
81	93	93	97	92	104	Connecticut	-12	-23	33.12
104	105	107	107	102	105	UAB	-3	-1	32.02
88	96	102	105	109	106	Kent St	+3	-18	31.88
100	106	115	113	108	107	UNLV	+1	-7	30.72
117	116	110	108	112	108	Troy	+4	+9	29.16
112	112	114	111	110	109	UTEP	+1	+3	27.98
99	94	97	110	105	110	Temple	-5	-11	27.39
92	111	108	115	113	111	South Florida	+2	-19	26.33
116	110	111	112	117	112	Air Force	+5	+4	26.01
113	115	112	114	111	113	New Mexico	-2	0	25.66
54	62	75	82	104	114	LA-Monroe	-10	-60	25.27
118	118	118	118	116	115	Louisiana Tech	+1	+3	22.84
93	89	104	103	114	116	Western Mich.	-2	-23	22.58
114	117	117	116	118	117	Central Michigan	+1	-3	21.46
115	114	116	117	115	118	Southern Miss	-3	-3	20.82
122	122	120	121	122	119	New Mexico St	+3	+3	20.18
125	124	123	122	120	120	Massachusetts	0	+5	20.01
123	125	125	123	123	121	Idaho	+2	+2	18.66
119	119	119	119	119	122	Miami OH	-3	-3	18.37
120	120	121	120	121	123	Eastern Michigan	-2	-3	17.69
124	123	124	125	124	124	Georgia State	0	0	12.80
121	121	122	124	125	125	Florida Int'l	0	-4	8.75

Virginia Tech's 17-10 win at Georgia Tech was enough to knock the Yellow Jackets out of the top 25, and send the Hokies up 10 spots to #32. That's 20 spots higher than they started the year, so Frank Beamer's club is set to ourperform our expectations. So is Boise State, who was docked early for the big loss to Washington but has come back, beating Southern Miss 60-7 to jump 17 spots to #33; they're now up 12 for the season.

Both East Carolina and North Carolina broke out of holding patterns suddenly. The Pirates had almost exactly matched our expectations, down just 3 places, when they upset the Tar Heels 55-31. That bounced them up 16 to #47, up 13 for the year, while UNC fall a stunning 21 spots to #61, down 26 total. Houston, on the other hand, has done better than we figured in every game, with their big 4th-quarter push to beat UTSA 59-28 moving them up 15 spots. The Cougars started the season at #95 but are #57 now.

The biggest mover this season, however, is Illinois. Beating Miami of Ohio 50-14 boosts the Illini another 10 spots to #59, 49 higher than the #108 spot we gave them in August. And that ranking is while still giving 1/3 weight to the pre-season, meaning that is probably a conservative rating.

Rice hasn't met our lofty pre-season expectations of being #40 in the nation, and after barely beating FAU on two late, lucky defensive plays 18-14, they fall a further 10 places to #65. Florida Atlantic is going the other direction, up 10 to #79 after starting at #103.

Wyoming shockingly lost to Texas State, and badly, 42-21, but even after dropping 13 spots to #74 they are still up 23 from their #97 start; the Cowboys did consistently well in their other games. San Jose State has been falling from their #44 start since day 1, and the loss to Utah State drops them a further 19 spots to #81.

Connecticut became the 2nd team to lose their coach (after USC of course) after they fell 41-12 to Buffalo to start 0-4. They're down 12 to #104, 23 spots lower than their #81 start. The worst team, according to our expectations, is still Louisiana-Monroe. The Warhawks fall another 10 spots to #114 after losing to Tulane 31-14; that's 60 (sixty!) spots lower than the #54 we thought they'd be.

Next week's Bayesian update will be the last one we will do, and the ratings will be almost completely based on this season's performance, though the foundation is still the pre-season ratings. After that, the unbiased power ratings will have a strong enough basis for comparison and will be more accurate.

2013 Heisman Race, week 4: time for a running back

Back in the 70s the Heisman Trophy was a running back's award, with every award from 1973 to 1983 going to a rusher. The tide started to turn in the late 80s and in the 90s it was even, with 4 running backs and 4 quarterbacks taking the award (with one WR and one CB, both of whom returned kicks). The quarterback era started in 2000, and since then 11 QBs and just 2 RBs have won the Heisman (just one RB if you don't count Reggie Bush's returned award).

And lately, it's not even enough to be a great passing quarterback—dual-threat QBs have won the last three awards.

This year's consideration list is replete with dual-threat quarterbacks, and last week we didn't even have a running back on the list, so it was time we added one. First, though, let's take it from the top:

Johnny Manziel holds on at #1. His TD:int ratio was just 1:1 last Saturday but he ran for two touchdowns. Again, the award is his until someone takes it away, and no one seems all that eager. #2 Tajh Boyd of Clemson had a decent outing against NC State in a 26-14 win with three TD passes, but he has half of Manziel's passing yards and 1/3 of his rushing yards. His TD/TO ratio is 9:0, however.

Jordan Lynch of Northern Illinois is still high on our list at #3. Once again he had to pull out all the stops against an inferior opponent (FCS Eastern Illinois), resulting in 189 rushing yards and 235 passing yards. He had just 1 TD against 2 interceptions but he was ultimately the reason for their win. Offsetting that is the fact that he faced an FCS opponent. Where do you strike the balance between heroics and strength of schedule? NIU's soft schedule will be taken into account as the year goes on, and any losses by the team will reflect harshly on Lynch. It may be an uphill battle to hold his position here or for the rest of the nation to take his candidacy seriously this season unless the numbers are other-worldly.

Teddy Bridgewater of Louisville also faced some easy competition (FIU) but he breezed through it with four TD passes; he has a 14:1 ratio this year so far. He moves up to #4, leaping over Marqise Lee who has been a disappointment thus far. His numbers are fairly pedestrian for a superstar receiver and he keeps losing ground—but weakness among the candidates helps him hold at #5. He better make a big move, fast, as he can't live off potential much longer.

2013 Heisman Race, week 4:

1. Johnny Manziel, QB Texas A&M (3-1; beat SMU 42-13)
   LW:  14-21  66.7%   244yd  1TD 1int 12rsh 102yd 8.5av 2TD 0fmb
   TOT: 77-110 70.0%  1228yd 12TD 4int 39rsh 255yd 6.5av 3TD 0fmb
2. Tajh Boyd, QB Clemson (3-0; beat NC State 26-14)
   LW:  24-37  64.9%  244yd  3TD 0int 13rsh  38yd 2.9av 0TD 0fmb
   TOT: 56-90  62.2%  683yd  6TD 0int 32rsh  90yd 2.8av 3TD 0fmb
3. Jordan Lynch, QB N. Illinois (3-0; beat E. Illinois 43-39)
   LW:  21-30  70.0%  235yd  1TD 2int 23rsh 189yd 8.2av 0TD 0fmb
   TOT: 63-100 63.0%  662yd  7TD 2int 68rsh 404yd 5.9av 2TD 1fmb
4. [up 2] Teddy Bridgewater, QB Louisville (4-0; beat FIU 72-0)
   LW:  17-22  77.3%  212yd  4TD 0int  3rsh   1yd 0.3av 0TD 0fmb
   TOT: 79-110 71.8% 1214yd 14TD 1int 12rsh  36yd 3.0av 0TD 0fmb
5. Marqise Lee, WR USC (3-1; beat Utah State 17-14)
   LW:   6rec  72yd 0TD 0fmb 1rsh  8yd   8av 0fmb 34retYd 0TD 0fmb
   TOT: 23rec 293yd 1TD 0fmb 5rsh  1yd 0.2av 0fmb 76retYd 0TD 1fmb
6. [dn 2] Braxton Miller, QB Ohio State (4-0; beat FL A&M 76-0)
   LW:  did not play; injury
   TOT: 17-24  70.8%  208yd  2TD 1int 18rsh  82yd 4.6av 0TD 0fmb
7. Marcus Mariota, QB Oregon (3-0; no game last week)
   LW:  no game
   TOT: 49-82  59.8%  889yd  7TD 0int 15rsh 262yd 17+av 4TD 0fmb
8. [new] Melvin Gordon, RB Wisconsin (3-1; beat Purdue 41-10)
   LW:  16rsh 147yd  9.2av 3TD 0fmb; 0rec 0yd 0TD; 0retYds
   TOT: 53rsh 624yd 11.8av 7TD 0fmb; 0rec 0yd 0TD; 0retYds
9. [dn 1] Jadeveon Clowney, DE South Carolina (2-1; no game last week)
   LW:  no game
   TOT: 10 tackles 2 sack 3 tfl 0 pbu 0 int 1 ffmb 0 kBlock

Speaking of "better make a big move, fast," Braxton Miller is going to be out of the race if he doesn't get back on the field. Already backup Kenny Guiton is putting up Heisman-worthy numbers himself, albeit against poor competition. This week the Buckeyes face Wisconsin and if Miller misses a "big" game he's dead in the water. He's almost become an afterthought around the nation as it is. A big comeback game could reignite his hopes but a lot of damage has been done to his potential stats line.

Marcus Mariota didn't play this week and holds at #7; he's the leader on many boards, but we're giving it some time. Oregon always scores bazillions of points early on—it's the big games Mariota has to win to prove he's Heisman-worthy and not just another QB cog in the Oregon/Nike football machine. He thus far lacks the highlight reel plays of Manziel, the big wins of Boyd, and the game-saving performances of Lynch, but he will soon be right up there with Bridgewater if Oregon keeps dominating.

Melvin Gordon of Wisconsin is our token running back this week. As we noted our under-representation of RBs, we looked and saw that only one player is averaging over 150 yards per game, and Gordon has topped 100 yards for four games so far, one of those being a game against a top 25 team and one against a conference foe. Though the Badgers lost to Arizona State it wasn't Gordon's fault as he rushed for a season-high 193 yards. Most impressive of all? He's averaging 11.8 yards per carry. He debuts at #8, pushing past Jadeveon Clowney who was idle. Clowney may yet see his Heisman candidacy "reignite" as for a defensive player all it takes is a few good games and highlight reel hits, but for now he's been largely forgotten.

This week's key Heisman games:

• Wisconsin at Ohio State: Can Braxton Miller reignite his candidacy, or will Kenny Guiton establish his own? Can Melvin Gordon take the big leap forward and put a running back among the top candidates?
• Texas A&M at Arkansas: Johnny Football, 'nuff said.
• Wake Forest at Clemson: A good chance for Tajh Boyd to shine against a weak foe.
• Cal at Oregon: Could be another easy Oregon win; what will Marcus Mariota's numbers look like?
• Northern Illinois at Purdue: Can Jordan Lynch make it 2-0 vs. the Big Ten this season?

Week 4 unbiased power rating: How much will things change? (hint: lots)

In the early weeks we focus on our Bayesian updates to our pre-season rankings, slowly removing the effects of the pre-season bias. Eventually we'll focus solely on unbiased power ratings such as our All-Division Strength power rating, and the FBS-only Strength and Success ratings. Right now the Bayesian (biased) rankings still look a lot more sensible, but let's take another look at where removing all bias puts us after four weeks.

Overall we see rankings that are starting to make sense but still haven't reached an acceptable level of accuracy to pin down any given team and say, this is where they belong, within even 10 spots. There are almost no 1-game teams left, which helps a lot. But once again the top teams are those who have played fewer games—three rather than four—as it's hard to sustain outlier performance with each additional data point.

The first thing to note is that Baylor does even better without the pre-season bias that had them at #28; in fact they rank the #1 team in the nation. Their offensive ranking of #1 doesn't seem unrealistic, nor does their #63 defense. But their offensive rating of 94.63 is not sustainable, so their overall rating of 89.49 will come down—even if they really are the #1 team. So the rating is out of whack, at least somewhat; we'll have to wait and see if the ranking is unrealistic, too.

In general the teams that have played four games will have much more reliable rankings, so it's probably safe to argue that Louisville is a top ten team or pretty close, that LSU is somewhere in the top 25, and Ohio State might only be a borderline top ten team as they rank just #19 here. Meanwhile 2-2 Indiana and Mississippi State could be top 25-quality teams, too, despite their losses. And Washington State and Auburn have to be considered as well, despite being unranked in the national polls.

All-Division Power Rating after week 4, top 25 only:

  #  Team                        rec   Rating Offense[rnk]  Defense[rnk]
  1. Baylor                      3-0   89.49   94.63 [  1]    5.13 [ 63]
  2. Florida St                  3-0   87.65   67.70 [  9]  -19.94 [  1]
  3. Oregon                      3-0   83.03   73.53 [  4]   -9.49 [  7]
  4. Oklahoma St                 3-0   80.02   72.05 [  6]   -7.96 [ 13]
  5. Washington                  3-0   72.55   60.90 [ 24]  -11.64 [  5]
  6. Georgia Tech                3-0   72.12   64.40 [ 17]   -7.71 [ 15]
  7. Louisville                  4-0   70.71   61.14 [ 23]   -9.56 [  6]
  8. Missouri                    3-0   69.79   57.16 [ 39]  -12.63 [  4]
  9. Navy                        2-0   68.14   58.94 [ 33]   -9.19 [  8]
 10. UCLA                        3-0   67.67   64.69 [ 15]   -2.97 [ 30]
 11. Arizona                     3-0   67.42   60.64 [ 25]   -6.78 [ 17]
 12. Georgia                     2-1   66.79   72.19 [  5]    5.40 [ 68]
 13. Clemson                     3-0   65.22   57.36 [ 38]   -7.85 [ 14]
 14. Alabama                     3-0   65.20   61.94 [ 21]   -3.25 [ 28]
 15. LSU                         4-0   64.97   66.65 [ 11]    1.67 [ 43]
 16. Indiana                     2-2   63.45   74.38 [  3]   10.92 [130]
 17. Mississippi St              2-2   61.51   52.58 [ 69]   -8.92 [ 10]
 18. Washburn                    3-0   61.18   63.62 [ 20]    2.44 [ 48]
 19. Ohio State                  4-0   60.07   69.41 [  8]    9.33 [110]
 20. Washington St               3-1   59.94   54.70 [ 52]   -5.23 [ 20]
 21. Auburn                      3-1   59.50   54.81 [ 51]   -4.69 [ 22]
 22. South Carolina              2-1   59.03   55.37 [ 49]   -3.65 [ 26]
 23. Illinois                    2-1   58.65   63.99 [ 18]    5.33 [ 65]
 24. Pittsburgh                  2-1   58.41   70.56 [  7]   12.15 [150]
 25. North Dakota St             3-0   58.06   48.99 [ 89]   -9.07 [  9]

The teams that have played three games might be ranked fairly, or they could easily be 10 or 20 or more spots off. See Alabama at #14—their defensive ranking of #28 is a dead giveaway that they're underrated due to the close win over Texas A&M. More games played will move the Tide toward their real ranking, but whether that's #1 or not remains a fair question.

Meanwhile, the 3-0 teams in the top ten are pretty likely to be top 25-level teams, with Baylor the big question mark of course as to where they will end up. Currently all of the 3-0 top ten teams are in the AP top 25 with the exception of Georgia Tech and Missouri.

A good example of three games being a hit-and-miss proposition is division II Washburn at #18. It's safe to say that a big downward revision is coming. Last week these rankings had 1-0 Augsburg at #7 and 1-0 Wabash at #21. Both teams won last week to go 2-0; Wabash fell to #180 and Augsburg to #351. Washburn's ranking will likewise fall, but even being this high after three games does suggest that they are underrated in the Division II polls—where they also rank #18. It's seems pretty certain the team is much better than #18 among just Division II teams, their performance so far suggests they could challenge for the championship come playoff time, though it's still too early to tell. The only sure thing is that they won't remain in the top 25, nor probably the top 50, for very much longer.

North Dakota State is another story. The Bison have dominated the FCS recently and their #25 ranking after three games might not be too far-fetched. We'd guess that they'll drift downward, but their fall will be gradual and they'll likely remain in the top 50.

Teams with just two games—see Navy at #9—could be in for major revision suddenly. Navy is part of the confusing Indiana picture, as the Hoosiers have looked alternately fantastic and poor this year. That's averaged out to a great ranking so far with the limited comparison data available, but if more information makes Navy look worse Indiana will suffer with them.

Several teams appear, at least at this early stage, to be living off of offense while their defense is just "good enough." Baylor might not seem like the best example since their defense has locked down their foes (23 points yielded so far), but those teams aren't scoring much against anybody so Baylor's D is just #63. Georgia has almost the same offense/defense profile as Baylor, and Big Ten teams Indiana and Ohio State rank fantastic on offense (#3 and #8) and poor on defense (#130, #110). Pittsburgh's success so far seems completely due to their #7 offense, not their #150 defense, as evidenced by their 58-55 win over Duke.

For the other side of the coin see perhaps Mississippi State (#10 defense, #69 offense), North Dakota State (#9 defense, #89 offense), and for the best example, #27 Florida. The 2-1 Gators have the #3 defense currently and the #142 offense, something that might only get worse now that QB Jeff Driskel is out for the year. The divergence didn't prevent Florida from having a great season last year, but then they had the #50 offense, so things had better improve on that side of the ball if they want to stay alive in the SEC.

Week 4 ratings update: Oregon #1, Baylor #2, Alabama #3

Another week, another Bayesian update to our pre-season ratings, and another surge by Baylor after another blowout by the Bears. This time they move from #4 to #2, muscling past Texas A&M and a slightly faltering Alabama to sit just below #1 Oregon, who was idle.

Baylor beat Louisiana-Monroe 70-7, a game we had pegged a 10-point win back in August. It's fair to say ULM has vastly underperformed this year so this win is pretty inflated, but 63 points is nothing to sneeze at. Baylor also sits at #1 in our unbiased All-Division Power Rating, though that's still in its early stages with 3 or 4 games played per team. So the situation with Baylor remains: uncertain, untested, but looking very good so far.

Big blowouts of weak Florida teams helped Ohio State jump 2 spots, FSU to stay even, and Louisville to jump 9 places to #7. Clearly Louisville's 72-0 win over FIU was more impressive than the other teams' similar wins over FCS schools. The Cardinals look like a bona fide top ten team so far, contrary to our (contrary) position in the pre-season.

Stanford's win over Arizona State drew the teams closer, but ASU is still 4 positions ahead as their slight comeback kept them from falling further and their other performances are stronger; they remain ahead in the unbiased power ratings, too, interestingly.

And showing that playing extremely weak opponents never does one good, Washington and Miami each fell six spots despite outsized wins. Washington beat Idaho State 56-0 and Miami crushed Savannah State 77-7, but neither lived up to the ridiculous spreads of their ranking: Washington needed to win by 74 and Miami by 84. These games can really tell you nothing unless the spreads are off by 4 touchdowns or more; it's too bad they even get scheduled.

Utah is formally looking like a top 25 team after beating BYU and jumping 10 spots to #23. The Utes' only loss was in overtime to Oregon State. But Michigan's 2nd straight scare resulted in another drop, this time 8 spots to #28 after beating UConn just 24-21.

pre- season	Week1	Week2	Week3	Week4	Team	wk4 chg	total chg	week4 rating
2	2	2	1	1	Oregon	0	+1	80.84
28	13	4	4	2	Baylor	+2	+26	80.08
1	1	1	2	3	Alabama	-1	-2	77.34
3	3	3	3	4	Texas A&M	-1	-1	73.91
7	8	6	7	5	Ohio State	+2	+2	71.78
9	9	9	6	6	Florida St	0	+3	70.77
26	21	16	16	7	Louisville	+9	+19	68.79
4	4	5	5	8	Georgia	-3	-4	68.73
6	6	8	9	9	Oklahoma St	0	-3	67.21
18	16	12	10	10	LSU	0	+8	65.29
23	20	19	11	11	UCLA	0	+12	64.83
8	7	7	8	12	Arizona St	-4	-4	64.70
11	12	24	12	13	Mississippi	-1	-2	64.67
13	14	14	13	14	South Carolina	-1	-1	64.65
21	17	20	15	15	Oklahoma	0	+6	64.20
19	19	15	23	16	Stanford	+7	+3	63.92
34	24	23	19	17	Georgia Tech	+2	+17	62.90
30	29	17	17	18	Arizona	-1	+12	62.65
16	18	18	18	19	Florida	-1	-3	62.11
12	10	10	14	20	Washington	-6	-8	61.32
27	31	29	25	21	Wisconsin	+4	+6	61.26
14	15	22	22	22	Clemson	0	-8	60.51
60	53	37	33	23	Utah	+10	+37	60.35
50	42	33	27	24	Texas Tech	+3	+26	60.12
33	30	28	31	25	Missouri	+6	+8	60.12
38	43	40	29	26	Utah St	+3	+12	59.83
17	22	21	21	27	Miami FL	-6	-10	59.52
15	11	11	20	28	Michigan	-8	-13	59.32
5	5	13	24	29	Texas	-5	-24	58.63
20	25	31	28	30	Southern Cal	-2	-10	57.01
22	26	27	32	31	Notre Dame	+1	-9	56.09
31	35	25	26	32	BYU	-6	-1	55.69
37	41	45	34	33	Michigan St	+1	+4	55.62
72	70	57	48	34	Maryland	14	+38	55.54
25	28	26	30	35	Northwestern	-5	-10	54.99
51	49	43	37	36	Auburn	+1	+15	54.42
29	33	32	42	37	Kansas St	+5	-8	54.33
66	64	66	59	38	Iowa	+21	+28	54.07
57	57	51	41	39	Washington St	+2	+18	53.65
35	36	35	36	40	North Carolina	-4	-5	53.60
53	45	42	39	41	Central Florida	-2	+12	53.51
52	44	44	38	42	Virginia Tech	-4	+10	53.19
10	23	30	35	43	Oregon St	-8	-33	52.97
55	51	50	51	44	Penn State	+7	+11	52.80
41	48	46	54	45	Nebraska	+9	-4	52.78
39	40	53	57	46	Mississippi St	+11	-7	52.11
62	61	65	53	47	Syracuse	+6	+15	52.05
24	27	34	45	48	TCU	-3	-24	51.43
43	46	39	46	49	Tennessee	-3	-6	51.23
45	56	47	47	50	Boise St	-3	-5	51.02
42	34	52	40	51	Indiana	-11	-9	50.72
69	54	48	58	52	Bowling Green	+6	+17	50.69
58	50	49	50	53	Marshall	-3	+5	49.75
46	38	58	49	54	Cincinnati	-5	-8	48.64
40	39	38	44	55	Rice	-11	-15	48.54
32	32	41	43	56	Vanderbilt	-13	-24	48.47
63	52	55	60	57	Minnesota	+3	+6	48.46
48	55	56	56	58	Fresno St	-2	-10	47.81
78	71	62	61	59	Ball St	+2	+19	47.49
68	66	67	64	60	Toledo	+4	+8	46.21
97	88	85	77	61	Wyoming	+16	+36	45.84
44	47	54	55	62	San Jose St	-7	-18	45.46
83	68	68	65	63	Arkansas	+2	+20	44.97
61	60	61	62	64	East Carolina	-2	-3	44.79
36	37	36	52	65	Northern Illinois	-13	-29	44.76
56	58	59	63	66	Boston College	-3	-10	44.61
74	87	81	76	67	Colorado St	+9	+7	44.39
64	72	64	66	68	Kentucky	-2	-4	44.37
108	103	76	67	69	Illinois	-2	+39	44.12
47	59	60	69	70	Iowa St	-1	-23	43.85
102	100	90	70	71	Navy	-1	+31	43.47
95	92	86	87	72	Houston	+15	+23	42.92
65	77	78	68	73	LA-Lafayette	-5	-8	42.88
76	69	72	75	74	North Carolina St	+1	+2	42.76
85	82	82	81	75	North Texas	+6	+10	42.37
77	67	77	92	76	Western Kentucky	+16	+1	42.05
71	63	71	74	77	Virginia	-3	-6	42.01
79	74	63	71	78	Duke	-7	+1	41.98
75	65	69	72	79	Rutgers	-7	-4	41.96
82	85	87	80	80	Pittsburgh	0	+2	41.67
96	86	74	78	81	Colorado	-3	+15	41.08
49	76	84	85	82	San Diego St	+3	-33	41.00
67	78	80	84	83	SMU	+1	-16	40.76
98	95	91	93	84	Texas-San Antonio	+9	+14	40.61
84	80	89	83	85	California	-2	-1	39.80
91	91	96	95	86	Memphis	+9	+5	39.51
59	75	73	88	87	Tulsa	+1	-28	39.27
70	81	83	79	88	Purdue	-9	-18	38.76
103	99	100	91	89	Florida Atlantic	+2	+14	38.74
80	84	88	90	90	Middle Tennessee St	0	-10	37.78
90	90	92	86	91	Kansas	-5	-1	37.46
81	93	93	97	92	Connecticut	+5	-11	37.39
89	97	94	94	93	Ohio U.	+1	-4	37.19
94	104	101	98	94	Wake Forest	+4	0	37.01
73	83	70	73	95	West Virginia	-22	-22	36.45
87	73	79	89	96	Arkansas St	-7	-9	34.90
110	113	113	102	97	Akron	+5	+13	34.52
109	109	106	99	98	South Alabama	+1	+11	34.30
106	108	98	109	99	Nevada	+10	+7	34.29
86	79	99	104	100	Buffalo	+4	-14	32.95
111	107	95	96	101	Hawaii	-5	+10	32.59
104	105	107	107	102	UAB	+5	+2	32.33
107	101	109	101	103	Army	-2	+4	31.23
54	62	75	82	104	LA-Monroe	-22	-50	31.20
99	94	97	110	105	Temple	+5	-6	31.09
101	98	105	106	106	Texas St.	0	-5	30.94
105	102	103	100	107	Tulane	-7	-2	30.68
100	106	115	113	108	UNLV	+5	-8	28.81
88	96	102	105	109	Kent St	-4	-21	28.75
112	112	114	111	110	UTEP	+1	+2	28.01
113	115	112	114	111	New Mexico	+3	+2	27.58
117	116	110	108	112	Troy	-4	+5	27.53
92	111	108	115	113	South Florida	+2	-21	27.38
93	89	104	103	114	Western Mich.	-11	-21	25.71
115	114	116	117	115	Southern Miss	+2	0	25.44
118	118	118	118	116	Louisiana Tech	+2	+2	25.12
116	110	111	112	117	Air Force	-5	-1	25.07
114	117	117	116	118	Central Michigan	-2	-4	24.34
119	119	119	119	119	Miami OH	0	0	22.69
125	124	123	122	120	Massachusetts	+2	+5	20.01
120	120	121	120	121	Eastern Michigan	-1	-1	17.69
122	122	120	121	122	New Mexico St	-1	0	17.13
123	125	125	123	123	Idaho	0	0	14.96
124	123	124	125	124	Georgia State	+1	0	12.80
121	121	122	124	125	Florida Int'l	-1	-4	8.75

Maryland, Iowa big winners

Maryland crushed West Virginia 37-0, a fantastic showing on defense while the Terps' offense is looking pretty good too. They move up 14 spots to #34 and have moved up every single week since starting at #72 in the pre-season. Iowa posted perhaps the most stunning blowout of the week, beating Western Michigan 59-3 with defense and special teams contributing 28 points. The Hawks were 12 point favorites in the pre-season and 17 point favorites by our calculations at game time. Iowa rockets up 21 spots to #38 and have definitely exceeded expectations after a rocky start. The losers, West Virginia and Western Michigan, fall 22 and 11 spots to #95 and #114 respectively, so when pre-season bias is removed these games might not look as impressive. But winning big is never a negative.

Mississippi State's 62-7 win over Troy was good for 11 spots to #46, still below their pre-season #39 ranking however. The 2-2 Bulldogs have a week off before facing LSU.

Indiana has been all over the map this year. Starting at #42, they jumped to #34 after dominating Indiana State 73-35, fell to #52 after losing to Navy, jumped back to #40 after destroying Bowling Green 42-10, and now drop to #51 after losing 42-28 to Missouri. It's possible that Navy and Missouri are really good teams—something hinted at by the unbiased power rating this week—and that the Hoosiers are still a really good team. But time will tell.

Rice and Vanderbilt also underperformed and fell; the Owls lost to Houston 31-26 and fell 11 spots to #55, while Vandy's tepid 24-7 win over UMass dropped them 13 to #56. The equal and opposite reaction held true as Houston jumped 15 spots to #72, and Massachusetts gained for the 4th straight week, rising to #120 (they started dead last—#125—in the pre-season).

Wyoming is another team that has moved up every week, showing we had them underrated in the pre-season for sure. This Saturday they beat Air Force 56-23, a contest we saw as a 4-point win in August. The Cowboys moved up 15 spots, making it a total of 36—from #97 to #61. Meanwhile Northern Illinois has dropped every time they've set foot on the field. The opening win at Iowa (30-27) went about as expected, but the next two games have been terrible, and they narrowly beat Eastern Illinois 43-39 in their first home game. This drops the Huskies 13 spots to #65, 29 lower than they started. Now, it's almost certain that Eastern Illinois is a lot better than they were last year, as they dominated San Diego State earlier in the year. But that doesn't explain NIU's troubled with Idaho the week before.

Western Kentucky jumps 16 spots to #76 after beating Morgan State 58-17. The Hilltoppers are another up-and-down team, moving up or down by double digits each week; they're now one spot away from where they started (#77). They're 2-2 but unlike Indiana—the other consistently volatile team—they rank very low in the current unbiased power rating, suggesting their better performances are due to their opponents' deficiencies. Nevada beat Hawaii 31-9 and moved up 10 spots to #99, up 7 from where they started in August.

ULM, FIU fall on hard times...

Louisiana-Monroe lost 70-7 to Baylor, which either means Baylor is fantastic or ULM is terrible. Both could be true, as Baylor has exceeded our expectations by more than any other team while the Warhawks have underperformed worse than any team, falling 50 spots total to #104 since the pre-season. They're 17 points per game worse than we figured, and since they've underperformed each week by a significant amount, there is probably farther to fall yet before we find their true ranking.

Florida International has the dubious honor of taking over our #125 spot, and it isn't even close. No one expected them to beat Louisville but they lost as if they were Savannah State. They're now rated 4 points worse than #124 Georgia State, a team than went 1-10 in the FCS last year.

Early look at non-biased power rating

With week three over (and week four just set to begin), we can construct a non-biased power rating that might give us some clues as to how things are shaping up.

Of course, the conclusions drawn here don't rest on solid footing yet. Many teams have played just two games, and even those who have three games faced opponents who have played just two games. That's not enough to construct a reliable foundation for comparative rankings. At this point, our Bayesian modifications to our pre-season rankings are a better bet.

But the time will come to completely throw away pre-conceived notions, and when we do, what will we see? Here's a sneak peek (that is guaranteed to be wrong for many teams). The following is the top 25 among all teams from all divisions; we use that because most FBS teams have played an FCS team and without including those teams and their opponents, we have even less to go by.

Strength power rating; unbiased top 25 through week 3, 2013:

num  Team                       record  rating   offense       defense
  1. Georgia Tech                2-0   92.65   73.50 [  3]  -19.14 [  4]
  2. Baylor                      2-0   89.84   91.91 [  2]    2.06 [ 56]
  3. Washington                  2-0   80.48   59.00 [ 36]  -21.47 [  3]
  4. Florida St                  2-0   77.49   53.37 [ 69]  -24.11 [  1]
  5. Oregon                      3-0   74.72   71.04 [  6]   -3.67 [ 27]
  6. Navy                        2-0   70.94   62.67 [ 17]   -8.27 [ 13]
  7. Augsburg                    1-0   68.90   95.01 [  1]   26.11 [356]
  8. Indiana                     2-1   64.86   72.73 [  4]    7.87 [ 96]
  9. Duke                        2-1   64.53   61.08 [ 25]   -3.45 [ 29]
 10. Illinois                    2-1   64.49   67.71 [  7]    3.21 [ 61]
 11. Alabama                     2-0   63.26   67.51 [  9]    4.24 [ 70]
 12. UCLA                        2-0   62.88   52.32 [ 73]  -10.55 [ 11]
 13. Oklahoma St                 3-0   62.20   61.58 [ 22]   -0.61 [ 41]
 14. Florida                     1-1   61.79   46.15 [124]  -15.64 [  6]
 15. Montana                     2-0   61.68   48.34 [102]  -13.34 [  9]
 16. Missouri                    2-0   61.01   53.31 [ 70]   -7.70 [ 15]
 17. Towson                      3-0   59.48   57.52 [ 43]   -1.95 [ 34]
 18. Miami FL                    2-0   58.09   59.33 [ 34]    1.23 [ 54]
 19. Utah St                     2-1   57.57   61.32 [ 23]    3.75 [ 64]
 20. Washington St               2-1   57.39   53.69 [ 63]   -3.70 [ 26]
 21. Wabash                      1-0   57.20   61.71 [ 21]    4.51 [ 73]
 22. LSU                         3-0   56.56   62.70 [ 16]    6.14 [ 83]
 23. Auburn                      3-0   56.39   56.95 [ 46]    0.56 [ 49]
 24. Maryland                    3-0   55.80   51.88 [ 77]   -3.92 [ 24]
 25. Cincinnati                  2-1   55.50   60.91 [ 26]    5.41 [ 77]

Clearly you can see that for every possible keen insight, there is an obvious blunder. First we note that almost all of the very top teams have played just two games (it's much easier to look out-of-this-world for two games than three). Georgia Tech and Baylor have been great, no doubt, but their rating exceeds last year's rating for Alabama (who ranks #11 here). Oregon is the top 3-game team at #5, which seems pretty realistic, and Washington and Florida State might be top five teams. How good is Navy? We don't know but based on their two games they might be very good. But they're just 2-0. They beat Indiana, the top team with a loss in this early snapshot. Note that Duke and Illinois in turn lost to Georgia Tech and Washington, and it's still possible to have "fair" rankings.

Then there are the 1-game wonders like Augsburg (Augsburg?) showing up at #7, and Wabash at #21. We'll go out on a limb and guess those teams aren't really top 25 quality. Nor Towson, despite their 3-0 start, or Montana, no matter how well they do in the FCS.

The rest of the top 25 is full of FBS teams already, which is a sign of things starting to coalesce. There are clues, however, that it hasn't quite cooked long enough, such as Alabama's #70 defensive rating. When you think of it, it makes some sense—they gave up 42 points in their last game. And we haven't seen enough of Texas A&M to know that they have a great offense (remember, we don't know anything about Johnny Football from last year, just this year's scores).

Looking further down the top 732, we see some interesting points. Louisville at #29, and USC at #31—will they be moving up or is that how good they are? Georgia at #35 and Clemson at #37 should both be moving up I would think.

We find #38 Eastern Washington (2-1) one spot ahead of Oregon State (2-1), whom they beat in overtime. Ohio State and Wisconsin are #49 and #50...for the Big Ten's sake, they should advance from there. Being rated low at this point is nothing to be worried about if you've played well; even #100 Notre Dame can be sure that's not their real ranking, but it does reflect how pedestrian their play has been. And at #213 Texas could be in trouble. Not that they'll remain there, but you can see how they got their, losing badly to BYU, who lost to Virginia, who got smoked by Oregon.

Early-season unbiased power ratings are interesting more for the questions they raise than predictive value. Sometimes they shine the light on an unheralded team, while other times a team with a fluke game looks like a big winner before their subsequent play forces a regression to their (actual) mean. We'll be taking an extra look at Georgia Tech, Baylor, and Washington this week, no doubt (Navy doesn't play, unfortunately): which ones will live up to their early promise?

2013 Heisman Trophy - week 3: If not Johnny Football, then who?

Normally a loss is harmful to a Heisman hopeful quarterback, and a loss in "the Big Game" moreso. There's no doubt that losing to Alabama hurts Johnny Manziel's chances of repeating as the trophy winner, but damn did he put on a good show against the Tide last Saturday.

Even in losing he had more "Heisman moments" in the game than most of the other candidates have had all season so far. And while he threw two crucial interceptions—one in the end zone and one pick six—that were probably the difference in the game, without him the Aggies wouldn't have been in the game in the first place. The defense wasn't going to win it for them.

So while Manziel gets docked for the loss and it may ultimately be the reason he doesn't win the Heisman, for now we see no reason to drop him from the top spot. Who is going to replace him, Tajh Boyd who was idle and has 439 passing yards for the season—25 fewer than Manziel passed for against Alabama? I don't think so.

Nor Braxton Miller, who missed the Cal game with an injury and sees his trophy chances dwindling with every week he's out of the spotlight. Not Marqise Lee, who also drops a spot after catching just two passes in USC's win over Boston College. One was a highlight-reel 80-yard touchdown catch but his game is clearly off last year's. And even though Jordan Lynch moves up two spots it's mainly because of weakness above him, and the fact that Northern Illinois' defense was bad enough to allow lowly Idaho to stick with them. Lynch both passed and rushed for over 150 yards in the win; we'll see if his team can keep winning to keep him in the race.

1. Johnny Manziel, QB Texas A&M (2-1; lost to Alabama 49-42)
   LW:  28-39 71.8%  464yd  5TD 2int 14rsh  98yd 7.0av 0TD 0fmb
   TOT: 63-89 70.8%  984yd 11TD 3int 27rsh 153yd 5.7av 1TD 0fmb
2. Tahj Boyd, QB Clemson (2-0; no game last week)
   LW:  idle
   TOT: 32-53 60.4%  439yd  3TD 0int 19rsh  52yd 2.7av 3TD 0fmb
3. [up 2] Jordan Lynch, QB N. Illinois (2-0; beat Idaho 45-35)
   LW:  17-29 58.6%  152yd  3TD 0int 23rsh 159yd 6.9av 2TD 1fmb
   TOT: 42-70 60.0%  427yd  6TD 0int 45rsh 215yd 4.8av 2TD 1fmb
4. [dn 1] Braxton Miller, QB Ohio State (3-0; beat @Cal 52-27)
   LW:   did not play; injury
   TOT: 17-24 70.8%  208yd  2TD 1int 18rsh 82yd 4.6av 0fmb
5. [dn 1] Marqise Lee, WR USC (2-1; beat Boston College 35-7)
   LW:   2rec  90yd 1TD 0fmb 0rsh  0yd  0av 0fmb  0retYd 0TD 0fmb
   TOT: 17rec 221yd 1TD 0fmb 4rsh -7yd -2av 0fmb 42retYd 0TD 1fmb
6. Teddy Bridgewater, QB Louisville (3-0; beat Kentucky 27-13)
   LW:  16-28 57.1%  250yd  1TD 0int  6rsh  35yd 5.8av 0TD 0fmb
   TOT: 62-88 70.5% 1002yd 10TD 1int  9rsh  35yd 3.9av 0TD 0fmb
7. [new] Marcus Mariota, QB Oregon (3-0; beat Tennessee 59-14)
   LW:  23-33 69.7%  456yd  4TD 0int  6rsh  27yd 4.5av 1TD 0fmb
   TOT: 49-82 59.8%  889yd  7TD 0int 15rsh 262yd 17+av 4TD 0fmb
8. [dn 1] Jadeveon Clowney, DE South Carolina (2-1; beat Vanderbilt 35-25)
   LW:   4 tackle 1 sack 1 tfl 0 pbu 0 int 1 ffmb 0 kBlock
   TOT: 10 tackle 2 sack 3 tfl 0 pbu 0 int 1 ffmb 0 kBlock

Teddy Bridgewater's recent buzz seems to be fading already, but such is the nature of the race. He had just one touchdown pass against Kentucky. The new QB du jour is Oregon's Marcus Mariota, who jumped to #1 on some lists, just like that....we'll wait until he plays someone. We do bring him on board this week as his 5 TD performance against Tennessee was pretty great, and notice that after three games—two against BCS-conference foes—Mariota is averaging over 17 yards per carry. Falling a spot, as usual, is Jadeveon Clowney, who did have a forced fumble to go along with a sack and another tackle for loss in the Vanderbilt win. But nothing suggests that's enough to get him back among the leaders.

This coming week: #2 Tahj Boyd's Clemson faces North Carolina State on Thursday night. On Saturday #1 Johnny Manziel's Texas A&M takes on SMU. #3 Jordan Lynch's Northern Illinois hosts Eastern Illinois while Ohio State also faces an FCS team (Florida A&M) with Braxton Miller listed as "probable." Marqise Lee's USC faces a decent test as the Trojans host Utah State. Meanwhile Teddy Bridgewater and Louisville have a breather against lowly FIU, while Marcus Mariota and Jadeveon Clowney literally have breathers as Oregon and South Carolina are idle.

Three's a charm: Teams that have over- or underperformed three straight weeks

As we've said before, people tend to make rash judgments about a team after their first game since they have nothing else to go on. But one game doesn't say much—it could end up being the team's worst or best effort of the year. Two games tells you a bit more, but still isn't enough. After three games it's probably fair to say that if a team has consistently overperformed or underperformed, there is probably something to it. We searched our data week by week and found 14 teams, seven of whom have outperformed significantly three weeks in a row, and 7 who have been called out on strikes.

Overperformers:

1. Texas Tech (3-0): pre-season #50; current Bayesian ranking: #27
   The Red Raiders could have something with Kliff Kingsbury, as they've started 3-0 when 2-1 or even 1-2 looked probable. They beat SMU 41-23 in what we pegged as a tossup, routed Stephen F. Austin 61-13, and then handled TCU 20-10. So far they look almost 10 points better than we thought they would be, and could potentially be a top ten team.
2. Utah (2-1): pre-season #60; current Bayesian ranking: #33
   The Utes are much better than the average team we thought they'd be, that much is clear. In their week 1 win over Utah State (30-26) and their 70-7 win over Weber State, they looked far above average, and they battled pre-season #10 Oregon State to 45-45 tie before losing in overtime. The Beavers weren't really a top ten team but Utah is going to have a much better Pac-12 season than we had expected.
3. Virginia Tech (2-1): pre-season #52; current Bayesian ranking: #38
   The Hokies haven't been dramatically better than we thought, but that's not the point; it's their consistency in outperforming our middling pre-season ranking. First came the Alabama game where VT wasn't demolished like many thought, losing just 35-10. Then they beat Western Carolina 45-3 and held on to beat East Carolina 15-10 in a game we thought they'd probably lose. Each performance was just a little better than we expected and that means they are probably just a bit better than we figured.
4. Central Florida (3-0): pre-season #53; current Bayesian ranking: #39
   Everything we said above for Virginia Tech holds for UCF, who stared one spot behind the Hokies and remains there. They don't look like they are a top 25 team this year but they've done a bit better each week than forecast. The Knights beat Akron 38-7 (much better than Michigan did), shut out FIU 38-0, and beat Penn State on the road 34-31.
5. Maryland (3-0): pre-season #72; current Bayesian ranking: #48
   The Terrapins beat FIU 43-10, Old Dominion 47-10, and UConn 32-31 (on the road). None of those may seem too impressive but they were all better than expected for a #72 team, which is way they are now #48 and could be a near-top 25 team.
6. Illinois (2-1): pre-season #108; current Bayesian ranking: #67
   Part of the reason for Illinois' outperformance is that we set such a low bar for them at #108. So a more accurate judge of how good they are could be last week's performance against legit top 25 Washington, a 24-14 loss. Their potential was shown in their 45-17 thrashing of Cincinnati. Balance this with their 42-34 week one win over Southern Illinois—still better than expected—and the Illini might end up 70 spots better than we forecast.
7. Massachusetts (0-3): pre-season #125; current Bayesian ranking: #122
   It's not just good teams that can outperform, since outperformance is all relative. In other words, UMass has played much better than the worst team in the FBS, and they might only be about the 6th worst team in the FBS. They lost to Wisconsin, Maine, and Kansas State by 45, 10, and 30 when our pre-season spreads were 52, 16, and 50. Laugh if you will but there's something to be said for not finishing last.

Underperformers: The other side of the coin—three straight disappointing outings for these teams.

1. Texas (1-2): pre-season #5; current Bayesian ranking: #24
   The Longhorns are an obvious entry here, as the numbers back up the perception than Texas has disappointed. In fact, extrapolating their three games puts them at about #56 for the year. If they play like that it's going to be a long season in the Big Twelve and Mack Brown is gone. The Longhorns' first game didn't look so bad at the end (56-7 over New Mexico State) but the Aggies are #121 right now and Texas "should" have won by 58 points. That one can easily be excused as nitpicking in a blowout, but losses to BYU (40-21) and Mississippi (44-23) can't. Even if those teams turn out to be very good, Texas wasn't competitive in the end, and that's without even talking about rushing defense.
2. Notre Dame (2-1): pre-season #22; current Bayesian ranking: #32
   The Irish aren't in the same boat as the Longhorns by any means but they sure aren't doing so well. That's even by our standards, and we kept the Irish pretty low to start—#22—as we took Everett Golson's absence into account. Even so, none of their games has been a bright spot. The Irish beat Temple just 28-6, fell to Michigan 41-30, then struggled to top Purdue 31-24. None of these performances was dreadful, but all three together suggest a team that is consistently mediocre and probably won't finish in the top 25.
3. Oregon State (2-1): pre-season #10; current Bayesian ranking: #35
   The Beavers are as big of a disappointment to us as the Longhorns, as we had them in our top ten! That got shot to hell in week one with the loss to Eastern Washington (49-46). The weak win over Hawaii (33-14) wasn't a convincing comeback, and needing overtime (48-45) to beat Utah was another sign that the team isn't elite. Whether they end up climbing back in the top 25 or falling all the way below the average-FBS-team line, after three games it's pretty clear the top ten is way out of reach.
4. TCU (1-2): pre-season #24; current Bayesian ranking: #45
   TCU is another former top 25 team that has looked bad every week, and in fact you could argue they've looked worse each time out. They fell to LSU 37-27, then beat Southeastern Louisiana only 38-17. Then they were drubbed 20-10 by Texas Tech in week three. Now the question is are the Horned Frogs of "others receiving votes" quality or do they continue to fall to below-average, i.e. somewhere in the 60s or 70s?
5. Louisiana-Monroe (2-1): pre-season #54; current Bayesian ranking: #82
   It's a sign of progress for the program when ULM can make our underperformance list; just several years ago expectations were too low for that to happen. We pegged the Warhawks to have a pretty decent year but it doesn't look good so far. Instead of showing they could hang with the big boys they fell 34-0 at Oklahoma. Beating woeful Grambling 48-10 might have felt good but most teams would have gotten a shutout. And while they did beat a BCS-conference team on the road 21-19, it was Wake Forest and we expected a more solid win. Wake Forest is #98 this week and it looks like ULM isn't too much above that.
6. Louisiana Tech (1-2): pre-season #118; current Bayesian ranking: #118
   La Tech is an odd case, making our underperformance list while they have yet to fall a spot in our ratings. But what's most remarkable is how pessimistic our ranking was in the first place for a team that went 9-3 last year. They were almost set up to outperform yet after three weeks it's looking like #118 is the best they're going to do. The Bulldogs lost 40-14 to NC State, beat Lamar 27-14, and lost 24-15 to Tulane.
7. Florida International (0-3): pre-season #121; current Bayesian rankings: #124
   So how can a team ranked #121 in the per-season underperform? By doing what FIU has done in the first year since they fired Mario Cristobal and hired Ron Turner. The Panthers lost 43-10 to Maryland, 38-0 to UCF, and then worst of all, to Bethune-Cookman 34-13. When you're getting blown out by Bethune-Cookman you have to ask some questions of your program, like, should you have fired Mario Cristobal and hired Ron Turner? Or maybe: is this the worst team in college football? Are they still overrated at #124? Despite the #125 spot being filled by Georgia State who was 1-10 last year in the FCS, it appears from the evidence that FIU will replace them at the bottom before all is said and done.

Week 3 Bayesian Ratings Update: Oregon vs. Alabama on collision course

Three weeks in and what we guessed would happen at the beginning of the season seems more likely than ever: Alabama vs. Oregon in the BCS championship game.

Alabama looks more likely than ever as they just dispatched their toughest foe, outlasting Texas A&M on the road, 49-42. And Oregon has beaten two BCS-conference foes by an average score of 59-12 the last two weeks, enough to push them—just barely—to the #1 spot in our Week 3 Bayesian Ratings update.

Oregon and Alabama have already distanced themselves from the pack, 5 points ahead of Texas A&M and about 9 points away from #4 Baylor, who has played two games against poor competition. #5 Georgia has already lost a game.

Who else could be a challenger? Florida State moves up to #6 after destroying Nevada 62-7, and Ohio State is doing pretty well even without Braxton Miller lately but hasn't looked national-title-worthy. #8 Arizona State probably should have lost to Wisconsin last week and #9 Oklahoma State has been slightly weaker than expected. LSU rounds out the top ten and has gained each week.

UCLA had a great 2nd half vs. Nebraska and moves from #19 to #11, while Mississippi ran away from Texas 44-23 and bounced back up to #12. On the downside Michigan's near-loss to Akron dumped the Wolverines to #20, down 9, while Stanford's unimpressive showing against Army dropped them from #15 to #23. Texas (1-2), our pre-season #5 team, fell another 11 spots to #24, but needless to say the Longhorns are a very longshot to stay in the top 25 even one more week the way they're playing.

Bayesian ratings update for week 3

Pre-ssn Rank	Week1 Rank	Week2 Rank	Week3 Rank	Team	Week 3 Change	Total Change	Week 3 Rating
2	2	2	1	Oregon	+1	+1	80.84
1	1	1	2	Alabama	-1	-1	80.25
3	3	3	3	Texas A&M	0	0	74.92
28	13	4	4	Baylor	0	+24	71.35
4	4	5	5	Georgia	0	-1	70.71
9	9	9	6	Florida St	+3	+3	70.46
7	8	6	7	Ohio State	-1	0	69.23
8	7	7	8	Arizona St	-1	0	67.34
6	6	8	9	Oklahoma St	-1	-3	67.21
18	16	12	10	LSU	+2	+8	66.10
23	20	19	11	UCLA	+8	+12	64.73
11	12	24	12	Mississippi	+12	-1	64.67
13	14	14	13	South Carolina	+1	0	64.65
12	10	10	14	Washington	-4	-2	64.21
21	17	20	15	Oklahoma	+5	+6	64.20
26	21	16	16	Louisville	0	+10	63.74
30	29	17	17	Arizona	0	+13	62.65
16	18	18	18	Florida	0	-2	62.31
34	24	23	19	Georgia Tech	+4	+15	62.17
15	11	11	20	Michigan	-9	-5	61.72
17	22	21	21	Miami FL	0	-4	61.71
14	15	22	22	Clemson	0	-8	61.43
19	19	15	23	Stanford	-8	-4	61.28
5	5	13	24	Texas	-11	-19	59.94
27	31	29	25	Wisconsin	+4	+2	59.27
31	35	25	26	BYU	-1	+5	59.22
50	42	33	27	Texas Tech	+6	+23	58.81
20	25	31	28	Southern Cal	+3	-8	58.43
38	43	40	29	Utah St	+11	+9	58.41
25	28	26	30	Northwestern	-4	-5	58.13
33	30	28	31	Missouri	-3	+2	57.54
22	26	27	32	Notre Dame	-5	-10	57.15
60	53	37	33	Utah	+4	+27	56.83
37	41	45	34	Michigan St	+11	+3	54.56
10	23	30	35	Oregon St	-5	-25	54.55
35	36	35	36	North Carolina	-1	-1	54.33
51	49	43	37	Auburn	+6	+14	53.60
52	44	44	38	Virginia Tech	+6	+14	53.54
53	45	42	39	Central Florida	+3	+14	53.51
42	34	52	40	Indiana	+12	+2	53.29
57	57	51	41	Washington St	+10	+16	53.18
29	33	32	42	Kansas St	-10	-13	53.03
32	32	41	43	Vanderbilt	-2	-11	52.71
40	39	38	44	Rice	-6	-4	52.17
24	27	34	45	TCU	-11	-21	51.43
43	46	39	46	Tennessee	-7	-3	51.03
45	56	47	47	Boise St	0	-2	50.70
72	70	57	48	Maryland	+9	+24	49.99
46	38	58	49	Cincinnati	+9	-3	49.79
58	50	49	50	Marshall	-1	+8	49.40
55	51	50	51	Penn State	-1	+4	49.27
36	37	36	52	Northern Illinois	-16	-16	49.08
62	61	65	53	Syracuse	+12	+9	48.92
41	48	46	54	Nebraska	-8	-13	48.89
44	47	54	55	San Jose St	-1	-11	48.86
48	55	56	56	Fresno St	0	-8	48.13
39	40	53	57	Mississippi St	-4	-18	47.85
69	54	48	58	Bowling Green	-10	+11	47.34
66	64	66	59	Iowa	+7	+7	46.60
63	52	55	60	Minnesota	-5	+3	45.06
78	71	62	61	Ball St	+1	+17	44.94
61	60	61	62	East Carolina	-1	-1	44.79
56	58	59	63	Boston College	-4	-7	44.61
68	66	67	64	Toledo	+3	+4	44.57
83	68	68	65	Arkansas	+3	+18	44.41
64	72	64	66	Kentucky	-2	-2	44.37
108	103	76	67	Illinois	+9	+41	44.12
65	77	78	68	LA-Lafayette	+10	-3	43.86
47	59	60	69	Iowa St	-9	-22	43.85
102	100	90	70	Navy	+20	+32	43.47
79	74	63	71	Duke	-8	+8	43.15
75	65	69	72	Rutgers	-3	+3	42.52
73	83	70	73	West Virginia	-3	0	42.00
71	63	71	74	Virginia	-3	-3	41.93
76	69	72	75	North Carolina St	-3	+1	41.83
74	87	81	76	Colorado St	+5	-2	41.48
97	88	85	77	Wyoming	+8	+20	41.10
96	86	74	78	Colorado	-4	+18	41.08
70	81	83	79	Purdue	+4	-9	40.75
82	85	87	80	Pittsburgh	+7	+2	40.50
85	82	82	81	North Texas	+1	+4	40.39
54	62	75	82	LA-Monroe	-7	-28	39.93
84	80	89	83	California	+6	+1	39.80
67	78	80	84	SMU	-4	-17	39.75
49	76	84	85	San Diego St	-1	-36	39.41
90	90	92	86	Kansas	+6	+4	39.38
95	92	86	87	Houston	-1	+8	39.29
59	75	73	88	Tulsa	-15	-29	39.27
87	73	79	89	Arkansas St	-10	-2	38.65
80	84	88	90	Middle Tennessee St	-2	-10	38.39
103	99	100	91	Florida Atlantic	+9	+12	38.13
77	67	77	92	Western Kentucky	-15	-15	38.09
98	95	91	93	Texas-San Antonio	-2	+5	37.98
89	97	94	94	Ohio U.	0	-5	37.54
91	91	96	95	Memphis	+1	-4	35.76
111	107	95	96	Hawaii	-1	+15	35.28
81	93	93	97	Connecticut	-4	-16	34.98
94	104	101	98	Wake Forest	+3	-4	34.62
109	109	106	99	South Alabama	+7	+10	34.30
105	102	103	100	Tulane	+3	+5	33.81
107	101	109	101	Army	+8	+6	33.61
110	113	113	102	Akron	+11	+8	33.54
93	89	104	103	Western Mich.	+1	-10	33.17
86	79	99	104	Buffalo	-5	-18	32.95
88	96	102	105	Kent St	-3	-17	32.29
101	98	105	106	Texas St.	-1	-5	32.26
104	105	107	107	UAB	0	-3	31.97
117	116	110	108	Troy	+2	+9	31.79
106	108	98	109	Nevada	-11	-3	31.60
99	94	97	110	Temple	-13	-11	31.09
112	112	114	111	UTEP	+3	+1	30.64
116	110	111	112	Air Force	-1	+4	29.81
100	106	115	113	UNLV	+2	-13	27.86
113	115	112	114	New Mexico	-2	-1	27.58
92	111	108	115	South Florida	-7	-23	27.38
114	117	117	116	Central Michigan	+1	-2	25.97
115	114	116	117	Southern Miss	-1	-2	25.44
118	118	118	118	Louisiana Tech	0	0	23.21
119	119	119	119	Miami OH	0	0	21.53
120	120	121	120	Eastern Michigan	+1	0	20.23
122	122	120	121	New Mexico St	-1	+1	17.22
125	124	123	122	Massachusetts	+1	+3	15.77
123	125	125	123	Idaho	+2	0	15.42
121	121	122	124	Florida Int'l	-2	-3	13.80
124	123	124	125	Georgia State	-1	-1	11.04

Utah State beat Weber State 70-6, enough to push them up 11 to #29. Michigan State finally had a good game and rose 11 spots as well after beating Youngstown State 55-17; now they're at #34, three spots higher than they started the year. Indiana pasted a solid Bowling Green team 42-10, sending the Hoosiers up 12 to #40 and the Falcons down 10 to #58. And Washington State followed up their upset of USC with a strong 48-10 win over Southern Utah which put the Cougars up 10 spots to #41.

Kansas State fell 10 spots to #42 due to a tepid 37-7 win over #122 Massachusetts. Another Big Twelve team, #45 TCU has underperformed every week and they fell to Texas Tech 20-10 on Thursday, sending them down 11 spots. And perhaps the biggest disappointment last week was Northern Illinois who struggled mightily to beat Idaho 45-35. The Huskies fell from #36 to #52.

Probably last week's most impressive team relative to pre-season expectations was Navy who beat Delaware 51-7; that looked like a 2-touchdown win at most back in August, but Navy climbs 20 spots to a respectable #70 ranking and they should be headed higher based on the way their other victim, Indiana, is playing. Lousiana-Lafayette also outperformed by beating Nicholls State 70-7; the Cajuns jump ten spots to #68.

Five other big-time underperformers in week 3: Tulsa was throttled 51-20 by Oklahoma and fell from #73 to #88; Arkansas State fell from #79 to #89 despite beating Troy 41-34; Western Kentucky lost to lowly South Alabama 31-24 and dropped 15 to #92; Nevada was supposed to lose to FSU but not by 55 so they fall 11 spots to #109; and Temple lost to Fordham 30-29, dropping them 11 to #110.

Among the lower teams there was one winner, even though they didn't win their game—Akron, who lost at Michigan 28-24. The Zips jump 11 spots to #102.

After two weeks: Seven schizophrenic teams

Two games is not a lot to judge a team by, and it becomes harder when a team does so well in one game and so poorly in the other. Here we examine seven teams that have had schizophrenic results so far in 2013, and try to determine what we can conclude about the team or its opponents.

1. Boise State Broncos: lost to Washington 38-6; beat Tenn.-Martin 63-14
   The Broncos were beaten badly at Washington, worse than we thought they'd be beaten—and we ranked Washington very high and Boise State low compared to the national average. Boise State recovered in a big way against FCS Tennessee-Martin the next week.
   Evidence: Washington has played no other game; Tennessee-Martin beat Tennessee-Chattanooga in its first game, a pretty good result for the Skyhawks.
   Verdict: Washington is going to be very good this year.
   
   
2. Indiana Hoosiers: beat Indiana State 73-35; lost to Navy 41-35
   The Hoosiers piles up the points on the Sycamores but couldn't outshoot the Midshipmen, from whom we were expecting very little this season.
   Evidence: Navy hasn't played another game, so they are of no help. Indiana State did play Purdue and lost, 20-14.
   Verdict: Nothing too shocking: Indiana's offense is very good but their defense is still weak and is going to lose games for them.
   
   
3. Cincinnati Bearcats: beat Purdue 42-7; lost to Illinois 45-17
   After Cincy beat Purdue so badly it seemed that Illinois should be a piece of cake, but the Illini had other ideas.
   Evidence: Purdue, as noted above, also beat Indiana State 20-14. Illinois beat Southern Illinois 42-34. Those are similar results that don't draw a distinction between Purdue and Illinois the way their games against Cincinnati did. So we'll look for conclusions different than the obvious "Illinois is better than Purdue."
   Verdict: Either the Bearcats went into Illinois thinking they had a cakewalk on their hands and were caught off guard, or Cincy is a great home team and a terrible road team. (Also, Illinois is  better than Purdue)
   
   
4. Kentucky Wildcats: lost to Western Kentucky 35-26; beat Miami, Ohio 41-7
   The Wildcats bounced back from a bad week one to dominate the Redhawks in week two.
   Evidence: Western Kentucky lost to Tennessee in week two, 52-20, while Miami of Ohio lost their first game 52-14 to Marshall.
   Verdict: Kentucky shouldn't celebrate a week two tournaround; it came against a very bad team while the team they lost to got drubbed themselves.
   
   
5. West Virginia Mountaineers: beat William & Mary 24-17; lost to Oklahoma 17-6
   This team's win was their poor showing and their loss was the recovery. Beating William & Mary by a touchdown was weak, and only losing to Oklahoma by 11 showed strength, regardless of how it happened.
   Evidence: William & Mary beat Hampton 31-7 last week, a showing that's basically in-line for how good they appeared to be (they were 2-9 last year). However, Oklahoma's first weekend showing was great, a 34-0 crushing of ULM.
   Verdict: WVU's offense isn't even a shadow of last year's O. As for the Oklahoma game, it can't be counted as evidence due to all the crazy turnovers on both sides. It could be a long year for the Mountaineers.
   
   
6. Virginia Cavaliers: beat BYU 19-16; lost to Oregon 59-10
   The Cavs upset BYU, which didn't seem quite so amazing at the time but was still a surprise. The loss to Oregon was certainly expected though the magnitude was pretty stunning.
   Evidence: BYU went on to crush Texas 40-21. Oregon beat Nicholls State in game one 66-3. Virginia held BYU to 187 rushing yards while the Cougars had 550 against Texas. Oregon had 350 against Virginia; imagine what they would do to the Longhorns?
   Verdict: Either Texas is one of the nation's worst teams or Oregon is the best team in the country. It's doubtful Texas is quite that bad so it might be time to consider the Ducks a favorite to be in the BCS championship game.
   
   
7. Western Kentucky Hilltoppers: beat Kentucky 35-26; lost to Tennessee 52-20
   WKU looked good in week one assuming the Wildcats are better than last year's 2-10 team; they looked poor the next week even assuming the Vols have improved.
   Evidence: Kentucky's 2nd game was much better as they beat Miami of Ohio 41-7. Tennessee shut out Austin Peay 45-0 in week one. Neither game tells us much.
   Verdict: Chances are none of this was the Hilltoppers' fault. Kentucky just hasn't improved as much as we thought, while Tennessee is probably better than we figured.

 

2013 Heisman Trophy, Week 2: More poor showings...

Week two has passed and it was another fairly dull showing by the Heisman favorites, especially those favored at the beginning of the season. 

Johnny Manziel was an exception as he threw for 426 yards and three touchdowns and rushed for another TD. Others have been quick to downgrade Manziel due to off-field issues and not starting in his team's first game, but if he beats Alabama again they'll change their tune. If Alabama wins it's definitely a big blow to his hopes of repeating.

After that things get pretty sad. Tahj Boyd, who joined last week at #4, jumps to #2 despite a rather pedestrian performance. But even pedestrian was a lot better than #3 Braxton Miller and #4 Marqise Lee managed. Boyd had a touchdown run in limited action, while Miller threw only two passes before leaving the Ohio State-SDSU game with a knee injury. His 30 passing yards topped Marqise Lee's 27 receiving yards and Lee played the whole game against Washington State in USC's loss. Therefore, Lee drops two spots, Miller remains at #3, and Boyd is lifted as he still feels the benefit of his performance against Georgia in week one. Northern Illinois' Jordan Lynch was idle.

1. Johnny Manziel, QB Texas A&M (2-0; W Sam Houston 65-28)
   LW:  29-42 69.0% 426yd 3TD 1int  7rsh 36yd 5.1av 1TD 0fmb
   TOT: 35-50 70.0% 520yd 6TD 1int 13rsh 55yd 4.2av 1TD 0fmb
2. [up 2] Tahj Boyd, QB Clemson (2-0; w SC State 52-13)
   LW:  14-23 60.9% 169yd 0TD 0int  6rsh 10yd 1.7av 1TD 0fmb
   TOT: 32-53 60.4% 439yd 3TD 0int 19rsh 52yd 2.7av 3TD 0fmb
3. Braxton Miller, QB Ohio State (2-0; W SDSU 42-7)
   LW:   2-2 100.0%  30yd 0TD 0int  1rsh  5yd 5.0av 0TD 0fmb
   TOT: 17-24 70.8% 208yd 2TD 1int 18rsh 82yd 4.6av 0TD 0fmb
4. [dn 2] Marqise Lee, WR USC (1-1; L Washington State 10-7)
   LW:   7rec  27yd 0TD 0fmb 3rsh -3yd -1av 0fmb 12retYd 0TD 0fmb
   TOT: 15rec 131yd 0TD 0fmb 4rsh -7yd -2av 0fmb 42retYd 0TD 1fmb
5. Jordan Lynch, QB N. Illinois (1-0; idle)
   LW: No game
   TOT: 25-41 61.0% 275yd 3TD 0int 22rsh 56yd 2.6av 0TD 0fmb
6. [new] Teddy Bridgewater, QB Louisville (2-0; beat E Kentucky 44-7)
   LW:  23-32 71.9% 397yd 4TD 0int 1rsh -1yd -1av 0TD 0fmb
   TOT: 46-60 76.7% 752yd 9TD 1int 3rsh  0yd  0av 0TD 0fmb
7. [dn 1] Jadeveon Clowney, DE South Carolina (1-1; L to Georgia 41-30)
   LW:  3 tackle 1 sack 2 tfl 0 pbu 0 int 0 ffmb 0 kBlock
   TOT: 6 tackle 1 sack 2 tfl 0 pbu 0 int 0 ffmb 0 kBlock

New this week is Teddy Bridgewater; he did well in week one and added four more touchdown passes in week 2 against Eastern Kentucky. Jadeveon Clowney had a somewhat better outing against Georgia but 1/2 sack per game isn't going to win him the first pure-defensive Heisman; he falls to #7 as Bridgewater claims the #6 spot.

Next week: Alabama vs. Texas A&M is huge for Manziel's chances, and for every player on Alabama that might have a chance (QB A.J. McCarron, RB T.J. Yeldon, or WR Christion Jones).

Ohio State's Miller is questionable for next week and if he doesn't play that hurts his chances, while Marqise Lee and Clowney both need a huge game to get themselves going in the right direction. None of those three players led their team to a win last week (Miller was out and the other two lost). There is a long list of players who excelled in week 2 and will fight for inclusion on our rankings, and if the performances continue to be weak at the top then the newcomers can quickly move up.

Week 2 Bayesian Rating Mods: Baylor up to #4

Could the Baylor Bears be a top five team? It looks that way based on our pre-season evaluation and two weeks' worth of football games—games in which Baylor destroyed admittedly poor opponents by a total score of 139-16. From our pre-season #28 ranking the Bears now rank #4 after adjusting for the two wins. The top three—Alabama, Oregon, and Texas A&M—remain unchanged since the pre-season.

Saturday's result for Baylor was a 70-13 disposal of Buffalo; before that the Bears beat FCS team Wofford 69-3. The obvious question is, how will they look against real competition? Wofford actually had a decent defense last year so Baylor's offense looks for real, and the Bears' own defense—last year's major weakness—seems to have improved a lot. Only time will tell, and it may take a while before we get an answer: the Bears have a bye week, then play Lousiana-Monroe, then have another bye week before facing West Virginia and Kansas.

Texas, also in the Big Twelve, was this weekend's big disappointment, falling from their pre-season #5 spot to #13 after losing to BYU, 40-21. That adjustment won't be nearly enough if they're as bad against the run as they were against the Cougars. BYU jumped to #25 from #35, but they're just 1-1 as they lost their opener to Virginia somehow.

Miami inched up just one spot to #21 after beating Florida 21-16 while the Gators held steady at #18. The reason for the lack of movement is that the 5-point win for the Hurricanes is exactly what our pre-season ratings expected, so there is no real adjustment. Instead, the big movers in the top 25 were Arizona, who jumped to #17 from #29 after dominating UNLV 58-13, and Mississippi, who fell 12 spots after beating Southeastern Missouri State 31-13, a weak result for the #12 team in the nation. Louisville had a 2nd strong week and moved up another 5 spots to #16.

Bayesian Modification of Pre-season Ratings, Week 2

pre- season	Week1 Rank	Week2 Rank	Team	Week 1 Change	Week 2 Change	Total Change	pre- Season	Week 1 Rating	Week 2 Rating
1	1	1	Alabama	0	0	0	81.29	79.50	79.50
2	2	2	Oregon	0	0	0	76.84	75.15	78.25
3	3	3	Texas A&M	0	0	0	75.28	74.67	75.67
28	13	4	Baylor	+15	+9	+24	57.48	65.07	71.35
4	4	5	Georgia	0	-1	-1	72.12	70.89	70.71
7	8	6	Ohio State	-1	+2	+1	68.77	67.66	70.08
8	7	7	Arizona St	+1	0	+1	67.66	67.66	69.09
6	6	8	Oklahoma St	0	-2	-2	69.79	70.07	68.47
9	9	9	Florida St	0	0	0	66.52	67.44	67.44
12	10	10	Washington	+2	0	+2	64.60	67.39	67.39
15	11	11	Michigan	+4	0	+4	62.87	65.36	66.68
18	16	12	LSU	+2	+4	+6	62.40	64.15	65.25
5	5	13	Texas	0	-8	-8	71.82	70.38	65.19
13	14	14	South Carolina	-1	0	-1	63.55	64.63	64.81
19	19	15	Stanford	0	+4	+4	62.31	62.31	63.31
26	21	16	Louisville	+5	+5	+10	58.85	61.92	63.01
30	29	17	Arizona	+1	+12	+13	56.41	58.00	62.51
16	18	18	Florida	-2	0	-2	62.64	62.31	62.31
23	20	19	UCLA	+3	+1	+4	60.76	62.02	62.02
21	17	20	Oklahoma	+4	-3	+1	61.02	64.15	61.98
17	22	21	Miami FL	-5	+1	-4	62.45	61.71	61.71
14	15	22	Clemson	-1	-7	-8	63.11	64.34	61.43
34	24	23	Georgia Tech	+10	+1	+11	55.21	60.13	60.13
11	12	24	Mississippi	-1	-12	-13	65.46	65.25	59.42
31	35	25	BYU	-4	+10	+6	56.14	54.02	59.22
25	28	26	Northwestern	-3	+2	-1	58.99	58.25	59.00
22	26	27	Notre Dame	-4	-1	-5	60.85	59.68	58.36
33	30	28	Missouri	+3	+2	+5	55.99	57.71	57.54
27	31	29	Wisconsin	-4	+2	-2	58.67	57.50	57.52
10	23	30	Oregon St	-13	-7	-20	66.48	60.89	57.46
20	25	31	Southern Cal	-5	-6	-11	61.54	60.05	56.62
29	33	32	Kansas St	-4	+1	-3	57.47	55.69	56.50
50	42	33	Texas Tech	+8	+9	+17	49.41	52.29	55.86
24	27	34	TCU	-3	-7	-10	60.57	58.82	54.38
35	36	35	North Carolina	-1	+1	0	55.06	53.98	54.33
36	37	36	Northern Illinois	-1	+1	0	54.49	53.96	53.96
60	53	37	Utah	+7	+16	+23	46.35	47.90	53.92
40	39	38	Rice	+1	+1	+2	53.10	53.71	53.71
43	46	39	Tennessee	-3	+7	+4	50.94	50.09	53.63
38	43	40	Utah St	-5	+3	-2	53.49	51.95	53.55
32	32	41	Vanderbilt	0	-9	-9	56.08	56.29	52.55
53	45	42	Central Florida	+8	+3	+11	48.71	50.25	52.50
51	49	43	Auburn	+2	+6	+8	48.79	49.44	52.44
52	44	44	Virginia Tech	+8	0	+8	48.73	50.52	52.05
37	41	45	Michigan St	-4	-4	-8	53.99	52.83	51.96
41	48	46	Nebraska	-7	+2	-5	52.40	49.53	51.60
45	56	47	Boise St	-11	+9	-2	50.14	47.35	51.37
69	54	48	Bowling Green	+15	+6	+21	43.25	47.77	50.81
58	50	49	Marshall	+8	+1	+9	46.94	49.09	50.68
55	51	50	Penn State	+4	+1	+5	48.31	48.93	50.28
57	57	51	Washington St	0	+6	+6	47.41	46.76	50.20
42	34	52	Indiana	+8	-18	-10	50.96	54.23	49.83
39	40	53	Mississippi St	-1	-13	-14	53.45	53.17	49.01
44	47	54	San Jose St	-3	-7	-10	50.78	49.86	48.86
63	52	55	Minnesota	+11	-3	+8	45.84	48.52	48.25
48	55	56	Fresno St	-7	-1	-8	49.55	47.75	48.13
72	70	57	Maryland	+2	+13	+15	42.70	43.73	48.06
46	38	58	Cincinnati	+8	-20	-12	49.81	53.94	46.64
56	58	59	Boston College	-2	-1	-3	47.94	46.69	46.42
47	59	60	Iowa St	-12	-1	-13	49.62	46.38	46.38
61	60	61	East Carolina	+1	-1	0	46.01	45.95	46.28
78	71	62	Ball St	+7	+9	+16	41.17	43.44	45.76
79	74	63	Duke	+5	+11	+16	40.75	42.70	45.20
64	72	64	Kentucky	-8	+8	0	45.70	43.39	45.09
62	61	65	Syracuse	+1	-4	-3	46.00	45.39	44.64
66	64	66	Iowa	+2	-2	0	43.96	44.49	44.08
68	66	67	Toledo	+2	-1	+1	43.51	43.83	44.00
83	68	68	Arkansas	+15	0	+15	39.96	43.78	43.69
75	65	69	Rutgers	+10	-4	+6	42.28	44.08	43.49
73	83	70	West Virginia	-10	+13	+3	42.52	39.90	42.07
71	63	71	Virginia	+8	-8	0	42.90	45.03	41.93
76	69	72	North Carolina St	+7	-3	+4	42.05	43.74	41.83
59	75	73	Tulsa	-16	+2	-14	46.83	42.32	41.49
96	86	74	Colorado	+10	+12	+22	35.72	39.16	41.08
54	62	75	LA-Monroe	-8	-13	-21	48.40	45.27	41.04
108	103	76	Illinois	+5	+27	+32	32.02	33.64	40.94
77	67	77	Western Kentucky	+10	-10	0	41.52	43.83	40.28
65	77	78	LA-Lafayette	-12	-1	-13	44.86	41.03	40.22
87	73	79	Arkansas St	+14	-6	+8	39.51	43.08	40.08
67	78	80	SMU	-11	-2	-13	43.75	40.87	39.75
74	87	81	Colorado St	-13	+6	-7	42.34	38.91	39.74
85	82	82	North Texas	+3	0	+3	39.75	40.15	39.57
70	81	83	Purdue	-11	-2	-13	43.10	40.30	39.54
49	76	84	San Diego St	-27	-8	-35	49.49	41.84	39.41
97	88	85	Wyoming	+9	+3	+12	35.72	38.59	39.33
95	92	86	Houston	+3	+6	+9	36.33	37.37	39.29
82	85	87	Pittsburgh	-3	-2	-5	40.20	39.28	39.28
80	84	88	Middle Tennessee St	-4	-4	-8	40.66	39.52	39.17
84	80	89	California	+4	-9	-5	39.78	40.52	38.94
102	100	90	Navy	+2	+10	+12	34.06	34.06	38.46
98	95	91	Texas-San Antonio	+3	+4	+7	35.72	36.51	38.11
90	90	92	Kansas	0	-2	-2	38.33	38.33	37.83
81	93	93	Connecticut	-12	0	-12	40.57	36.92	36.92
89	97	94	Ohio U.	-8	+3	-5	38.74	35.67	36.26
111	107	95	Hawaii	+4	+12	+16	30.37	31.86	35.28
91	91	96	Memphis	0	-5	-5	37.47	37.47	34.97
99	94	97	Temple	+5	-3	+2	35.38	36.54	34.61
106	108	98	Nevada	-2	+10	+8	32.73	31.47	34.61
86	79	99	Buffalo	+7	-20	-13	39.65	40.77	34.49
103	99	100	Florida Atlantic	+4	-1	+3	33.50	34.25	33.91
94	104	101	Wake Forest	-10	+3	-7	36.68	33.24	33.51
88	96	102	Kent St	-8	-6	-14	39.01	36.18	33.14
105	102	103	Tulane	+3	-1	+2	33.31	33.88	32.73
93	89	104	Western Mich.	+4	-15	-11	37.23	38.40	32.30
101	98	105	Texas St.	+3	-7	-4	34.81	34.97	32.26
109	109	106	South Alabama	0	+3	+3	31.88	30.95	32.11
104	105	107	UAB	-1	-2	-3	33.48	33.06	31.97
92	111	108	South Florida	-19	+3	-16	37.28	30.73	31.59
107	101	109	Army	+6	-8	-2	32.63	33.91	31.58
117	116	110	Troy	+1	+6	+7	27.46	27.88	30.36
116	110	111	Air Force	+6	-1	+5	27.62	30.74	29.14
113	115	112	New Mexico	-2	+3	+1	29.01	28.21	28.80
110	113	113	Akron	-3	0	-3	30.47	28.92	28.58
112	112	114	UTEP	0	-2	-2	29.04	29.04	28.45
100	106	115	UNLV	-6	-9	-15	35.00	32.32	27.81
115	114	116	Southern Miss	+1	-2	-1	28.39	28.23	26.17
114	117	117	Central Michigan	-3	0	-3	28.80	26.32	26.02
118	118	118	Louisiana Tech	0	0	0	27.34	25.65	24.30
119	119	119	Miami OH	0	0	0	25.39	23.23	21.53
122	122	120	New Mexico St	0	+2	+2	17.72	19.15	19.42
120	120	121	Eastern Michigan	0	-1	-1	21.94	20.61	19.26
121	121	122	Florida Int'l	0	-1	-1	20.68	19.65	17.40
125	124	123	Massachusetts	+1	+1	+2	10.11	11.29	12.29
124	123	124	Georgia State	+1	-1	0	11.62	12.66	10.97
123	125	125	Idaho	-2	0	-2	11.69	11.29	10.54

Utah flew up 16 spots to #37 after beating Weber State 70-7; the Utes are now up 23 spots total. Indiana, however, fell 18 spots to #52 after losing 41-35 to Navy, who started at #102 and are now at #90 after the win. Mississippi State took a 13-spot dive to #53 despite a 51-7 win over Alcorn State; some FCS opponents are so bad that even an all-out blowout isn't enough to look good.

Maryland jumped 13 spots to #57; the Terps beat Old Dominion—a good FCS team—47-10. Duke was up 11 to #63 after handling Memphis 28-14, and West Virginia leapt 13 after only losing 16-7 to Oklahoma. Last week the Mountaineers fell 10 spots for a "bad win" now they jump for a "good loss." Colorado had their 2nd big outperformance beating Central Arkansas 38-24; the Buffs move from #86 to #74 (they started the year at a lowly #96 but are proving themselves better than that). And Louisiana-Monroe won 48-10 but still underperformed and dropped 13 spots; their opponent, Grambling, was 1-10 last year in the FCS.

The biggest surprise of the weekend? Easily Illinois 45, Cincinnati 17. The Illini jumped from #103 to #76 and the Bearcats fell from #38 to #58. Note how Cincy is still 18 spots ahead of Illinois; the Bayesian results make a wide allowance for chance or fluke results, and a 65-spot gap is hard to close no matter the final score. Cincinnati looked good last weekend against Purdue so maybe the Illini are for real.

One week after jumping 10 spots, Western Kentucky fell 10 spots as Tennessee clubbed them 52-20; now they're right back where they started the pre-season, at #77. Hawaii gained 12 spots by playing avoiding a blowout at Oregon State, losing just 33-14, but that's probably more due to Oregon State being overrated in our pre-season. The Beavers fell to #30.

Nevada jumped 10 to #98 by handling UC Davis with relative ease, 36-7, while Buffalo's destruction by Baylor dropped them 20 spots to #99. And in possibly this week's worst performance, Western Michigan lost to Nicholls State, 27-23, and fell 15 spots to #104.

Catching Up: 2013 Heisman Rankings for Week 1

Due to technical difficulties we aren't updating as much as we'd like, so now in the middle of week 2 we present both our pre-season and Week 1 Heisman Trophy list.

Pre-season

We start the year with the five top vote-getters from last season, in order:

1. Johnny Manziel, QB Texas A&M
2. Marqise Lee, WR USC
3. Braxton Miller, QB Ohio State
4. Jadeveon Clowney, DE South Carolina
5. Jordan Lynch, QB Northern Illinois

Each week we will add another player until there are 15 candidates, at which point we'll subtract a couple per week, shuffling the order as we see fit.

Week One

Week one was not a great week for the starting top five. Johnny Manziel played only half a game vs. Rice and threw for just 94 yards, not exactly Heisman numbers. But 3 of his 6 completions were touchdown passes, and who has ever had that kind of ratio? So he stays on top. Marqise Lee had 104 receiving yards against Hawaii which is decent if not extravagant, but he had no TDs and fumbled away a punt return. Braxton Miller was okay against Buffalo, rushing for 77 yards but throwing for under 200 yards with one interception. Jadeveon Clowney was a bust stats-wise vs. UNC and that's trouble for his candidacy. Jordan Lynch might have had the best outing on the initial list, with 275 passing yards, 56 rushing, and 3 touchdowns in winning a close game at Iowa; he moves ahead of Clowney.

1. Johnny Manziel, QB Texas A&M (beat Rice 52-31)
   6-8 75.0% 94yd 3TD 0int 6rsh 19yd 3.2av 0TD 0fmb
2. Marqise Lee, WR USC (beat Hawaii 30-13)
   8rec 104yd 0TD 0fmb 1rsh -4yd -4av 0fmb 30retYd 0TD 1fmb
3. Braxton Miller, QB Ohio State (beat Buffalo 40-20)
   15-22 68.2% 178yd 2TD 1int 17rsh 77yd 4.5av 0fmb
4. [new] Tajh Boyd, QB Clemson (beat Georgia 38-35)
   18-30 60.0% 270yd 3TD 0int 13rsh 42yd 3.2av 2TD 0fmb
5. Jordan Lynch, QB N. Illinois (beat @Iowa 30-27)
   25-41 61.0% 275yd 3TD 0int 22rsh 56yd 2.6av 0TD 0fmb
6. [dn2] Jadeveon Clowney, DE South Carolina (beat North Carolina 27-10)
   3 tackles 0 sacks 0 tfl 0 pbu 0 int 0 ffmbl

There were several excellent candidates to join the list, starting with Christion Jones of Alabama who returned a punt and a kickoff for TDs and caught a TD pass as well; Teddy Bridgewater of Louisville had a great start to the season with 5 touchdown passes; and Jameis Winston of FSU had 5 total TDs on 25 of 27 passing. But none of those were huge games whereas Tajh Boyd of Clemson had 3 passing TDs and 2 rushing TDs in a narrow win over Georgia, so he gets the nod, jumping in and sliding up to #4.

Week 1 Bayesian ratings update: Baylor up big, Oregon State tumbles

The first week of games is often used as confirmation or rejection of your pre-season expectations for a team. Sometimes it's hard to remember that it's only the first game of the season; a team may have played their best or worst game in week one! And even if your team's first game reflects exactly how good they truly are, maybe their opponent had their best or worst game of the season? With that in mind, here is our first Bayesian update to our pre-season top 125, an attempt to revise our ratings by putting just the right amount of stock in week one action.

We'll continue to do this in the early weeks of the season until non-biased power ratings start to make sense.

The first thing to note: the top 10 pretty much sucked; no team that played a game moved up. Despite winning every game, the top five all fell short of expectations in their first outing, and #6 Oklahoma State didn't do well enough to move up. Ohio State dropped a spot, allowing Arizona State to slide up to #7 without playing. Florida State remained at #9, and the one team to lose—Oregon State—did so in embarrassing fashion falling to an FCS team and dropping from #10 to #24. We'll find out if that's still to high in the coming weeks.

Washington's solid win over Boise State moved them from #12 to #10; they were our big "surprise" top 25 pick and based on the first week, it was a good one. We'll see what happens from here.

Baylor rocketed up our ratings from #28 to #13. That was for beating a good FCS team, so the coming weeks will reveal more about the Bears. Michigan and Oklahoma were also impressive, while Miami, USC, and Notre Dame were less so and dropped despite winning. While the Irish fell out of the top 25, Georgia Tech's 70-0 win moved them to #25 from #34.

We ranked Louisville quite low at the start of the season at #26; they've climbed to #21 already so based on one game we were too pessimistic about the Cardinals.

Week One Bayesian Update of Pre-Season Top 125:

preseason Rank	Week 1 Rank	Change	Team	preseason Rating	week1 Rating
1	1	0	Alabama	81.29	79.50
2	2	0	Oregon	76.84	75.15
3	3	0	Texas A&M	75.28	74.67
4	4	0	Georgia	72.12	70.89
5	5	0	Texas	71.82	70.38
6	6	0	Oklahoma St	69.79	70.07
8	7	1	Arizona St	67.66	67.66
7	8	-1	Ohio State	68.77	67.66
9	9	0	Florida St	66.52	67.44
12	10	+2	Washington	64.60	67.39
15	11	+4	Michigan	62.87	65.36
11	12	-1	Mississippi	65.46	65.25
28	13	+15	Baylor	57.48	65.07
13	14	-1	South Carolina	63.55	64.63
14	15	-1	Clemson	63.11	64.34
18	16	+2	LSU	62.40	64.15
21	17	+4	Oklahoma	61.02	64.15
16	18	-2	Florida	62.64	62.31
19	19	0	Stanford	62.31	62.31
23	20	+3	UCLA	60.76	62.02
26	21	+5	Louisville	58.85	61.92
17	22	-5	Miami FL	62.45	61.71
20	23	-3	Southern Cal	61.54	61.54
10	24	-14	Oregon St	66.48	60.89
34	25	+9	Georgia Tech	55.21	60.13
22	26	-4	Notre Dame	60.85	59.68
24	27	-3	TCU	60.57	58.82
25	28	-3	Northwestern	58.99	58.25
30	29	+1	Arizona	56.41	58.00
33	30	+3	Missouri	55.99	57.71
27	31	-4	Wisconsin	58.67	57.50
32	32	0	Vanderbilt	56.08	56.29
29	33	-4	Kansas St	57.47	55.69
42	34	+8	Indiana	50.96	54.23
31	35	-4	BYU	56.14	54.02
35	36	-1	North Carolina	55.06	53.98
36	37	-1	Northern Illinois	54.49	53.96
46	38	+8	Cincinnati	49.81	53.94
40	39	+1	Rice	53.10	53.71
39	40	-1	Mississippi St	53.45	53.17
37	41	-4	Michigan St	53.99	52.83
50	42	+8	Texas Tech	49.41	52.29
38	43	-5	Utah St	53.49	51.95
52	44	+8	Virginia Tech	48.73	50.52
53	45	+8	Central Florida	48.71	50.25
43	46	-3	Tennessee	50.94	50.09
44	47	-3	San Jose St	50.78	49.86
41	48	-7	Nebraska	52.40	49.53
51	49	+2	Auburn	48.79	49.44
58	50	+8	Marshall	46.94	49.09
55	51	+4	Penn State	48.31	48.93
63	52	+11	Minnesota	45.84	48.52
60	53	+7	Utah	46.35	47.90
69	54	+15	Bowling Green	43.25	47.77
48	55	-7	Fresno St	49.55	47.75
45	56	-11	Boise St	50.14	47.35
57	57	0	Washington St	47.41	46.76
56	58	-2	Boston College	47.94	46.69
47	59	-12	Iowa St	49.62	46.38
61	60	+1	East Carolina	46.01	45.95
62	61	+1	Syracuse	46.00	45.39
54	62	-8	LA-Monroe	48.40	45.27
71	63	+8	Virginia	42.90	45.03
66	64	+2	Iowa	43.96	44.49
75	65	+10	Rutgers	42.28	44.08
68	66	+2	Toledo	43.51	43.83
77	67	+10	W. Kentucky	41.52	43.83
83	68	+15	Arkansas	39.96	43.78
76	69	+7	North Carolina St	42.05	43.74
72	70	+2	Maryland	42.70	43.73
78	71	+7	Ball St	41.17	43.44
64	72	-8	Kentucky	45.70	43.39
87	73	+14	Arkansas St	39.51	43.08
79	74	+5	Duke	40.75	42.70
59	75	-16	Tulsa	46.83	42.32
49	76	-27	San Diego St	49.49	41.84
65	77	-12	LA-Lafayette	44.86	41.03
67	78	-11	SMU	43.75	40.87
86	79	+7	Buffalo	39.65	40.77
84	80	+4	California	39.78	40.52
70	81	-11	Purdue	43.10	40.30
85	82	+3	North Texas	39.75	40.15
73	83	-10	West Virginia	42.52	39.90
80	84	-4	Middle Tennessee St	40.66	39.52
82	85	-3	Pittsburgh	40.20	39.28
96	86	+10	Colorado	35.72	39.16
74	87	-13	Colorado St	42.34	38.91
97	88	+9	Wyoming	35.72	38.59
93	89	+4	Western Mich.	37.23	38.40
90	90	0	Kansas	38.33	38.33
91	91	0	Memphis	37.47	37.47
95	92	+3	Houston	36.33	37.37
81	93	-12	Connecticut	40.57	36.92
99	94	+5	Temple	35.38	36.54
98	95	+3	Texas-San Antonio	35.72	36.51
88	96	-8	Kent St	39.01	36.18
89	97	-8	Ohio U.	38.74	35.67
101	98	+3	Texas St.	34.81	34.97
103	99	+4	Florida Atlantic	33.50	34.25
102	100	+2	Navy	34.06	34.06
107	101	+6	Army	32.63	33.91
105	102	+3	Tulane	33.31	33.88
108	103	+5	Illinois	32.02	33.64
94	104	-10	Wake Forest	36.68	33.24
104	105	-1	UAB	33.48	33.06
100	106	-6	UNLV	35.00	32.32
111	107	+4	Hawaii	30.37	31.86
106	108	-2	Nevada	32.73	31.47
109	109	0	South Alabama	31.88	30.95
116	110	+6	Air Force	27.62	30.74
92	111	-19	South Florida	37.28	30.73
112	112	0	UTEP	29.04	29.04
110	113	-3	Akron	30.47	28.92
115	114	+1	Southern Miss	28.39	28.23
113	115	-2	New Mexico	29.01	28.21
117	116	+1	Troy	27.46	27.88
114	117	-3	Central Michigan	28.80	26.32
118	118	0	Louisiana Tech	27.34	25.65
119	119	0	Miami OH	25.39	23.23
120	120	0	Eastern Michigan	21.94	20.61
121	121	0	Florida Int'l	20.68	19.65
122	122	0	New Mexico St	17.72	19.15
124	123	+1	Georgia State	11.62	12.66
125	124	+1	Massachusetts	10.11	11.29
123	125	-2	Idaho	11.69	11.29

Quite a few teams in the top 50 markedly outperformed our expectations in week one, among them Indiana (scored 73 on Indiana State), Cincinnati (beat Purdue 42-7), Texas Tech (handled SMU in what we called a tossup), Virginia Tech (for not losing too badly to Alabama), Central Florida (pounded Akron), and Marshall (ran away against Miami of Ohio). They all moved up 8 places.

Minnesota took it to UNLV and jumped 11 places, while Bowling Green's 34-7 win over Tulsa gained them 15 spots. That tied for the best move with Baylor and Arkansas. The Razorbacks were one of this year's big question marks, with last year's season looking like a fluke after the team's 34-14 win over Louisiana-Lafayette.

Rutgers lost to Fresno State in overtime but it was the Scarlet Knights jumping 10 spots while the Bulldogs fell 11. Western Kentucky beat Kentucky and also moved up 10, and Arkansas State won convincingly over Pine Bluff and moved up 14.

Colorado State started the year at #74 to Colorado's #96; the Buffs won 41-27 on a neutral field and now they're one spot ahead of the Rams at #86, up 10 spots while CSU fell 14.

Now the big losers; many of these teams are the flipside of the coins above.

In the pre-season we ranked Washington higher than almost anyone and Boise State lower than almost anyone, but Boise State still lost worse to Washington than we expected; they tumbled 11 spots to #56. SMU's loss to Texas Tech dropped them 11 to #78. Purdue's loss to Cincy dropped them 11 spots to #81; UL-Lafayette's loss to Arkansas droppd them 12 spots to #77; and Tulsa's loss to Bowling Green dropped them from #59 to #75.

Two teams won and still dropped, despite being ranked pretty low to start with. We had little confidence in West Virginia, placing them at #73, but their tepid 24-17 win over William and Mary has them ten spots lower at #83. And Wake Forest started at #94, and they won 31-7 but still dropped ten spots; that's how bad their opponent, Presbyterian, is.

And finally, losing to an FCS team is never good for your team's outlook. Iowa State was ranked a repectable #47 before falling 28-20 to Northern Iowa; they fell to #59. But at least that game was close. San Diego State fell a whopping 27 spots—from #49 to #76—after losing to Eastern Illinois 40-19. That means we considered them above-average, and now consider them equally below-average, all due to one game. The worst team last week was South Florida, however. Rated #92, the Bulls fell 53-21 to McNeese State and now rank #111. If they continue to play that way they'll be #125 soon.

Speaking of #125, there's a new bottom-dweller in our ratings—Idaho. The Vandals lost 40-6 to North Texas, allowing Georgia State and UMass—who both lost last week—to move up a spot while Idaho moved from #123 to #125.

FCS vs. FBS; what did we learn about the FCS teams?

This weekend a total of 31 FCS teams played FBS opponents and eight of them won, which is pretty impressive. But which FBS teams can claim the best victories and/or performances, period? Here we list all 31 games in order of the best performances by the FCS squad.

The top three performances were amazing for an FCS team, and all of the top six played like AP top 25 teams. Beyond that there is a big drop-off.

1. Eastern Illinois 40, San Diego State 19: The top three performances were all about equal, with this one edging the others just slightly. San Diego State was a good team last year, and Eastern Illinois played like a top 5 FBS team in dispatching them so easily on the road.
2. McNeese State 53, South Florida 21: Like Eastern Illinois, McNeese State was a borderline top 25 FCS team last year but this should set them up as a title contender, even if South Florida is on the skids.
3. Eastern Washington 49, Oregon State 46: This was huge; Oregon State is easily the best team an FCS team beat this year, almost comparable to Appalachian State beating Michigan in 2007. It's hard to believe anyone in the FCS can stop the Eagles' offense, though their defense may be questionable.
4. North Dakota State 24, Kansas State 21: This isn't quite as impressive as the wins above since Kansas State is certainly not the team they were last year. But it does nothing to take away from North Dakota State's threepeat chances this year. The win was top 25 quality in the FBS and among all the top-performing teams they have probably the greatest chance of keeping this level of play up week-to-week
5. Northern Iowa 28, Iowa State 20: UNI had an off-year in 2012 at 5-6 but still ranked as one of the strongest FCS teams in true strength. This has their win column off to a better start.
6. Towson 33, Connecticut 18: Another upset, but UConn is questionable this year. Still, winning like this is a borderline top-25 FBS performance.
7. Boston College 24, Villanova 14: The Wildcats didn't win but did well in Boston as they led at the half. This performance would be below-average for an FBS team but was borderline top 10 for the FCS.
8. West Virginia 24, William & Mary 17: Holding West Virginia to 24 is pretty impressive even if the Mountaineer offense is a shadow of its former self.
9. Southern Utah 22, South Alabama 21: Beating South Alabama—who was in the FCS just a few years ago—isn't all that impressive, but it was a road game and the Jaguars were expected to be a lot better this year.
10. Kent State 17, Liberty 10: Either Liberty is a lot better this year or Kent State has fallen even farther than we thought.
11. East Carolina 52, Old Dominion 38: The Monarchs are transitioning to the FBS and play five FBS teams this year. Their first effort was pretty good; they played roughly like the #100 FBS team would be expected to, which is not bad for a brand new team joining a 125-member subdivision.
12. San Jose State 24, Sacramento State 0: The Hornets did better than expected—on defense. Offense was another matter, but SJSU had a solid defense last year. Hard to tell what to think from this game but at least it wasn't a blowout.
13. Illinois 42, Southern Illinois 34: The Salukis kept up with the Fighting Illini but probably underperformed; pre-season, I expected them to win the game.
14. Samford 31, Georgia State 21: Samford can't be too proud of this one; it's Georgia State, who was 1-10 in the FCS last year. But a win is a win.
15. Middle Tennessee State 45, Western Carolina 24: This is about what we expected to happen, though the Catamount offense did pretty well.
16. Arizona 35, Northern Arizona 0: Northern Arizona didn't look like a top 25 FCS team, especially on offense.
17. Ball State 51, Illinois State 28: The Redbirds led at half but the 2nd half was a 35-7 disaster.
18. Army 28, Morgan State 12: Nobody expects great things from Morgan State this year and they pretty much lived up to that in this game.
19. Oregon 66, Nicholls State 3: The Colonels outperformed, holding Oregon to one fewer touchdown than expected. In real terms this loss puts them below #200 in the nation.
20. Indiana 73, Indiana State 35: Either Indiana is going places in the FBS or Indiana State is not going to be an FCS power this season. Based on the final score, the Sycamores looked good on offense and terrible on defense. Since this is the opposite of last year's team profile, it suggests these results are due to Indiana having an incredible offense and porous defense once again. Two of Indiana State's scores were on defense or special teams.
21. Missouri 58, Murray State 14: Not a great effort by the Racers.
22. Eastern Michigan 34, Howard 24: Getting beat by Eastern Michigan, even by 10, isn't very good, but for Howard it was a pretty good effort as they led 24-13 at one point.
23. Wake Forest 31, Presbyterian 7: The Blue Hose can be proud of their 31-7 loss to Wake Forest, as it was about 3 touchdowns better than they should have done. Instead of the nation's #370 team (as they were last year) they played like the nation's #224 team.
24. Tennessee 45, Austin Peay 0: In a normal year over the last several decades this might have been a decent showing, but the Volunteers aren't back yet. The Governors did about as expected against this year's model, which means they played like the low-level FCS team that they are.
25. Air Force 38, Colgate 13: We though Colgate would have put up more of a fight than this.
26. Tulane 34, Jackson State 7: Jackson State only underperformed slightly here.
27. Duke 45, North Carolina Central 0: The Eagles weren't expected to win, not by a longshot, but they shouldn't have been shut out against the Duke defense.
28. Baylor 69, Wofford 3: The pre-season #5 Terriers were torn apart by the Bears. So either Baylor is a serious national title contender in the FBS or Wofford is not a serious contender in the FCS.
29. Arkansas State 62, Arkansas-Pine Bluff 11: A big underperformance by Pine Bluff.
30. Houston 62, Southern 13: This is what one would expect from Southern based on their season last year.
31. Georgia Tech 70, Elon 0: Elon wasn't that bad last year; at least, they weren't this bad.

 

Most Impressive / Least Impressive Performances from Week One: Baylor, San Diego State

What did we learn in week one so far?

• Never treat the FCS lightly
• The top teams were all a bit overrated

Seven FCS teams upset FBS opponents (in all, 8 FCS teams beat FBS teams but Samford's win over brand-new FBS Georgia State wasn't an upset).

And none of our top ten teams really exceeded expectations, with two teams (Arizona State and Florida State) left to play. Only Oklahoma State did slightly better than expected, with the entire top five falling short of justifying their lofty ratings.

Which teams exceeded our expectations the most?

1. Baylor (beat Wofford, 69-3). Wofford is no FCS slouch: they're ranked #5 in the nation there, and Baylor just demolished them. One game—especially against a lower-division opponent—doesn't say everything, but it at least suggests the Bears have to be paid attention to as a Big Twelve contender. We expected a 3-touchdown win from Baylor.
2. Georgia Tech (beat Elon, 70-0). Elon isn't ranked in the FCS, and indeed they were only 3-8 last year. But the Yellow Jackets answered some questions on both offense and defense with their shutout Saturday. We might have expected a 40-point win but a 70-point shutout shows the team might be Coastal division champs for real this year.
3. Bowling Green (beat Tulsa, 34-7). Playing at Bowling Green, we thought this was a complete tossup, way too close to call. The Falcons made it a route, taking a 34-0 lead before Tulsa got on the board. This might be just as much about the Hurricane, so as usual we will wait until next week before drawing conclusions, but Bowling Green has to be counted among the top MAC contenders.
4. Cincinnati (beat Purdue, 42-7). A comfortable Cincy win was expected, but not this comfortable. Again, maybe Purdue is just that bad, but if the Bearcats keep playing like this the Louisville has a real challenger in the American Athletic.
5. Arkansas (beat UL-Lafayette, 34-14). Our pre-season rankings weren't kind to the Razorbacks, but the question was, how much of last year's bad performance was due to "intangibles" such as coaching and poor attitude? Some of that was answered on Saturday as Arkansas pounded a very good Louisiana Lafayette team. It appears that Arkansas' 2012 season may be shown to be a fluke, rather than a proper basis for projecting the future.

Honorable mention: Arkansas State (beat Arkansas-Pine Bluff 62-11), Indiana (beat Indiana State 73-35), Oklahoma (beat UL-Monroe 34-0), Air Force (beat Colgate 38-13), Texas Tech (beat SMU 41-23)

Which teams underperformed the worst?

1. San Diego State (lost to Eastern Illinois, 40-19). This was bad, really bad. Eastern Illinois was 7-5 last year in the FCS and ranked 23rd there, but the Aztecs shouldn't have lost to them, especially at home and especially not by three touchdowns. We were expecting another decent season for SDSU, but now have to reevaluate.
2. South Florida (lost to McNeese State, 53-21). Things just went from bad to worse for the Bulls. McNeese State scored 31 points in the 2nd quarter en route to a 32-point win. We didn't expect the Bulls to dominate the Cowboys (we had them winning by 8 points), but a collapse like this spells trouble. The victors are only in the "others receiving votes" portion of the FCS pre-season poll but that should change.
3. Oregon State (lost to Eastern Washington, 49-46). Well, our pre-season top 10 just took a huge hit. The Beavers clearly have a major problem on defense, even if it was the #3 FCS team and their now-superstar quarterback doing the damage. Eastern Washington is a major challenger in the FCS and Oregon State has to regroup.
4. Tulsa (lost to Bowling Green, 34-7). The Golden Hurricane should have been competitive in this game and they weren't. Is Bowling Green just that good or is Tulsa in trouble?
5. Louisiana-Lafayette (lost to Arkansas, 34-14). It's hard to fault the Cajuns for this one, as Arkansas was a moving target in terms of quality level. Still, even by the oddmakers they got beat worse than expected. It will be a while before we know the truth about this team since they play Kansas State and Nicholls State the next 2 games.

Dishonorable mention: Connecticut (lost to Towson 33-18), Wake Forest (beat Presbyterian 31-7), Iowa State (lost to Northern Iowa 28-20), Louisiana-Monroe (lost to Oklahoma 34-0), SMU (lost to Texas Tech 41-23).

Poor Wake Forest, can't get any respect for a 24-point win, but then again Presbyterian was ranked 370th in the nation last year.

Now, another question: Which teams were purely the most impressive—regardless of expectations—and looked like the best teams this weekend?

1. Baylor (beat Wofford, 69-3). The Bears get the gold star here, too, as their performance was far and away the best. If all you had to go by is week one's games, Baylor is a national title contender. Next week is Buffalo, so we can compare how they do vs. Ohio State's 40-20 win.
2. Georgia Tech (beat Elon, 70-0). Pretty much the perfect game, but against an imperfect foe. Still, it's a #1-worthy win. The Wreck play at Duke next week which should give a better assessment of the team.
3. Washington (beat Boise State, 38-6). The last time a team did this to Boise State was Georgia in 2005, and those Bulldogs finished 10-3. We ranked Washington #12 but they played like a potential #1 team—and we rank Boise fairly low (#45) compared to others. The Huskies play Illinois and Idaho State next so we won't learn much until Arizona on the 28th—and Stanford on October 5th.
4. Oklahoma (beat Louisiana-Monroe, 34-0). The Sooners often stumble in their first game but they came roaring out of the gate with this shutout win. Maybe everyone talking about how this wasn't their year put a chip on their shoulder? If they keep playing like this then they are a legit BCS title contender. West Virginia and Tulsa are next, then Notre Dame on the 28th.
5. Michigan (beat Central Michigan, 59-9). A great start for the Wolverines but we'll find out a lot more next week when they take on Notre Dame.

Honorable mention: Cincinnati (beat Purdue 42-7), LSU (beat TCU 37-27), Texas A&M (beat Rice 52-31), Oklahoma State (beat Mississippi State 21-3), Alabama (beat Virginia Tech 35-10).

Yes, Alabama played only like the #10 team in the nation yesterday. Which is within range of where the #1 team is expected to play, so if it was an off-day—or Virginia Tech is better than we think—the Tide aren't in any danger.

The worst: Which teams looked like the bottom of the barrel in the FBS:

1. South Florida (lost to McNeese State, 53-21). This loss made USF not only look like the worst FBS team, but they played worse than the average team—for all divisions combined. They would have been in trouble against most Division II teams, and maybe some in Division III.
2. San Diego State (lost to Eastern Illinois, 40-19). Almost as bad as USF but not quite.
3. Idaho (lost to North Texas, 40-6). We ranked Idaho #123 and they lived up to that this weekend.
4. Miami (Ohio) (lost to Marshall 52-14). The Redhawks held on for a little while but in the end they looked every bit as bad as our pre-season #119 ranking would indicate.
5. Central Michigan (lost to Michigan 59-9). When I saw an earlier score report from this game I thought 42-6 was the final, but it got worse for the Chippewas.

Dishonorable mention: Eastern Michigan (beat Howard 34-24), Florida International (lost to Maryland 43-10), Wake Forest (beat Presbyterian 31-7), Massachusetts (lost to Wisconsin 45-0), Louisiana Tech (lost to NC State 40-14).

All ten of the teams above played like they are worse than Georgia State, the brand-newest FBS team who went 1-10 in the FCS last year. Georgia State lost to FCS Samford 31-21, but that was actually better than any of the teams above did. For perhaps this week only, the Panthers are not in the bottom 10.