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.

Comments

[Andrew]

I don't understand how Clemson fell by two and Georgia remained the same (and number 4).

[Andrew]

I meant that I don't understand how Clemson fell by 1.

[SportsRatings]

Good question Andrew. First, Georgia - even though their rating went down, every team from #1 to #6 also declined so Georgia didn't fall in ranking (they stayed #4)

Clemson's rating went up, but not by that much (a close game was expected and they won by 3 points). Meanwhile, a few other teams made bigger jumps (Baylor, Michigan) and leapfrogged the Tigers.

Basically the Clemson-Georgia result wasn't far enough away from expectations to nudge the ratings very much for those teams. If this were a Top 25-style ranking, Georgia would have fallen and Clemson would be ahead of them. These ratings aren't based on wins and losses, just performance vs. pre-season expectations.