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.
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