Four weeks into the college football season and the power ratings are starting to come together—on the whole. A few key teams, however, are lagging so far. Either because the power ratings aren't mature enough to capture their quality...or, maybe these teams aren't as good as their reputation.
Let's take a look, comparing the top teams to last week's ratings.
# Team rec Rating Offense[rnk] Defense[rnk]
1. Oregon 4-0 86.00 73.01 [ 3] -12.98 [ 4]
2. Oklahoma 4-0 83.26 72.09 [ 4] -11.17 [ 7]
Oregon, last week's #3 team, is on top after butchering Colorado 42-6. That really helped their defensive ranking, which was #57 a week ago. Note that early in the year there are BIG jumps in the ranking components; due to the small number of games, every contest has huge implications. For example, Oklahoma debuted at #1 last week and though they fall to #2 their own defensive ranking improves a lot, from #40 to #7 after beating Cincinnati 20-6. Their offensive ranking only fell from #2 to #4. Both teams are looking very good now, with top ten offenses and defenses. It's still early though, and the bigger tests are down the road.
3. Washington 4-0 81.08 75.59 [ 1] -5.48 [ 27] 4. Penn State 4-0 78.80 70.40 [ 6] -8.40 [ 17]
Washington held its lofty spot pretty well, too, moving up from #4 to #3. Often the top teams are exposed and drop a lot early on, but the Huskies beat Cal 59-32 which gave them the #1 offense and didn't ding their defense much. Penn State also moved up a spot after beating Iowa 31-0 at home. You'd think that would help their defense rank but it fell from #8 to #17! I guess shutting out Iowa's offense isn't a needle-mover. It's obvious that Penn State's previous foes were the cause of that; neither Illinois, West Virginia, or Delaware scored 30 points last week. Note that Penn State is far and away #1 in turnover margin at +2.75 per game, something that probably won't continue. It's the equivalent of 11 points per game, and if it goes away the Nittany Lions will only be about #15.
5. Texas 4-0 76.48 68.13 [ 9] -8.34 [ 18] 6. Alabama 3-1 74.34 54.70 [ 45] -19.64 [ 1]
An interesting pairing at #5 and #6. Texas and Alabama both did well last week and moved up 8 and 19 spots respectively. That's right, Alabama was only #25 last week but beat former #8 Mississippi 24-10. That in turn helped Texas move up. The Tide's offense dropped while their defense shot to #1 (Ole Miss was averaging over 50 points).
7. Miami FL 4-0 73.52 64.32 [ 12] -9.20 [ 15] 8. Texas A&M 3-1 73.09 69.16 [ 8] -3.93 [ 34]
Another pair of teams that played earlier in the season, with the winner one spot ahead of the loser. Miami beat Temple 41-7 and that was good enough to hold their #7 spot—a good sign since Miami has a recent history of faltering once they're declared to be "back". Texas A&M jumps from #16 to #8, more evidence that they, also, are back.
9. Ohio State 4-0 72.86 55.87 [ 35] -16.98 [ 3] 10. Mississippi 3-1 72.85 71.45 [ 5] -1.40 [ 47]
Both these teams dropped a few spots from last week, Ohio State due to their too-narrow win while Mississippi lost to Alabama. The Buckeyes offense only scored 17 against Notre Dame but their ranking went up (#44 to #35) and the defense, despite holding the Irish to 14, fell from #1 to #3. This is just part of the overall adjustments due to more connections being made. Interestingly, Mississippi's offense remained at #5 while Alabama's D jumped from #35 to #1. Why didn't it downgrade Ole Miss's offense and keep Alabama's D constant? The preponderance of evidence in the other game scores made the power rating "decide" to do what it did. Normally both are affected equally, but this is how things worked out in this instance.
11. Southern Cal 4-0 70.35 75.54 [ 2] 5.18 [ 97] 12. Kansas St 3-1 70.30 66.91 [ 10] -3.39 [ 36] 13. Michigan 4-0 69.32 50.87 [ 75] -18.44 [ 2] 14. Duke 4-0 68.58 60.45 [ 21] -8.12 [ 22] 15. Notre Dame 4-1 68.25 62.32 [ 16] -5.93 [ 25]
USC beat Arizona State 42-28 and the Strength power rating didn't like that, dropping the Trojans from #2 to #11 (this kind of downgrade is common early on, as I mentioned above). Their offense remained about the same (#1 to #2) but the defense—the only question for this team—just got a lot worse, falling from a mediocre #59 to an awful #97. But just as quickly as that happens, they can redeem themselves when they face Colorado Saturday.
Michigan is also in this cluster, moving up from #24 to #13 after beating Rutgers 31-7. That allowed their offense to make a decent jump from #99 to #75, and that movement will probably continue—it has to if the Wolverines are really a Playoff team. Duke held steady at #14, and Notre Dame moved up 4 spots for playing Ohio State so close. #12 Kansas State is the highest-ranked team with a loss to a lower-rated team (#37 Missouri). Other than that they've been fantastic, but can they be consistent?
16. Oregon St 3-1 66.04 56.64 [ 33] -9.40 [ 13] 17. Florida St 4-0 65.19 59.94 [ 23] -5.25 [ 28] 18. TCU 3-1 64.37 61.96 [ 17] -2.41 [ 41] 19. Central Florida 3-1 64.31 61.02 [ 20] -3.28 [ 37] 20. Syracuse 4-0 64.29 56.05 [ 34] -8.24 [ 20]
Oregon State lost to Washington State and fell from #9 to #16 but remain higher than the #29 Cougars. Florida State's overtime win at Clemson cost them 7 spots, and Syracuse also dropped despite beating Army 29-16. UCF moved up a few spots despite losing to Kansas State, and #18 TCU is re-establishing themselves following the opening loss to Colorado; the Horned Frogs beat SMU 34-17.
21. Auburn 3-1 63.42 51.82 [ 66] -11.59 [ 6] 22. UCLA 3-1 63.18 52.72 [ 58] -10.45 [ 8] 23. Georgia 4-0 62.72 53.17 [ 55] -9.55 [ 11] 24. Louisville 4-0 62.01 63.38 [ 14] 1.36 [ 67] 25. Cincinnati 2-2 61.35 52.00 [ 64] -9.34 [ 14]
Now we come to the real question in our power rating: when will Georgia be properly ranked? Or, are they properly ranked right now? Based on last year's team the Bulldogs are clearly underperforming but to be fair they haven't had a lot to get motivated about. The Bulldogs looked pedestrian again in beating UAB 49-21, falling from #17 last week to just #23. Their offense—#76 last week—moved up quite a bit with the win but their defense took a hit.
If our power rating for Georgia needs correcting it should happen this weekend when Georgia visits #21 Auburn. If the Bulldogs win by two touchdowns like the oddsmakers expect, there will be a solid correcting force in Strength next week. If, on the other hand, Auburn wins by 4 points as our current ratings say, then it will be pretty clear that Georgia isn't the same team any more. I suspect that we'll see the real Georgia emerge as they face a familiar opponent (though they didn't do all that great against South Carolina).
UCLA lost to Utah but remains ahead of the undefeated Utes, who are surprisingly only #32. Undefeated Louisville and 2-loss Cincinnati round out the top 25.
28. LSU 3-1 61.06 63.11 [ 15] 2.04 [ 72] 30. California 2-2 60.92 56.75 [ 30] -4.16 [ 33] 36. Air Force 4-0 57.73 52.71 [ 59] -5.02 [ 31]
Three teams dropped from the top 25, with LSU's 3 point win over Arkansas not impressing the algorithm, Cal losing too big to Washington, and Air Force falling from #20 to #36 after beating San Jose State 45-20. The Falcons' 3 FBS opponents are now 2-10 combined, so that was probably an overall re-evaluation due to new information and more connections.
27. North Carolina 4-0 61.16 55.39 [ 38] -5.76 [ 26] 29. Washington St 4-0 60.96 69.85 [ 7] 8.89 [141] 31. Tennessee 3-1 59.21 59.93 [ 24] 0.72 [ 61] 32. Utah 4-0 58.72 49.68 [ 88] -9.03 [ 16] 48. Florida 3-1 53.02 46.90 [116] -6.11 [ 24]
The five teams above are in the AP top 25 but not in the Strength power rating top 25. Most of them are close, with Florida being the outlier. The Gators only beat Charlotte 22-7 last week which hurt them, but they beat Tennessee and didn't embarrass themselves vs. Utah. All three should move up as schedule strength gets sorted out.
33. Colorado 3-1 58.41 59.98 [ 22] 1.56 [ 68]
Of course I have to take a look at Colorado, who despite a 42-6 drubbing by Oregon moves up from #41 to #33. Much of that is due to TCU's continued good play, and Nebraska and Colorado State also won last week which more than offset the Buffs' loss. Obviously the Buffaloes offense ranking took a hit, falling from #10 to #22, but they surged on defense (#148 to #68). Oregon was averaging 58 points per game, so limiting them to 42 at home counts as good defensive work! Next week they host USC, whose defense looks questionable so it could be more of a shootout than last week's execution.
51. Iowa 3-1 52.77 39.81 [184] -12.95 [ 5]
Many teams in the early power ratings have "skewed" offense and defensive rankings as the numbers tend to push one way or the other. But Iowa is the real deal when it comes to bad offense and great defense. After losing 31-0 to Penn State Iowa's offense dropped from #96 to a horrific #184, while the defense remained about the same. Normally I would chalk this kind of discrepancy up to a small sample of games, but with Iowa the numbers might not be too far off.
82. Texas-Permian Basin 3-1 45.19 65.57 [ 11] 20.37 [275]
Last week's poster boy for "yes, it's too early in the season to really trust unbiased power ratings" was Texas-Permian Basin who came in at #27 due to a couple of crazy blowouts (96-0 and 86-7). Last week they edged West Texas A&M 41-40 in overtime and naturally that dropped them over 50 spots. But they're still #82, much higher than they objectively should be. It will take some time for their offensive ranking to fall to fair value (it was #4 last week!) while their defensive rank might already be roughly correct. Maybe they should play Iowa?
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