SportsRatings: College Football

2022 Week 1 Bayesian Power Ratings

Bayesian update of pre-season ratings based on results through 9/5/2022 (week 1). Projected records based on resultant ratings.

 

Rnk  Team                     Pre   Week1 Rec(Proj) Rating
  1. Georgia                   1      1    12-0     42.86
  2. Ohio State                2      2    12-0     36.09
  3. Alabama                   3      3    12-0     33.22
  4. Michigan                  4      4    11-1     31.43
  5. Notre Dame                5      5    11-1     25.60
  6. Tennessee                 7      6    10-2     24.68
  7. Oklahoma                  6      7    12-0     22.94
  8. Clemson                   9      8    11-1     22.17
  9. Brigham Young            13      9    11-1     21.90
 10. Penn State               14     10    10-2     20.31
 11. Utah                      8     11    11-1     20.22
 12. North Carolina St        10     12    11-1     18.82
 13. Mississippi St           16     13     8-4     18.64
 14. Texas A&M                18     14    10-2     18.39
 15. Michigan St              12     15     9-3     18.34
 16. Cincinnati               15     16    10-2     17.27
 17. Oklahoma St              11     17     9-3     17.25
 18. Wisconsin                20     18     9-3     16.82
 19. Iowa                     17     19     8-4     15.90
 20. Miami FL                 24     20    10-2     15.65
 21. Arkansas                 32     21     7-5     15.48
 22. SMU                      39     22    12-0     15.40
 23. Kentucky                 22     23     9-3     15.35
 24. Purdue                   25     24     8-4     15.34
 25. Texas                    23     25     8-4     15.33
 26. Baylor                   35     26     9-3     15.29
 27. Mississippi              19     27     9-3     15.27
 28. Auburn                   27     28     6-6     14.66
 29. Pittsburgh               21     29    10-2     14.35
 30. TCU                      36     30     8-4     14.29
 31. Minnesota                29     31     9-3     14.23
 32. Kansas St                40     32     8-4     13.51
 33. Oregon St                41     33    11-1     13.42
 34. Florida St               31     34     7-5     13.25
 35. Syracuse                 47     35     7-5     12.89
 36. Oregon                   26     36     8-4     12.73
 37. Boise St                 28     37    10-2     12.01
 38. Florida                  43     38     7-5     11.82
 39. LSU                      38     39     3-9     10.96
 40. North Carolina           37     40     7-5     10.39
 41. Louisville               30     41     7-5     10.22
 42. UCLA                     44     42    10-2      9.96
 43. Wake Forest              42     43     8-4      9.84
 44. Nebraska                 33     44     5-7      9.59
 45. South Carolina           50     45     5-7      9.12
 46. Houston                  48     46    10-2      8.89
 47. Fresno St                34     47     9-3      8.75
 48. Air Force                56     48    11-1      8.36
 49. Texas-San Antonio        45     49    10-2      8.28
 50. Iowa St                  46     50     5-7      8.14
 51. Southern Cal             60     51     8-4      7.73
 52. Missouri                 51     52     4-8      7.54
 53. Texas Tech               54     53     4-8      7.25
 54. Maryland                 49     54     5-7      6.92
 55. Central Florida          53     55     8-4      6.08
 56. Arizona St               55     56     6-6      5.51
 57. East Carolina            63     57     8-4      4.83
 58. Washington               59     58     6-6      4.44
 59. Alabama-Birmingham       67     59    10-2      3.93
 60. Appalachian St           58     60     9-3      3.93
 61. Stanford                 52     61     3-9      3.62
 62. California               61     62     7-5      3.27
 63. West Virginia            70     63     2-10     2.66
 64. Virginia Tech            57     64     7-5      2.37
 65. Illinois                 66     65     4-8      1.89
 66. Rutgers                  68     66     4-8      1.31
 67. Marshall                 77     67    10-2      0.69
 68. Virginia                 72     68     5-7     -0.05
 69. James Madison            84     69     9-2     -0.21
 70. Memphis                  71     70     6-6     -0.36
 71. Boston College           73     71     3-9     -0.48
 72. Louisiana-Lafayette      78     72    10-2     -1.17
 73. Georgia St               69     73     7-5     -1.18
 74. Washington St            64     74     2-10    -1.51
 75. Toledo                   62     75    10-2     -1.69
 76. Western Kentucky         74     76     9-4     -1.75
 77. Kansas                   80     77     2-10    -1.88
 78. Arizona                  91     78     3-9     -1.89
 79. Northwestern             89     79     4-8     -2.18
 80. Tulane                   82     80     5-7     -2.31
 81. South Florida            75     81     4-8     -2.93
 82. Liberty                  79     82     6-6     -3.24
 83. Indiana                  85     83     3-9     -3.25
 84. San Diego St             65     84     7-5     -3.41
 85. Troy                     87     85     7-5     -4.31
 86. Old Dominion             90     86     5-7     -4.43
 87. Army                     81     87     6-6     -4.79
 88. Coastal Carolina         92     88     7-5     -5.30
 89. Vanderbilt              102     89     2-10    -5.40
 90. Colorado St              86     90     8-4     -5.73
 91. Colorado                 83     91     0-12    -6.05
 92. Northern Illinois        76     92     7-5     -6.92
 93. Central Michigan        104     93     7-5     -7.13
 94. Western Michigan         97     94     6-6     -7.63
 95. South Alabama           109     95     6-6     -7.94
 96. UNLV                     98     96     5-7     -8.16
 97. North Texas              93     97     6-6     -9.15
 98. Miami OH                101     98     7-5     -9.30
 99. Utah St                  88     99     6-6     -9.57
100. Tulsa                    94    100     4-8     -9.67
101. Southern Miss           103    101     5-7     -9.83
102. Eastern Michigan         99    102     7-5    -10.07
103. Florida Atlantic        107    103     5-7    -10.34
104. San Jose St              96    104     5-6    -10.34
105. UTEP                     95    105     7-5    -11.03
106. Bowling Green           100    106     6-6    -11.11
107. Georgia Tech            105    107     2-10   -11.13
108. New Mexico              119    108     4-8    -12.63
109. Georgia Southern        114    109     2-10   -12.83
110. Kent St                 106    110     5-7    -13.38
111. Buffalo                 113    111     4-8    -14.11
112. Ohio U.                 116    112     5-7    -14.47
113. Nevada                  121    113     3-9    -14.75
114. Arkansas St             122    114     4-8    -15.19
115. Louisiana Tech          112    115     5-7    -15.37
116. Ball St                 111    116     3-9    -16.14
117. Duke                    123    117     2-10   -16.90
118. Navy                    108    118     1-11   -17.12
119. Wyoming                 117    119     3-9    -17.76
120. Middle Tennessee St     110    120     3-9    -18.33
121. Akron                   118    121     1-11   -20.80
122. Connecticut             126    122     3-9    -21.83
123. New Mexico St           124    123     3-9    -22.26
124. UNC-Charlotte           115    124     1-11   -22.41
125. Rice                    120    125     1-11   -23.34
126. Massachusetts           125    126     3-9    -24.61
127. Louisiana-Monroe        129    127     1-11   -26.77
128. Texas St-San Marcos     127    128     2-10   -26.80
129. Temple                  128    129     1-11   -29.02
130. Hawai`i                 130    130     0-12   -36.75
131. Florida Int'l           131    131     1-11   -38.69

Early no-priors Power Rating notes (for results thru week 3)

A few years ago when the NCAA college basketball NET ratings debuted, there was a firestorm of rage. The ratings were horrible, said people on Twitter, since they didn't at all match the AP top 25 at the time, nor power ratings like Sagarin or Ken Pomeroy. They have to throw them away and start all over! Said Twitter basketball.

The thing the Twitterverse didn't understand is that the NET ratings used no priors from the previous season, just the early results of that very season. And every power rating, no matter how good, looks goofy early on. That's just how it works. When you don't discriminate by your biases of how good a team should be, it's hard—or impossible—to tell how good the teams are with only a few weeks of results. It just is. Sagarin and Pomeroy for years have used last season's data and slowly "eased" it out of the formula so their early rankings aren't goofy. People who make power ratings know this. Twitter did not (surprising both Nate Silver and Jerry Palm were two of the more clueless critics).

I'm not saying NET is a great thing, but any power rating without priors looks ridiculous early on. Which brings us to our Strength power rating result after three weeks. Two issues here are: there have only been 3 weeks of games; and, there are a lot of FBS vs. FCS games that reveal very little about either team. The latter does reveal the pecking order, with FBS teams on top, but the game itself isn't great data at this stage and leaves only 2 FBS vs. FBS games for most teams and that doesn't make for consistent results.

Yet here we go: our All-Division ratings top 10 after three weeks of play.

Michigan is our surprise, or no-so-surprise #1. They've probably moved up the most in our Bayesian power rating (the one we use until the Strength power rating is ready, usually at about 6-7 weeks). They've definitely exceeded our expectations more than any team; we started them at #43 in our pre-season projections. So far they've crushed Western Michigan 47-14, Washington 31-10, and Northern Illinois 63-10. When it's too early to tell how good the competition is, nothing beats three blowouts.

Georgia is #2, almost 13 points behind the Wolverines. The Bulldogs beat Clemson which is great as long as you know that Clemson is a good team (the power rating sort of does, putting the Tigers #20, 4th best in the ACC). They also beat UAB 56-7 and South Carolina 40-13, so they have some blowouts of their own.

Mississippi is #3 after beating Louisville 43-24, Austin Peay 54-17, and Tulane 61-21. The latter is particularly helpful as Tulane almost beat Oklahoma, who ranks #18—in essence, that last result makes Ole Miss 35 points better than the Sooners who only won by 5 points.

Washington (1-2) is next at #4. Huh? Blame Michigan, whose rating is so hight that even Washington's 31-10 loss doesn't look bad. Or blame Washington's 52-3 blowout of Arkansas State for making the Huskies look good despite a 13-7 loss to Montana. Or blame Montana for only having 2 games so far, the other a 42-7 win. Either way, all this information converges to Washington at #4, and Montana at #7. 

Strength power rating top ten: September 19, 2021

  #  Team                        rec   Rating Offense[rnk]  Defense[rnk]
  1. Michigan                    3-0   98.12   75.63 [  2]  -22.49 [  4]
  2. Georgia                     3-0   85.86   73.50 [  3]  -12.35 [ 12]
  3. Mississippi                 3-0   81.37   68.44 [  8]  -12.92 [ 11]
  4. Washington                  1-2   79.59   62.41 [ 27]  -17.18 [  6]
  5. North Carolina              2-1   79.43   78.22 [  1]   -1.21 [ 51]
  6. Virginia Tech               2-1   79.04   51.58 [ 82]  -27.45 [  1]
  7. Montana                     2-0   78.22   53.30 [ 70]  -24.92 [  2]
  8. Texas-San Antonio           3-0   77.16   64.86 [ 16]  -12.29 [ 13]
  9. Virginia                    2-1   73.61   67.54 [  9]   -6.07 [ 26]
 10. Iowa                        3-0   73.33   52.95 [ 74]  -20.38 [  5]

Looking for Alabama? The close Florida win is probably what pins them at #14, one spot below James Madison. Also Miami's close call with Appalachian State and big loss to Michigan State took the shine of the Tide's 44-13 win.

The Crimson Tide are just a few spots ahead of the 1-0 Harvard Crimson, who beat Georgetown 44-9. If your team can do that, right now you should sit at #20 based on that one result. Are they ranked too high? Time will tell with more games, but we're going to assume that yes, Harvard is not a top 25 team. But if Notre Dame had played Georgetown they might have reached the same score, and no one would question Notre Dame being at #20. Fun note: Notre Dame is actually at #101 right now, due to their overtime scare vs. 0-3 FSU, their three point home scare vs. Toledo, and 27-13 win over Purdue.

What's the takeaway? There's not much so far. Michigan might be very, very good—or they might just be good. Washington may have an excuse for their terrible play so far, but not as much as this ranking gives them. UTSA isn't a top ten team but the teams on their schedule should probably take note. 

Three or four weeks from now the Strength power rating will look pretty good, and where it looks confusing, it will be telling you something you should watch out for. Right now where it's confusing? That's just because it's confused. If you didn't know anything about any of these teams, you'd have a hard time making heads or tails of the results so far, too.

2021 Week 2 Bayesian Power Rating

Week 2 had fewer big games and it seemed that half the FBS played FCS teams. As such, these games are hard to rate performance-wise for a lot of reason.

First, FCS teams are harder to scout in a normal year let along the past few. Normally we use last year's rating for an FCS team, but many FCS team played in the spring or didn't play at all, so we are using spring values or 2019 ratings.

Second, and more importantly, the expected spreads for these games is often astronomical. If a team doesn't win by that astronomical amount, their rating declines. Is it their fault that they didn't win by 63, but instead only 49? Our reasoning: you shouldn't be scheduling a team you have to beat by 63 to keep your rating.

Our top two teams (Alabama, Oklahoma) are good examples of this. Alabama played Mercer and was a 69 point favorite in our ratings. They won 48-14 (34 points) so they underperformed greatly. Is it reasonable that their rating declined? They remain #1, but the margin between Alabama and Oklahoma tightened significantly. No, we shouldn't encourage running up the score but not getting a shutout says something. When a team can't keep its intensity up against a far inferior opponent, that says something. And again, we shouldn't encourage matchups like this.

Oklahoma faced Western Carolina and our power rating said they should win by 72. That's completely unreasonable to expect a team to win any game by that much. But Oklahoma won 76-0. So they basically tread water from last week.

In action among real teams, Iowa beat Iowa State and moved up to #3. The Cyclones even moved up two spots due to bad performances from Ohio State (loss), and Texas A&M and Miami (very tight wins). Penn State launched into the top ten after dominating Ball State, who fell out of our top 25. In a few weeks all the MAC teams will be where they should be, I think.

The Iowa, Penn State, and Oklahoma games were the #2, #3, #4 best-rated performances of the week. The best? Georgia's 56-7 beatdown of UAB. That moved the Bulldogs ahead of previous victim Clemson into #4.

Big Movers: Houston (beat Rice 44-7) up 20 from #87 to #67 ; Arkansas (beat Texas 40-21) up 15 from #36 to #21; and Oregon (beat Ohio State 35-28) up 13 from #53 to #40. In other words, Oregon is still well outside the top 25 in our power rating.

Big Losers: USC (lost to Stanford 42-28) down 20 from #38 to #58; Ohio (lost to Duquesne 28-26) down 16 from #78 to #94; and Louisiana-Lafayette (beat SE Louisiana 45-42) down 15 from #24 to #39.

The award for worst performance goes to UConn, who fell into dead-last #130 after losing to Purdue at home 49-0 in their first game with interim coach Lou Spanos.

2021 Week 2 Bayesian modification to pre-season ratings

W1	W2	Team	W2 Rating
1	1	Alabama	30.96
2	2	Oklahoma	27.62
4	3	Iowa	27.33
5	4	Georgia	25.93
3	5	Clemson	24.03
7	6	Wisconsin	23.30
15	7	Penn State	20.90
8	8	Arizona St	19.57
11	9	Iowa St	19.11
9	10	Texas A&M	19.09
12	11	Toledo	18.95
6	12	Ohio State	18.68
10	13	Miami FL	18.46
19	14	North Carolina	17.89
16	15	UCLA	17.38
13	16	Cincinnati	17.14
18	17	Auburn	16.93
14	18	Indiana	15.77
17	19	Mississippi	15.48
26	20	Michigan	13.18
36	21	Arkansas	12.82
28	22	Notre Dame	12.65
25	23	Minnesota	12.49
21	24	Coastal Carolina	11.63
23	25	Central Michigan	11.56
20	26	Texas	11.48
30	27	Rutgers	11.15
22	28	Ball St	10.79
39	29	Kent St	10.66
27	30	Western Michigan	10.51
29	31	TCU	10.13
35	32	Brigham Young	9.56
31	33	Eastern Michigan	9.44
34	34	Maryland	9.12
32	35	Oklahoma St	9.12
37	36	Miami OH	9.03
33	37	Florida	8.81
49	38	Nebraska	8.44
24	39	Louisiana-Lafayette	8.31
53	40	Oregon	7.75
48	41	Appalachian St	7.55
43	42	Wake Forest	6.47
50	43	Liberty	6.39
46	44	Boise St	5.87
47	45	Virginia Tech	5.66
41	46	LSU	5.60
45	47	Utah	5.56
42	48	North Carolina St	5.56
51	49	Baylor	5.20
54	50	West Virginia	5.04
57	51	Mississippi St	4.78
40	52	Buffalo	4.74
52	53	Pittsburgh	4.63
44	54	Nevada	4.53
64	55	Virginia	4.37
56	56	Wyoming	4.28
60	57	Central Florida	4.06
38	58	Southern Cal	4.04
59	59	Tulane	4.01
55	60	Northwestern	3.78
58	61	Purdue	3.49
66	62	California	2.42
63	63	San José St	1.94
71	64	Colorado	1.78
61	65	Missouri	1.53
62	66	Troy	1.07
87	67	Houston	1.01
68	68	Kentucky	0.94
65	69	Northern Illinois	0.32
67	70	Washington	-0.03
70	71	Marshall	-0.23
74	72	Michigan St	-1.19
84	73	Oregon St	-1.20
83	74	Texas-San Antonio	-2.02
79	75	Memphis	-2.02
82	76	Louisville	-2.25
72	77	Kansas St	-2.35
69	78	Boston College	-3.08
86	79	SMU	-3.27
85	80	Tennessee	-3.29
73	81	Army	-3.59
88	82	Syracuse	-3.70
75	83	Alabama-Birmingham	-3.75
91	84	Tulsa	-3.76
93	85	San Diego St	-3.93
76	86	Illinois	-3.99
80	87	Washington St	-4.11
77	88	Texas Tech	-4.28
81	89	East Carolina	-4.35
98	90	Stanford	-5.02
94	91	Georgia Tech	-5.44
97	92	Florida Atlantic	-5.76
89	93	Hawai`i	-5.77
78	94	Ohio U.	-6.62
90	95	Fresno St	-6.64
95	96	Georgia St	-8.41
92	97	Florida St	-8.61
99	98	Air Force	-10.06
100	99	Arkansas St	-11.31
104	100	South Carolina	-11.92
101	101	Middle Tennessee St	-11.93
96	102	Rice	-12.37
103	103	Colorado St	-13.34
102	104	South Alabama	-13.61
109	105	UNLV	-15.38
106	106	Texas St-San Marcos	-15.49
114	107	Utah St	-16.15
112	108	Louisiana Tech	-16.80
111	109	Vanderbilt	-17.24
105	110	Arizona	-17.40
119	111	Duke	-18.68
107	112	Georgia Southern	-18.75
110	113	Southern Miss	-19.17
113	114	Florida Int'l	-19.47
108	115	New Mexico	-19.92
118	116	Western Kentucky	-20.72
115	117	North Texas	-21.58
117	118	South Florida	-22.63
122	119	UNC-Charlotte	-27.26
116	120	Akron	-27.78
121	121	Bowling Green	-28.16
125	122	Temple	-28.42
120	123	Navy	-28.81
124	124	Kansas	-28.86
123	125	UTEP	-30.83
127	126	Old Dominion	-31.96
126	127	Louisiana-Monroe	-33.35
129	128	Massachusetts	-42.97
130	129	New Mexico St	-43.71
128	130	Connecticut	-44.46

Surprised at how good Arkansas is? Computer power ratings knew 2 months ago

Arkansas beat Mississippi 30-0 last week, a result that is even more shocking than their 17-0 win over LSU last week. Before that, the Razorbacks were 4-5 and most would have considered them to be lucky to become bowl-eligible.

But there were signs that Arkansas was getting better. They lost to then-#1 Mississippi State just 17-10, and stayed with current #1 Alabama all the way, losing 14-13. Some wrote those games off as highly-favored teams getting lazy, but there were even earlier signs that Arkansas was a strong team: the much-maligned computer power rating (we have to say "computer" power rating because for some reason the term has been co-opted by anyone who wants to make a ranking of any kind).

Arkansas lost their first game of the season 45-21 to Auburn, a result that was fairly consistent with how good the two teams were last year—Auburn finishing #2 in the nation, and Arkansas ending up just 3-9. The Razorbacks beat Nicholls State 73-7, a result only slightly more impressive than losing to Auburn by 24, but something a 3-9 team couldn't do. Next they beat Texas Tech 49-28; the Red Raiders aren't great, but beating them by three touchdowns is something last year's team couldn't do. Finally, they beat a decent Northern Illinois team 52-14. They were 3-1 on September 20th, and our Strength power rating put them among the top 25 in the nation, in some pretty good company:

 #   Team                        rec   rating  offense        defense
 20. Florida St                  3-0   61.44   51.54 [ 77]   -9.89 [  4]
 21. West Virginia               2-2   60.56   64.88 [ 14]    4.31 [ 62]
 22. Arkansas                    3-1   60.34   62.22 [ 19]    1.88 [ 46]
 23. Louisville                  3-1   59.60   51.58 [ 76]   -8.02 [ 10]
 24. Southern Cal                2-1   58.88   58.39 [ 33]   -0.49 [ 35]

This was an early power rating (after just four weeks) so it might have been a fluke. Having FSU just at #20 might have given one pause, too, but that turns out to be believable. In any case, when Arkansas took highly-regarded Texas A&M (then #6 in the country) into overtime before losing 35-28, it was really just proof that the Razorbacks were a good team. Following the 14-13 loss to Alabama, Arkansas ranked 14th—in other words, 2 losses moved them up 8 spots:

 12. Ohio State                  4-1   67.52   67.51 [  7]   -0.01 [ 47]
 13. LSU                         5-2   67.34   60.17 [ 25]   -7.16 [ 11]
 14. Arkansas                    3-3   67.07   63.78 [ 14]   -3.29 [ 26]
 15. Oregon                      5-1   66.88   64.40 [ 12]   -2.48 [ 33]
 16. Michigan St                 5-1   65.93   67.28 [  8]    1.35 [ 54]

This was 7 weeks into the season and there was little chance of their quality being a fluke. They proved their mettle again against Georgia—another "good" loss at 45-32—and beating UAB 45-17. A week before facing #1 Mississippi State, Arkansas was #17:

 15. Clemson                     6-2   66.47   57.40 [ 37]   -9.06 [  6]
 16. Wisconsin                   5-2   65.76   60.61 [ 26]   -5.14 [ 19]
 17. Arkansas                    4-4   65.47   61.79 [ 21]   -3.67 [ 21]
 18. Notre Dame                  6-1   64.71   58.78 [ 32]   -5.92 [ 14]
 19. Texas A&M                   5-3   64.30   63.70 [ 12]   -0.59 [ 44]

Following the 17-10 loss to Mississippi State and 17-0 crushing of LSU, the Razorbacks were #15, having stayed pretty steady for a few months:

 13. LSU                         7-4   69.60   57.12 [ 34]  -12.48 [  3]
 14. Kansas St                   7-2   67.64   60.60 [ 25]   -7.03 [ 10]
 15. Arkansas                    5-5   66.60   58.87 [ 30]   -7.72 [  6]
 16. Tennessee                   5-5   65.22   58.87 [ 31]   -6.35 [ 13]
 17. UCLA                        8-2   63.75   61.88 [ 19]   -1.86 [ 32]

Arkansas completed their 30-0 shutout of Mississippi and rose to #12. Their offense ranks #25 and defense #5 after giving up just 10 total points to three ranked teams.

 10. Oklahoma                    8-3   68.96   64.64 [  8]   -4.31 [ 17]
 11. Ohio State                 10-1   68.29   67.23 [  5]   -1.05 [ 37]
 12. Arkansas                    6-5   67.75   59.11 [ 25]   -8.64 [  5]
 13. LSU                         7-4   67.56   56.22 [ 34]  -11.33 [  4]
 14. Wisconsin                   9-2   67.46   61.61 [ 15]   -5.84 [ 11]

The Ole Miss win was clearly their best game of the year, and their chart below shows their performances getting better throughout the season.

So while Arkansas is getting better, the fact that they're playing well is no surprise to anyone paying attention to their close losses to quality teams, and even their early wins against mediocre competition. Power ratings were reflecting it all along, and not just ours, of course: the Razorbacks are #16 in the FPI (#8 in efficiency) on ESPN, and Sagarin has them #17 (#13 in Predictor). In our Overall power rating they're #15 after rising to #25 in Success despite being just 6-5—they have wins over LSU and Ole Miss now, and their losses are all to winning teams who were ranked in the top 10 at the time.

A few weeks ago we were going to write a post pitying Arkansas' bowl opponent, but that's no longer necessary—everyone is on alert that, come bowl season, whomever the Razorbacks are matched up against will have their hands full.

 

Last pre-season rankings update finds Auburn on top, Baylor #2

For six weeks we've been updating our pre-season ratings, modifying them using the week's game results, but that all ends next week when we'll by using the unbiased Strength power rating only. Next week, 95% of teams will have 6 or more games under their belt and we can get rid of any pre-season assumptions. For the first 3 weeks pre-season assumptions are essential to "ground" teams as unbiased power ratings look pretty random; after last weekend (week six), teams have played 5 or 6 games and we combine the "revised" pre-season ratings and the unbiased Strength ratings to create a "transition" between the two.

Here are this week's ratings, and the two components used to make them. As you can see, Auburn is now #1; the Tigers moved up to #2 in the Revised rankings, but they're a clear #1 in Strength. Baylor is a narrow #1 in the Revised ratings but is #3 in Strength, a full 9 points behind Auburn.

Some teams are ranked very differently between the two systems; normally this is because they haven't lived up to—or have surpassed—our pre-season expectations, and the weekly updates didn't fully capture the necessary revision. For teams with 4 or 5 games, it's possible their unbiased Strength rating doesn't reflect their quality properly, but those cases should be declining.

Pre-season #1 Florida State is one example of a ranking disparity. Even though they have fallen to #6 in our Revised rankings, they are just #23 in Strength. Hence, they are #13 in the transitional week. We wondered last week which ranking would prevail, and though their Strength increased this week it didn't improve very much.

LW	Rank	Team	rec	Revised	Strength
9	1	Auburn	5-0	2	1
1	2	Baylor	5-0	1	3
7	3	Oklahoma	4-1	8	2
5	4	Mississippi	5-0	4	5
3	5	Alabama	4-1	3	7
16	6	TCU	4-0	15	4
17	7	Mississippi St	5-0	9	6
14	8	Ohio State	4-1	7	10
2	9	UCLA	4-1	5	11
8	10	Texas A&M	5-1	13	8
10	11	Georgia	4-1	12	9
19	12	Clemson	3-2	10	13
6	13	Florida St	5-0	6	23
20	14	Arkansas	3-2	19	12
12	15	Michigan St	4-1	16	17
22	16	Utah	4-1	14	20
4	17	Oregon	4-1	11	21
23	18	Notre Dame	5-0	20	15
15	19	LSU	4-2	23	16
27	20	Nebraska	5-1	24	18
36	21	Kansas St	4-1	30	14
18	22	Stanford	3-2	17	26
11	23	Southern Cal	3-2	18	30
26	24	Florida	3-1	28	22
25	25	Missouri	4-1	22	28
40	26	Louisville	5-1	31	25
24	27	Wisconsin	3-2	25	29
42	28	Tennessee	2-3	42	19
48	29	Memphis	3-2	35	24
33	30	Marshall	5-0	26	31
30	31	Arizona	5-0	21	40
29	32	West Virginia	3-2	33	27
28	33	Oklahoma St	4-1	27	36
13	34	BYU	4-1	29	35
21	35	Maryland	4-2	32	39
31	36	South Carolina	3-3	36	37
49	37	Virginia Tech	4-2	39	32
38	38	Virginia	4-2	43	34
46	39	Arizona St	4-1	34	44
39	40	Minnesota	4-1	40	42
32	41	Texas	2-3	37	43
53	42	Kentucky	4-1	50	38
34	43	East Carolina	4-1	52	41
51	44	California	4-1	51	45
50	45	Northwestern	3-2	44	48
47	46	Indiana	3-2	38	52
45	47	Duke	4-1	46	49
35	48	Washington St	2-4	45	54
41	49	Washington	4-1	41	59
85	50	Louisiana Tech	3-3	69	33
59	51	Temple	3-1	59	46
56	52	Georgia Tech	5-0	54	50
44	53	Miami FL	3-3	53	53
54	54	Iowa	4-1	55	58
70	55	Pittsburgh	3-3	65	47
57	56	Boise St	4-2	56	61
79	57	Utah St	3-2	58	55
52	58	Central Florida	2-2	48	70
64	59	Boston College	3-2	61	60
55	60	Syracuse	2-3	67	51
63	61	Michigan	2-4	60	63
71	62	Penn State	4-1	68	56
43	63	Oregon St	4-1	47	80
61	64	Colorado St	4-1	57	66
67	65	Iowa St	1-4	64	62
65	66	Rutgers	5-1	62	65
37	67	Houston	2-3	49	87
60	68	Nevada	3-2	63	69
62	69	Cincinnati	2-2	70	67
81	70	Georgia Southern	4-2	86	57
72	71	North Carolina St	4-2	77	68
58	72	North Carolina	2-3	66	83
73	73	Navy	2-4	76	72
68	74	Northern Illinois	4-1	74	77
75	75	Toledo	4-2	78	74
76	76	North Texas	2-3	80	73
69	77	Texas Tech	2-3	73	81
78	78	W. Kentucky	2-3	83	71
96	79	Arkansas St	3-2	92	64
77	80	Colorado	2-4	72	89
97	81	Purdue	3-3	85	76
88	82	Air Force	4-1	81	82
87	83	Rice	2-3	82	85
80	84	Fresno St	3-3	71	92
86	85	Akron	3-2	89	78
101	86	South Alabama	3-2	88	79
83	87	MTSU	4-2	87	84
66	88	UTSA	1-4	79	91
92	89	San Jose St	2-3	84	90
111	90	UAB	3-2	104	75
74	91	San Diego St	2-3	75	100
118	92	FIU	3-3	102	86
84	93	Illinois	3-3	91	93
94	94	Vanderbilt	1-5	90	95
105	95	Western Mich.	2-3	101	88
91	96	Hawaii	1-4	97	94
107	97	Central Michigan	3-3	96	96
93	98	Wake Forest	2-4	95	101
98	99	Kansas	2-3	93	103
89	100	Ohio U.	3-3	100	99
109	101	Army	2-3	108	97
100	102	Wyoming	3-2	98	102
90	103	Bowling Green	4-2	94	110
104	104	Ball St	1-4	109	98
82	105	Florida Atlantic	2-4	99	107
108	106	Buffalo	3-3	107	104
106	107	South Florida	2-3	106	109
102	108	Texas St.	3-2	111	106
95	109	LA-Lafayette	2-3	105	112
103	110	Tulane	1-4	103	114
110	111	LA-Monroe	3-2	113	108
119	112	New Mexico	2-3	110	115
99	113	Old Dominion	3-3	112	117
116	114	Miami OH	1-5	117	111
113	115	Connecticut	1-4	114	118
122	116	Southern Miss	2-4	119	113
112	117	UTEP	2-3	124	105
120	118	Kent St	0-5	116	119
115	119	Tulsa	1-4	115	123
117	120	Appalachian St	1-4	121	116
121	121	Massachusetts	0-6	120	120
124	122	Idaho	0-5	125	122
125	123	SMU	0-5	123	125
126	124	Georgia St	1-4	126	124
127	125	New Mexico St	2-4	127	121
114	126	UNLV	1-5	118	127
123	127	Troy	0-5	122	126
128	128	Eastern Michigan	1-4	128	128

Washington was in our pre-season top 25 and their performance has dropped them to #41 Revised, but they're just #59 in Strength, still 10 spots lower than this week's #49. Louisiana Tech has been going the other direction, rising to #69, up from #85 last week, and #33 in Strength. The latter seems a bit high for a team that lost to Northwestern State and so it may be a case where six weeks isn't enough for a good judgement from the unbiased Strength ratings.

Central Florida has played only four games, so their #70 Strength rating might be underestimating them; in the Revised rankings they haven't moved much from their pre-season #43.

Oregon State, on the other hand, was ranked too high at #32 to start the season, and though they've dropped to #47, Strength says they should be #80. This week the transitional rankings have them at #63. Houston is perhaps the worst case, as they started at #16 and have falled to #49 but rank 87th in Strength, still 20 spots lower than this week's transitional ranking.

Georgia Southern has been rising but perhaps not fast enough to capture their true quality, as they're still 13 spots higher in Strength than their transitional ranking of #70. #72 North Carolina, however, hasn't fallen enough to match their #83 Strength rating.

Arkansas State and UAB are both still 15 spots lower than their Strength ratings. The Red Wolves are #79 and the Blazers #90.

UTEP is seemingly underrated, too, but their case is unusual; they were destroyed 55-3 by Louisiana Tech and dropped from #112 to #124. But since the Bulldogs are so heavily underrated, the Miners were penalized too much; they should be #105 according to Strength. But sometimes teams are "re-evaluated" in bunches by power ratings, and since Louisiana Tech seems a bit high at #33 maybe UTEP's #105 Strength rating won't hold, either. The Miners are 2-3 so far in 2014.

Week 5 power rating update: Baylor #1, UCLA up to #2; Florida State #6, or #27?

For five weeks we've been updating our Pre-Season rankings based on each team's weekly performance, a method that falls somewhere between a Bayesian and ELO approach. We use this approach because it takes some time before an unbiased system—like our Strength power rating—starts to produce good results. After 5 weeks, the Strength power rating is starting to come together, but might still have some shortcomings. The updated pre-season ratings are nearing the end of their usefulness, and next week (week 6) we start to combine the two before transitioning to the unbiased Strength ratings in week 7. To show where a team's ranking might be heading, we include the Strength ranking in the table of this week's update.

Who is #1? Baylor has been at #1 for 3 weeks now; FSU started at #1, held it during week 1, then ceded the spot to Oregon in week 2. The Bears beat Iowa State 49-28 which was good enough to hold off a huge charge by UCLA, who jumps from #10 to #2 after beating Arizona State 62-27. In Strength, Baylor is #3 but UCLA is only #11, suggesting they're getting too much of a boost from our pre-season #3 ranking. The Bruins disappointed in each of their first three games before ASU, and even in that game the defense was questionable, so we'd guess #11 is more accurate than #2.

The teams from #3 to #6 all underperformed and fell, though they all won, allowing Oregon to move up to #4 without playing and Mississippi to move up 3 spots even though their 24-3 win over Memphis met expectations almost exactly. SEC teams Texas A&M, Auburn, and Georgia failed to impress but all remain in the top 10 both in these rankings and in Strength, and Auburn is #1 there.

Florida State is a different matter. They've dropped in rating every update, this week falling to #6, and in Strength—which carries no pre-season bias—they are a pedestrian #27. This begs the question, how good (or not) are the Seminoles? It's pretty certain that they're not playing like a #1 team, but are they really outside the top 25? Note that one of their games—the overtime win over Clemson—was played without Jameis Winston. In Strength they're getting hit for their 37-12 win over The Citadel, a result that an average FBS team should achieve. In this case, the updated rankings are probably a lot closer to the truth than Strength, which needs a few more weeks to be accurate with some teams.

Michigan State is another interesting case. We ranked them #15 in the pre-season and in each update they've hovered near that spot, this week moving up to #12. In the unbiased Strength ratings they're not far off at #17. But our pre-season rankings for their offense and defense were #36 and #4, and they're known as a defense-oriented team. While their offense has been much improved this year, the Strength ratings (for all Divisions) put the Spartans at #3 on offense—and only #67 on defense! These numbers don't match most observers' realities. The Strength ratings often take some time before things "fall into place" and this is one of those cases. Giving up 46 points to Oregon—in one of only 4 games sampled so far—has the computer thinking Michigan State has an "average" defense. That should correct in the next few weeks. Perhaps MSU's defense isn't quite as good as most people think, but it's got to be better than #67.

Pac-12 teams USC and Stanford (#11 and #18) could be mis-rated, too, as they are only #25 and #30 in Strength. Stanford's game next week against Notre Dame should help answer that question. On the other hand Wisconsin's ranking (#24) nearly matches their Strength ranking (#22) after the Badgers fall 12 spots due to their weak 27-10 win over South Florida. Right now the rankings are off by an average of 9 places per team, with a median of 7 places and a mode of 2.

SportsRatings pre-season rankings updated for week 5

LW	Rank	Team	rec	chg	Strength rnk
1	1	Baylor	4-0	-0.45	3
10	2	UCLA	4-0	+4.65	11
2	3	Alabama	4-0	0.00	4
7	4	Oregon	4-0	0.00	9
8	5	Mississippi	4-0	+0.05	8
4	6	Florida St	4-0	-1.42	27
9	7	Oklahoma	4-0	0.00	2
3	8	Texas A&M	5-0	-2.11	6
6	9	Auburn	4-0	-1.48	1
5	10	Georgia	3-1	-3.41	5
14	11	Southern Cal	3-1	+1.85	25
15	12	Michigan St	3-1	+1.61	17
11	13	BYU	4-0	0.00	19
16	14	Ohio State	3-1	+0.42	21
18	15	LSU	4-1	+0.74	12
22	16	TCU	3-0	+3.58	7
19	17	Mississippi St	4-0	0.00	16
20	18	Stanford	3-1	+0.30	30
17	19	Clemson	2-2	-0.81	24
25	20	Arkansas	3-2	+2.11	13
28	21	Maryland	4-1	+3.98	23
13	22	Utah	3-1	-2.49	26
21	23	Notre Dame	4-0	+0.70	10
12	24	Wisconsin	3-1	-3.92	22
23	25	Missouri	4-1	+0.13	28
26	26	Florida	2-1	0.00	29
30	27	Nebraska	5-0	+1.60	14
24	28	Oklahoma St	3-1	-1.73	32
27	29	West Virginia	2-2	0.00	18
29	30	Arizona	4-0	0.00	41
32	31	South Carolina	3-2	-0.13	31
36	32	Texas	2-2	+1.13	38
35	33	Marshall	4-0	0.00	40
38	34	East Carolina	3-1	0.00	33
48	35	Washington St	2-3	+2.49	50
41	36	Kansas St	3-1	+0.10	15
40	37	Houston	2-2	0.00	75
42	38	Virginia	3-2	+0.08	36
50	39	Minnesota	4-1	+3.12	44
34	40	Louisville	4-1	-2.42	34
43	41	Washington	4-1	-0.30	51
54	42	Tennessee	2-2	+3.41	20
39	43	Oregon St	3-1	-1.85	78
55	44	Miami FL	3-2	+2.46	47
37	45	Duke	4-1	-2.46	45
31	46	Arizona St	3-1	-4.65	58
33	47	Indiana	2-2	-3.98	61
49	48	Memphis	2-2	-0.05	39
47	49	Virginia Tech	3-2	-1.06	37
66	50	Northwestern	2-2	+4.99	62
45	51	California	3-1	-2.78	49
51	52	Central Florida	1-2	0.00	73
46	53	Kentucky	3-1	-2.09	42
58	54	Iowa	4-1	+0.69	53
57	55	Syracuse	2-2	-0.70	35
59	56	Georgia Tech	4-0	0.00	64
44	57	Boise St	3-2	-5.41	67
65	58	North Carolina	2-2	+0.81	80
70	59	Temple	3-1	+2.44	43
64	60	Nevada	3-1	+0.65	68
68	61	Colorado St	3-1	+1.61	71
62	62	Cincinnati	2-1	-0.42	57
53	63	Michigan	2-3	-3.12	60
60	64	Boston College	3-2	-1.61	59
71	65	Rutgers	4-1	+1.87	65
61	66	UTSA	1-3	-1.81	69
67	67	Iowa St	1-3	+0.45	52
69	68	Northern Illinois	3-1	0.00	74
72	69	Texas Tech	2-2	+1.73	77
52	70	Pittsburgh	3-2	-5.51	46
56	71	Penn State	4-1	-4.99	56
73	72	North Carolina St	4-1	+1.42	55
63	73	Navy	2-3	-3.73	66
74	74	San Diego St	2-2	+0.03	94
75	75	Toledo	3-2	+0.03	79
76	76	North Texas	2-2	0.00	72
81	77	Colorado	2-3	+2.78	89
84	78	W. Kentucky	2-2	+3.73	63
78	79	Utah St	2-2	0.00	81
77	80	Fresno St	2-3	-0.29	99
80	81	Georgia Southern	3-2	+0.97	54
83	82	Florida Atlantic	2-3	+1.81	87
85	83	MTSU	3-2	+2.49	83
79	84	Illinois	3-2	-1.60	82
87	85	Louisiana Tech	2-3	+1.48	48
104	86	Akron	2-2	+5.51	76
91	87	Rice	1-3	+1.71	85
106	88	Air Force	3-1	+5.41	91
105	89	Ohio U.	3-2	+5.23	106
82	90	Bowling Green	3-2	-1.36	108
89	91	Hawaii	0-3	0.00	84
86	92	San Jose St	1-3	-0.65	90
98	93	Wake Forest	2-3	+2.42	110
99	94	Vanderbilt	1-4	+2.09	102
92	95	LA-Lafayette	1-3	0.00	116
95	96	Arkansas St	2-2	0.00	70
90	97	Purdue	2-3	-0.69	86
93	98	Kansas	2-2	-1.13	111
88	99	Old Dominion	3-2	-2.49	113
94	100	Wyoming	3-2	-1.61	95
111	101	South Alabama	2-2	+3.39	103
100	102	Texas St.	2-2	-0.10	97
96	103	Tulane	1-4	-1.87	109
102	104	Ball St	1-3	0.00	92
108	105	Western Mich.	2-2	+1.06	96
114	106	South Florida	2-3	+3.92	98
107	107	Central Michigan	2-3	-0.03	104
110	108	Buffalo	3-2	+0.36	101
103	109	Army	1-3	-1.91	107
101	110	LA-Monroe	3-1	-2.45	114
97	111	UAB	2-2	-4.97	88
112	112	UTEP	2-2	-0.10	93
109	113	Connecticut	1-4	-2.44	115
115	114	UNLV	1-4	-0.03	127
116	115	Tulsa	1-3	+0.10	118
117	116	Miami OH	0-5	-0.36	105
113	117	Appalachian St	1-3	-0.97	112
123	118	FIU	2-3	+4.97	100
118	119	New Mexico	1-3	+0.29	121
120	120	Kent St	0-4	-0.08	125
124	121	Massachusetts	0-5	+1.36	119
119	122	Southern Miss	2-3	-1.71	117
125	123	Troy	0-5	+2.45	126
121	124	Idaho	0-4	-3.39	124
122	125	SMU	0-4	-3.58	123
126	126	Georgia St	1-3	0.00	122
127	127	New Mexico St	2-3	-0.74	120
128	128	Eastern Michigan	1-3	0.00	128

The team with the biggest ranking discrepancy is Houston, who is #37 or #75 depending on which rating you look at! The Cougars started at #16 in our pre-season rankings and the weekly adjustments haven't captured their (lack of) quality nearly enough. Indiana is another case study in overrating; they were #18 pre-season, but they've fallen to #47, which our Strength rating says is still 14 spots too high. The Hoosiers clearly have the potential to play very well—hence the upset of Missouri—but they are too inconsistent to be a good team week to week. Oregon State is #43 and 3-1, so in this case it might be their Strength rating (#78) that's off. In general though, the Pac-12 doesn't rank very well in Strength and might not be meeting our pre-season expectations.

Georgia Southern and Louisiana Tech are two teams we didn't expect much from this year, and both have exceeded those expectations nearly every week. The Eagles started at #121 and moved to #116, #104, #91, and now #81—but the Strength power rating has them at #54! Louisiana Tech has moved from #114 to #85. Strength has the Bulldogs at #48 despite their earlier loss to Northwestern State.

Week 4 Power Ratings: Baylor stays #1, SEC takes 4 of top 6 spots

After week four the All-Division Strength power rating (referred to as Strength, from now on) is starting to come together, at least for FBS teams who have played 3 or more games. We're still going to review and use our updated Pre-season ratings for a few more weeks while the non-biased results improve, but we'll compare the two when reviewing the week-to-week movements.

Baylor remained #1—no one jumped over the Bears in their idle week—and they also hold down the #1 spot in Strength, too, giving some support to the idea that they could really be the best team. With just three games under their belts it's a bit early to say, especially given their opponents so far (SMU, Northwestern State, Buffalo).

Four of the next five spots are held by SEC teams Alabama, Texas A&M, Georgia, and Auburn. Those teams are #6, #4, #3, and #2 in the unbiased Strength rankings, so while the order is reversed the sentiment is the same. Pre-season #1 Florida State has dropped to #4, and they're only #20 in Strength, but some of that is due to the Clemson close-call which we might assume is at least a partial aberration. Another SEC team, Mississippi, checks in at #8 here and #7 in Strength so half of the top ten teams in the country are from the SEC, 4 of them from the West.

Previous #3 Oregon drops to #7 after a close call of their own against Washington State, and in Strength they're just #19; unlike FSU they don't have an excuse. Oklahoma pushes ahead to #9 with UCLA coming in at #10; the Sooners are #5 in Strength but UCLA is only #34 so their pre-season ranking is still giving them much more credit than they deserve.

So in all, 7 of the top 10 in our updated pre-season rankings are in the unbiased Strength top 10 as seen below:

  #  Team                        rec   Rating Offense[rnk]  Defense[rnk]
  1. Baylor                      3-0   77.42   69.06 [  1]   -8.35 [  8]
  2. Auburn                      3-0   77.32   65.44 [ 11]  -11.88 [  3]
  3. Georgia                     2-1   75.01   66.02 [  8]   -8.99 [  5]
  4. Texas A&M                   4-0   74.92   66.61 [  4]   -8.30 [  9]
  5. Oklahoma                    4-0   74.06   65.34 [ 12]   -8.71 [  7]
  6. Alabama                     4-0   70.97   62.10 [ 21]   -8.86 [  6]
  7. Mississippi                 3-0   68.09   62.52 [ 18]   -5.56 [ 16]
  8. Clemson                     1-2   66.67   66.55 [  5]   -0.12 [ 38]
  9. Notre Dame                  3-0   66.48   53.68 [ 62]  -12.80 [  2]
 10. Wisconsin                   2-1   65.48   63.54 [ 16]   -1.93 [ 26]

The three unique teams in the unbiased Strength top 10 are Clemson, Notre Dame, and Wisconsin, who are #17, #21, and #12 below. Wisconsin makes one of the bigger moves from last week from #25 to #12, putting them ahead of the LSU team that beat them. The Tigers, of course, lost to Mississippi State at home, but the Bulldogs didn't quite catch them in our rankings; they're 19th to LSU's #18. In the unbiased rankings things are properly ordered: Mississippi State is #13, LSU #14.

SportsRatings pre-season rankings, updated for week 4:

LW	Rank	Team	rec	chg
1	1	Baylor	3-0	0.00
5	2	Alabama	4-0	+1.39
7	3	Texas A&M	4-0	+2.65
2	4	Florida St	3-0	-2.36
11	5	Georgia	2-1	+3.01
4	6	Auburn	3-0	-1.45
3	7	Oregon	4-0	-1.73
6	8	Mississippi	3-0	0.00
10	9	Oklahoma	4-0	+1.43
9	10	UCLA	3-0	0.00
8	11	BYU	4-0	-2.25
25	12	Wisconsin	2-1	+5.12
18	13	Utah	3-0	+1.67
13	14	Southern Cal	2-1	0.00
16	15	Michigan St	2-1	+1.24
14	16	Ohio State	2-1	0.00
20	17	Clemson	1-2	+2.36
12	18	LSU	3-1	-2.27
21	19	Mississippi St	4-0	+2.27
17	20	Stanford	2-1	0.00
19	21	Notre Dame	3-0	0.00
22	22	TCU	2-0	0.00
15	23	Missouri	3-1	-2.90
23	24	Oklahoma St	2-1	0.00
32	25	Arkansas	3-1	+4.41
24	26	Florida	2-1	-1.39
26	27	West Virginia	2-2	-1.43
33	28	Maryland	3-1	+2.22
28	29	Arizona	4-0	-1.00
29	30	Nebraska	4-0	-0.50
30	31	Arizona St	3-0	0.00
27	32	South Carolina	3-1	-1.49
38	33	Indiana	2-1	+2.90
34	34	Louisville	3-1	+0.51
44	35	Marshall	4-0	+2.77
35	36	Texas	1-2	0.00
43	37	Duke	4-0	+2.44
56	38	East Carolina	3-1	+4.50
39	39	Oregon St	3-0	+1.27
37	40	Houston	2-2	+0.80
40	41	Kansas St	2-1	+1.45
47	42	Virginia	2-2	+2.25
31	43	Washington	4-0	-2.06
41	44	Boise St	3-1	+0.81
46	45	California	2-1	+1.00
45	46	Kentucky	2-1	0.00
36	47	Virginia Tech	2-2	-2.54
55	48	Washington St	1-3	+1.73
52	49	Memphis	2-1	+0.30
53	50	Minnesota	3-1	-0.20
60	51	Central Florida	1-2	+1.44
42	52	Pittsburgh	3-1	-2.20
49	53	Michigan	2-2	-1.67
57	54	Tennessee	2-1	0.00
59	55	Miami FL	2-2	+0.50
63	56	Penn State	4-0	+2.38
51	57	Syracuse	2-1	-2.22
65	58	Iowa	3-1	+2.20
67	59	Georgia Tech	4-0	+2.54
66	60	Boston College	3-1	+1.97
61	61	UTSA	1-2	0.00
48	62	Cincinnati	2-0	-4.11
54	63	Navy	2-2	-3.35
64	64	Nevada	2-1	0.00
50	65	North Carolina	2-1	-4.50
62	66	Northwestern	1-2	-1.50
68	67	Iowa St	1-2	0.00
69	68	Colorado St	2-1	0.00
58	69	Northern Illinois	3-1	-4.41
75	70	Temple	2-1	+3.23
78	71	Rutgers	3-1	+3.35
72	72	Texas Tech	2-1	0.00
71	73	North Carolina St	4-0	-0.46
70	74	San Diego St	1-2	-1.27
74	75	Toledo	2-2	-0.44
92	76	North Texas	2-2	+6.88
86	77	Fresno St	1-3	+4.08
76	78	Utah St	2-2	-0.81
79	79	Illinois	3-1	-0.69
91	80	Georgia Southern	2-2	+4.05
80	81	Colorado	2-2	+0.65
73	82	Bowling Green	2-2	-5.12
81	83	Florida Atlantic	1-3	-0.07
82	84	W. Kentucky	1-2	0.00
83	85	Middle Tennessee St	2-2	-0.30
88	86	San Jose St	1-2	+0.20
77	87	Louisiana Tech	2-2	-5.16
93	88	Old Dominion	3-1	+1.52
87	89	Hawaii	0-3	-0.65
106	90	Purdue	2-2	+3.75
84	91	Rice	0-3	-1.52
89	92	LA-Lafayette	1-3	-0.81
99	93	Kansas	2-1	+1.69
90	94	Wyoming	3-1	+0.07
96	95	Arkansas St	2-2	+0.81
85	96	Tulane	1-3	-2.44
95	97	UAB	2-1	0.00
97	98	Wake Forest	2-2	-0.43
107	99	Vanderbilt	1-3	+1.49
102	100	Texas St.	1-2	+0.69
101	101	LA-Monroe	2-1	0.00
103	102	Ball St	1-3	+0.44
104	103	Army	1-2	+0.43
94	104	Akron	1-2	-2.77
105	105	Ohio U.	2-2	-0.15
108	106	Air Force	2-1	0.00
100	107	Central Michigan	2-2	-1.69
116	108	Western Mich.	2-1	+4.18
109	109	Connecticut	1-3	-0.45
110	110	Buffalo	2-2	+0.39
98	111	South Alabama	1-2	-4.05
113	112	UTEP	2-1	0.00
112	113	Appalachian St	1-2	-0.48
115	114	South Florida	2-2	+0.45
111	115	UNLV	1-3	-0.80
114	116	Tulsa	1-2	0.00
121	117	Miami OH	0-4	+4.11
117	118	New Mexico	1-2	-0.73
122	119	Southern Miss	2-2	+0.48
120	120	Kent St	0-3	0.00
125	121	Idaho	0-3	+0.15
118	122	SMU	0-3	-2.65
124	123	FIU	1-3	-0.51
119	124	Massachusetts	0-4	-2.38
123	125	Troy	0-4	-3.01
126	126	Georgia St	1-3	+2.06
128	127	New Mexico St	2-2	+0.73
127	128	Eastern Michigan	1-3	-1.24

With UCLA at #10, Utah at #13 (up 5), and USC at #14, the Pac-12 South has quite a race on its hands. Those teams are #34, #18, and #25 in Strength so the Utes might end up the favorite eventually. BYU's #11 ranking, down from #8 pre-season, is somewhat validated by their #16 Strength rating.

What about the Big Ten? We didn't have their teams ranked very high to start and now we find, after Wisconsin at #12, Michigan State at #15, Ohio State at #16, Maryland at #28, Nebraska at #30, and Indiana at #33. In Strength these teams check in at #10, #43, #24, #30, #15, and #52. So Michigan State might not be quite as good as people think, and Nebraska probably started too low and hasn't moved up enough in our updates. And perhaps the Strength rankings needs more time to mature.

All in all there is remarkable similarity in the two ranking systems after four weeks. Just around the bottom of the top 25 are three more SEC teams: Missouri falling to #23, Arkansas rising to #25, and Florida at #26. These rankings are very similar to their Strength rankings of #26, #22, and #27. The Big Twelve's Oklahoma State and West Virginia, near-spoilers in week 1, check in at #24 and #27 here and at #17 and #21 in Strength.

Speaking of spoilers, East Carolina took a huge leap from #56 to #38 after beating North Carolina 70-41. The Tar Heels fell from #50 to #65. Another Pirate victim, Virginia Tech, lost to Georgia Tech and fell 11 spots to #47. And a third ACC teams, Pittsburgh, suffered a bad loss (to Iowa at home) and dropped ten spots to #52. Other big droppers include Cincinnati (down 14 to #62 after edging Miami of Ohio 31-24) and Northern Illinois (blown out by Arkansas 52-14, they fell 11 to #69).

When mature, the Strength ratings are better than an updated pre-season system, due to lack of bias and because things are "tied" together more. Above we see North Texas, up 16 to #76 after a great 77-3 win over Nicholls State. That puts them well head of Louisiana Tech, who drops 10 to #87 after losing to Northwestern State. But a week before, the Bulldogs beat the Mean Green 42-21. In Strength, Louisiana Tech is #60 and North Texas #87; a proper order is much more likely in an unbiased system. In the early weeks sometimes Strength isn't quite accurate while pre-season bias provides some order, After a few week we'll have the best of both worlds—unbiased, and informed.

Georgia Southern continued their upward charge. They started at #121, and have moved to #116, 104, 91, and now 81 in the ensuing weeks, proving they're much better than we projected. They're #63 in Strength so they may have more room to climb. They beat South Alabama 28-6 on Saturday. Purdue even showed some more signs of life as they easily handled Southern Illinois, 35-13 and jumped 16 spots to #90. Strength lists the Boilers at #93.

Week 3 Power Rating: Baylor at #1, Mississippi & Oklahoma replace Georgia, USC in top ten

Note: This is an update to our pre-season rankings, using a Bayesian/ELO adjustment to the ratings before the non-biased Strength power rating becomes reliable.

The race for #1 got settled this weekend as Baylor broke last week's 4-way near-tie by beating Buffalo by slightly more than expected while last week's #1 team, Oregon, didn't crush Wyoming by enough and #4 Alabama "only" beat Southern Miss by 40 points. With #2 Florida State idle, that meant the Bears rose to the top.

Those games weren't significant but more important results happened in the rest of the top ten as Georgia was defeated by South Carolina and USC fell to Boston College in a big upset. Both teams fell out of the top ten and replacing them were Mississippi, who beat UL-Lafayette 56-15, and Oklahoma who beat Tennessee 34-10.

Further down in the top 25 Ohio State made a big comeback from #23 to #14 after blanking Kent State 66-0, while Florida fell an equal number of positions to #24 after needing triple overtime to beat Kentucky.

SportsRatings Week 3 Power Rating Bayesian/ELO update

Last Week	Current Rank	Team	Record	Rating Change
3	1	Baylor	3-0	+0.83
2	2	Florida St	2-0	0.00
1	3	Oregon	3-0	-1.38
5	4	Auburn	2-0	0.00
4	5	Alabama	3-0	-2.38
11	6	Mississippi	3-0	+1.23
10	7	Texas A&M	3-0	-0.89
6	8	BYU	3-0	-2.38
8	9	UCLA	3-0	-1.30
13	10	Oklahoma	3-0	+1.04
7	11	Georgia	1-1	-2.07
12	12	LSU	3-0	-1.35
9	13	Southern Cal	2-1	-4.44
23	14	Ohio State	2-1	+5.14
20	15	Missouri	3-0	+2.50
16	16	Michigan St	1-1	0.00
18	17	Stanford	2-1	+0.16
17	18	Utah	2-0	0.00
14	19	Notre Dame	3-0	-2.66
19	20	Clemson	1-1	0.00
25	21	Mississippi St	3-0	+2.19
27	22	TCU	2-0	+2.52
30	23	Oklahoma St	2-1	+3.64
15	24	Florida	2-0	-2.62
21	25	Wisconsin	1-1	0.00
26	26	West Virginia	2-1	+0.98
32	27	South Carolina	2-1	+2.07
22	28	Arizona	3-0	-1.87
42	29	Nebraska	3-0	+4.69
28	30	Arizona St	3-0	-0.33
35	31	Washington	3-0	+1.35
43	32	Arkansas	2-1	+3.03
29	33	Maryland	2-1	-0.98
31	34	Louisville	2-1	-0.70
36	35	Texas	1-2	+1.30
24	36	Virginia Tech	2-1	-3.81
49	37	Houston	1-2	+2.38
33	38	Indiana	1-1	-2.41
39	39	Oregon St	2-0	0.00
41	40	Kansas St	2-0	0.00
40	41	Boise St	2-1	-0.29
34	42	Pittsburgh	3-0	-2.35
59	43	Duke	3-0	+3.90
53	44	Marshall	3-0	+1.49
55	45	Kentucky	2-1	+2.62
44	46	California	2-0	0.00
48	47	Virginia	2-1	+0.70
56	48	Cincinnati	1-0	+3.07
38	49	Michigan	2-1	-1.75
46	50	North Carolina	2-0	0.00
67	51	Syracuse	2-0	+5.59
50	52	Memphis	1-1	0.00
37	53	Minnesota	2-1	-2.52
52	54	Navy	2-1	-0.23
61	55	Washington St	1-2	+2.52
65	56	East Carolina	2-1	+3.81
51	57	Tennessee	2-1	-1.04
54	58	Northern Illinois	3-0	-0.33
58	59	Miami FL	2-1	+0.89
47	60	Central Florida	0-2	-2.50
45	61	UTSA	1-2	-3.64
62	62	Northwestern	0-2	0.00
63	63	Penn State	3-0	+0.11
69	64	Nevada	2-1	+1.87
60	65	Iowa	2-1	-1.81
74	66	Boston College	2-1	+4.44
57	67	Georgia Tech	3-0	-2.64
71	68	Iowa St	1-2	+1.81
66	69	Colorado St	2-1	-0.14
70	70	San Diego St	1-1	0.00
81	71	North Carolina St	3-0	+4.94
64	72	Texas Tech	2-1	-3.03
78	73	Bowling Green	2-1	+2.41
68	74	Toledo	1-2	-3.07
73	75	Temple	1-1	0.00
77	76	Utah St	2-1	+0.09
86	77	Louisiana Tech	2-1	+4.47
76	78	Rutgers	2-1	-0.11
72	79	Illinois	2-1	-1.35
83	80	Colorado	1-2	+0.33
97	81	Florida Atlantic	1-2	+3.83
88	82	W. Kentucky	1-2	+0.61
82	83	Middle Tennessee St	2-1	-0.61
92	84	Rice	0-2	+0.89
101	85	Tulane	1-2	+3.31
75	86	Fresno St	0-3	-4.69
93	87	Hawaii	0-2	+0.67
91	88	San Jose St	1-1	0.00
85	89	LA-Lafayette	1-2	-1.23
100	90	Wyoming	2-1	+1.38
104	91	Georgia Southern	1-2	+2.64
79	92	North Texas	1-2	-4.48
87	93	Old Dominion	2-1	-2.21
96	94	Akron	1-1	0.00
89	95	UAB	2-1	-2.41
95	96	Arkansas St	1-2	-0.89
98	97	Wake Forest	1-2	-0.09
94	98	South Alabama	1-1	-2.19
84	99	Kansas	1-1	-3.90
80	100	Central Michigan	2-1	-5.59
109	101	LA-Monroe	2-1	+1.35
105	102	Texas St.	1-1	+0.23
90	103	Ball St	1-2	-4.39
107	104	Army	1-1	-0.16
102	105	Ohio U.	1-2	-1.49
112	106	Purdue	1-2	+2.66
99	107	Vanderbilt	1-2	-2.08
106	108	Air Force	2-1	-0.47
110	109	Connecticut	1-2	+0.29
111	110	Buffalo	1-2	-0.83
115	111	UNLV	1-2	+0.33
114	112	Appalachian St	1-1	0.00
116	113	UTEP	2-1	+0.15
108	114	Tulsa	1-2	-3.83
103	115	South Florida	1-2	-4.94
120	116	Western Mich.	1-1	+2.68
117	117	New Mexico	0-2	0.00
118	118	SMU	0-2	0.00
123	119	Massachusetts	0-3	+2.08
113	120	Kent St	0-3	-5.14
122	121	Miami OH	0-3	+1.75
124	122	Southern Miss	1-2	+2.38
121	123	Troy	0-3	-1.44
125	124	FIU	1-2	+2.35
119	125	Idaho	0-2	-2.68
126	126	Georgia St	1-2	+0.47
128	127	Eastern Michigan	1-2	+2.21
127	128	New Mexico St	2-1	-0.15

Like Ohio State, Nebraska redeemed itself somewhat after a poor week 2, jumping from #42 to #29 after crushing Fresno State 55-19. But not every Big Ten team bounced back this week; Minnesota was manhandled by TCU 30-7 and fell 16 spots to #53, and Michigan was hardly impressive in beating Miami of Ohio 34-10. The Wolverines fall another 11 spots to #49.

Arkansas beat Texas Tech 49-28 and moved up 11 to #32. Virginia Tech fell 12 spots to #36 after being upset by East Carolina, while Houston also reversed their trajectory from previous weeks, up 12 to #37 after losing at #8 BYU 33-25. Kentucky also moved up despite losing, as they took Florida to triple overtime in the Swamp; the Wildcats jumped from #55 to #45.

Duke jumped 16 to #43 after demolishing Kansas 41-3, and Syracuse almost mirrored that by moving from #67 to #51 after beating Central Michigan 40-3. A couple of promising "Group of Five" conference members took a dive: Central Florida lost to Missouri 38-10 and fell 13 spots to #60, while Texas-San Antonio dropped 16 after losing big at Oklahoma State, 43-13.

Georgia Tech lost all of its huge lead over Georgia Southern but recovered to win at the end, 42-38. But the Yellow Jackets dropped 10 to #67, while the Eagles were up 13 to #91. Meanwhile Tech's ACC teammate North Carolina State rose 10 spots to #71 after beating South Florida 49-17.

Florida Atlantic recovered all of the ground they lost in their awful debut vs. Nebraska, rising 16 to #81 for trouncing Tulsa 50-21. Tulane, who lost to Tulsa in overtime in week 1, rebounded with a strong win over Southeastern Louisiana, 35-20.

Fresno State started at #61 in our pre-season rankings but three straight terrible losses to Power Five conference foes have them at #86, down another ten spots after their loss to the Cornhuskers. Wyoming lost almost as badly to Oregon but they rise ten to #90. North Texas ran into a hot Louisiana Tech and lost 42-21; they fall 13 spots to #92.

The MAC had some bad times this week, even relative to expectations. Central Michigan dropped more than any other team, falling from #80 to #100 after losing 40-3 to Syracuse. And Ball State lost to Indiana State 27-20; the Cardinals fall 13 spots to #103.

Kansas was another big loser, dropping 15 to #99 after the Duke blowout loss. South Florida also lost big to an ACC team (NC State) and dropped from #103 to #115.

Baylor temporarily takes over #1 spot after 63-21 Buffalo blowout

Prior to Saturday's action, Baylor moved to #1 in our power ratings after clubbing Buffalo 63-21 on Friday night, breaking the near-four-way tie that existed at the top of our rankings. Or rather, it's still a near-four-way tie, but Baylor is the team du jour at the top:

#  Team              Rec     Rating
1. Baylor            2-0     70.95
2. Oregon            2-0     70.28
3. Florida St        2-0     70.22
4. Alabama           2-0     70.03

With Florida State idle, the pre-season #1 will have to settle for being #2 at best prior to next week's game vs. Clemson. The other teams—Alabama and Oregon—have opportunities to gain the #1 spot if they are able to overwhelm their overmatched opponents to a greater degree than Baylor did.

Obviously these early games have less "meaning" in that a touchdown here or there is a lot more random. Does Oregon score 42 or 69 against Wyoming? Will Alabama win 35-0 vs. Southern Miss and say that's good enough, or push for 56? But the best teams tend to win their games effortlessly, and any sign of struggle or not getting on track against a very inferior opponent is evidence that maybe they aren't #1.

The real difference between these teams will be revealed when they start facing good competition regularly. Originally #1 and #2, Florida State and Alabama both already had a test against Power Five conference opponents, and both looked beatable. Pre-season #4 Oregon had a big win over a top 25 team, beating Michigan State 46-27. So now all three are basically tied.

Pre-season #6 Baylor has skated by with wins over SMU, Northwestern State, and Buffalo. They ease into their conference schedule with Iowa State next week, then Texas and TCU follow. The only top 25 AP teams they face this year are Oklahoma and Kansas State, but they do face both of the teams that gave Alabama and FSU such fits on opening week, West Virginia and Oklahoma State.

So there will be ample opportunity for comparison. Last year Baylor looked unbeatable early against 2nd- and 3rd-rate competition, but they were down a notch in conference play and finally lost a game. This year Baylor again looks fantastic after three games but will have to prove they deserve to hold the #1 spot; then they might be more than the "temporary" #1.

Week 2 Power Rating: Oregon, FSU, Baylor, Alabama in 4-way logjam at top

Note: This is another update to our pre-season rankings, using a Bayesian/ELO adjustment to the ratings before the non-biased Strength power rating becomes usable.

Though Florida State started with a big lead in our pre-season rankings it only took two weeks for a new number one to overtake the Seminoles. Due to FSU's disappointing play and Oregon's big 46-27 victory over Michigan State, the Ducks are our new #1 team—but it's very tight.

Oregon's lead is just 6/100 of a point, and they're only 0.25 ahead of #4 Alabama. Here is the actual rating breakdown among the top four teams:

1. Oregon (70.28)
2. Florida State (70.22)
3. Baylor (70.12)
4. Alabama (70.03)

If Alabama had been allowed to finish out the final minutes of their 41-0 win over Florida Atlantic, they might be sitting at #1 right now.

Auburn is a relatively distant #5, while BYU jumps to #6 after their beatdown of Texas. The Pac-12 picture changed a lot with Oregon's ascendance and UCLA's continued struggles, and the Bruins fall to #8, still one spot ahead of USC whose win over Stanford wasn't far off expectations. Texas A&M edged up to complete the top 10.

Notre Dame is the big mover within the top 25 (from #23 to #14), and their 31-0 win knocked Michigan out of the ballpark from 25 to 38. Michigan State and Stanford suffered little for their losses, but Ohio State fell from #14 to #23; they are still a spot ahead of the team that beat them 35-21 at home due to the weight that the pre-season ratings retain. Virginia Tech jumps 15 spots to #24 and the fact that they beat the Buckeyes suggests they have further to rise, or OSU further to fall.

Clemson and Missouri rise into the top 25 this week too, while Maryland fell out due to their close call with South Florida and Texas fell out due to their 41-7 loss to BYU. The Longhorns were a hopeful #24 last week but a shamed #36 this week.

Last Week	Current Rank	Team	Record	Rating Change
4	1	Oregon	2-0	+1.35
1	2	Florida St	2-0	-5.69
5	3	Baylor	2-0	+1.58
2	4	Alabama	2-0	-0.02
6	5	Auburn	2-0	+1.46
10	6	BYU	2-0	+5.28
7	7	Georgia	1-0	0.00
3	8	UCLA	2-0	-3.32
8	9	Southern Cal	2-0	+0.68
11	10	Texas A&M	2-0	+4.42
9	11	Mississippi	2-0	+1.98
15	12	LSU	2-0	+4.02
16	13	Oklahoma	2-0	+3.73
23	14	Notre Dame	2-0	+4.86
21	15	Florida	1-0	+2.78
12	16	Michigan St	1-1	-1.35
20	17	Utah	2-0	+2.47
13	18	Stanford	1-1	-0.68
36	19	Clemson	1-1	+5.82
28	20	Missouri	2-0	+3.25
18	21	Wisconsin	1-1	-1.12
19	22	Arizona	2-0	-0.38
14	23	Ohio State	1-1	-4.40
39	24	Virginia Tech	2-0	+4.4
17	25	Mississippi St	2-0	-3.03
47	26	West Virginia	1-1	+6.94
26	27	TCU	1-0	0.00
33	28	Arizona St	2-0	+1.65
22	29	Maryland	1-1	-3.37
27	30	Oklahoma St	1-1	-1.13
41	31	Louisville	2-0	+2.9
29	32	South Carolina	1-1	-0.85
32	33	Indiana	1-0	0.00
37	34	Pittsburgh	2-0	+0.22
30	35	Washington	2-0	-2.25
24	36	Texas	1-1	-5.28
34	37	Minnesota	2-0	-2.01
25	38	Michigan	1-1	-4.86
38	39	Oregon St	2-0	-1.00
43	40	Boise St	1-1	+0.51
42	41	Kansas St	2-0	-0.31
31	42	Nebraska	2-0	-2.95
59	43	Arkansas	1-1	+3.86
50	44	California	2-0	+1.1
46	45	UTSA	1-1	+0.38
40	46	North Carolina	2-0	-2.03
49	47	Central Florida	0-1	0.00
56	48	Virginia	1-1	+1.24
35	49	Houston	1-1	-4.13
62	50	Memphis	1-1	+3.32
45	51	Tennessee	2-0	-1.13
52	52	Navy	1-1	+0.43
44	53	Marshall	2-0	-1.59
63	54	Northern Illinois	2-0	+2.76
55	55	Kentucky	2-0	-0.52
60	56	Cincinnati	0-0	0.00
64	57	Georgia Tech	2-0	+1.32
51	58	Miami FL	1-1	-2.00
57	59	Duke	2-0	-1.01
48	60	Iowa	2-0	-2.88
54	61	Washington St	0-2	-2.49
53	62	Northwestern	0-2	-2.76
66	63	Penn State	2-0	+0.48
58	64	Texas Tech	2-0	-2.65
69	65	East Carolina	1-1	+0.85
67	66	Colorado St	1-1	-0.51
68	67	Syracuse	1-0	0.00
61	68	Toledo	1-1	-3.25
74	69	Nevada	2-0	+2.49
78	70	San Diego St	1-1	+2.03
73	71	Iowa St	0-2	+0.31
75	72	Illinois	2-0	+0.03
76	73	Temple	1-1	-0.43
77	74	Boston College	1-1	-0.22
71	75	Fresno St	0-2	-2.47
65	76	Rutgers	2-0	-5.44
72	77	Utah St	1-1	-2.54
79	78	Bowling Green	1-1	-0.49
96	79	North Texas	1-1	+4.82
88	80	Central Michigan	2-0	+2.92
84	81	North Carolina St	2-0	+1.22
86	82	Middle Tennessee St	1-1	+2.01
81	83	Colorado	1-1	-2.40
80	84	Kansas	1-0	-3.81
70	85	LA-Lafayette	1-1	-7.95
114	86	Louisiana Tech	1-1	+7.95
82	87	Old Dominion	1-1	-1.22
85	88	W. Kentucky	1-1	-0.03
100	89	UAB	1-1	+3.03
101	90	Ball St	1-1	+2.88
83	91	San Jose St	1-1	-1.46
94	92	Rice	0-1	0.00
91	93	Hawaii	0-2	+1
95	94	South Alabama	1-0	+1.14
99	95	Arkansas St	1-1	+1.13
92	96	Akron	1-1	-0.48
97	97	Florida Atlantic	0-2	+0.02
87	98	Wake Forest	1-1	-2.06
89	99	Vanderbilt	0-2	-1.98
98	100	Wyoming	2-0	-0.31
93	101	Tulane	0-2	-1.32
103	102	Ohio U.	1-1	+0.52
113	103	South Florida	1-1	+3.37
116	104	Georgia Southern	1-1	+5.31
105	105	Texas St.	1-0	0.00
108	106	Air Force	1-1	+0.31
110	107	Army	1-0	+0.8
90	108	Tulsa	1-1	-3.73
104	109	LA-Monroe	2-0	-0.71
107	110	Connecticut	1-1	-1.19
109	111	Buffalo	1-1	-0.80
106	112	Purdue	1-1	-2.92
111	113	Kent St	0-2	-1.14
119	114	Appalachian St	1-1	+4.34
102	115	UNLV	1-1	-4.36
117	116	UTEP	1-1	+2.65
115	117	New Mexico	0-2	-1.65
112	118	SMU	0-2	-4.82
120	119	Idaho	0-1	+0.71
118	120	Western Mich.	0-1	0.00
122	121	Troy	0-2	+1.01
121	122	Miami OH	0-2	-1.29
125	123	Massachusetts	1-1	+2.4
123	124	Southern Miss	1-1	-1.53
124	125	FIU	1-1	+0.37
126	126	Georgia St	1-1	-1.86
128	127	New Mexico St	2-0	+1.86
127	128	Eastern Michigan	1-1	-2.78

Playing FCS teams can carry a risk or a reward. West Virginia beat Towson 54-0 and made another big move, up 21 to #26 and now from #57 pre-season they are almost in the top 25. Louisville gained another 10 spots to #31 after beating Murray State 66-21 while Nebraska fell from 31 to 42 after barely beating McNeese State at home. Arkansas' 73-7 beatdown of Nicholls State moved them from #59 to #43.

Meeting in the middle: Houston started the year at #16, Memphis at #70. After just two games only 1 spot separates the Cougars and the Tigers. Houston fell a further 14 spots despite crushing Grambling 47-0, and Memphis rose 12 spots after losing to UCLA 42-35. In power ratings the old adage is true, it's not whether you win or lose it's how you play the game (and how tough the opposition was).

More woe to the Big Ten: Iowa falls 12 spots to #60 after beating Ball State 17-13; Northwestern drops 9 to #62 after losing to Northern Illinois; and Rutgers drops 11 after beating Howard 38-25.

How bad is SMU? The Mustangs lost to North Texas 43-6, who last week lost to Texas 38-7, who this week lost to BYU 41-7. SMU falls to #118 while the Mean Green rise 17 places to #79.

Two more power rating quirks: when using biased systems (those that retain pre-season ratings as a starting point) you get some oddities, and this week we see three. Ohio State ended up exactly one spot above Virginia Tech; that Louisiana-Lafayette (down 15 to #85) is still a spot ahead of the Louisiana Tech (up 18 spots) team that beat them 48-20; and that New Mexico State (#127) remains a spot below Georgia State after beating them on the road. You don't want to overweight the results of just two games, but in these cases you just wish the numbers had flipped the two teams in question. In non-biased systems these things wouldn't happen unless there's a really good reason; here there is none.

UAB is proving to be a much better team than we expected, and they've jumped from #114 to #100 to this week's #89. Last week Ball State fell from #93 to #101 after a win, but regained all of that and more from a close loss to Iowa this week. Georgia Southern's 83-point performance took them from #116 to #104, while Tulsa's 52-7 loss to Oklahoma dumped them from #90 to #108. UNLV was another big loser, falling from #102 to #115 after beating Northern Colorado by a point; the Rebels started the year as our #90 team.

 

2013 Florida State: Where do they rank all-time, part III: Overall

Our previous two posts tried to answer the questions: where does this year's Florida State team rank out of team in the past 50 year by success and by strength. Now we combine the two answers into one final judgement.

The two previous rankings correspond to our two basic power ratings, Success and Strength. The Success rating measures a team's wins and losses using no margin of victory, while Strength uses pretty much only margin of victory to gauge a team's dominance.

Combining the two gives a better picture of how good a team is in historical terms. Some teams have great Strength but aren't consistent and lose a game here or there; the Overall power rating makes sure they "prove" it by having a great year against a tough schedule. Other teams, let's face it, aren't as good but they get lucky and have a towering Success rating but aren't dominant against their opponents. The Overall power rating makes sure that these teams aren't overrated.

So for what it's worth, here is the all-time (ok, past 50 years) Overall power rating Top 25:

#   Year Team                       Rec    Rating  Strgth[rnk] Success[rnk]
1.  1971 Nebraska                   13-0   87.29   41.21 [  6]  46.07 [  1]
2.  1995 Nebraska                   12-0   74.77   42.65 [  3]  32.11 [  7]
3.  1988 Notre Dame                 12-0   69.83   30.51 [ --]  39.32 [  2]
4.  2005 Texas                      13-0   68.29   41.07 [  7]  27.22 [ 12]
5.  2004 Southern California        13-0   68.14   35.95 [ --]  32.19 [  6]
6.  2009 Alabama                    14-0   66.91   29.27 [ --]  37.64 [  3]
7.  2013 Florida St                 14-0   65.93   40.91 [  8]  25.02 [ 19]
8.  1987 Miami (Florida)            12-0   65.65   32.56 [ --]  33.09 [  5]
9.  1973 Oklahoma                   10-0-1 64.69   42.36 [  4]  22.32 [ --]
10. 1991 Washington                 12-0   64.64   39.97 [ 12]  24.66 [ 20]
11. 2010 Auburn                     14-0   63.57   26.82 [ --]  36.75 [  4]
12. 1974 Oklahoma                   11-0   63.10   44.27 [  2]  18.82 [ --]
13. 2001 Miami (Florida)            12-0   60.63   39.26 [ 16]  21.36 [ --]
14. 1973 Notre Dame                 11-0   60.50   35.20 [ --]  25.30 [ 18]
15. 1972 Southern California        12-0   59.37   37.65 [ --]  21.71 [ --]
16. 1997 Nebraska                   13-0   59.37   32.42 [ --]  26.94 [ 13]
17. 2011 LSU                        13-1   59.15   32.71 [ --]  26.43 [ 14]
18. 1991 Miami (Florida)            12-0   58.68   29.24 [ --]  29.43 [  9]
19. 2008 Florida                    13-1   58.46   38.05 [ 25]  20.40 [ --]
20. 1996 Florida                    12-1   58.43   36.30 [ --]  22.13 [ --]
21. 2011 Alabama                    12-1   57.90   35.01 [ --]  22.88 [ --]
22. 1972 Oklahoma                   11-1   57.88   39.82 [ 15]  18.06 [ --]
23. 2000 Oklahoma                   13-0   57.15   29.91 [ --]  27.23 [ 11]
24. 2012 Alabama                    13-1   56.07   34.58 [ --]  21.49 [ --]
25. 1971 Alabama                    11-1   55.51   35.75 [ --]  19.76 [ --]

By this verdict, Florida State is the 7th best team of the last 50 years, a pretty lofty status. You can see that they're one of the few teams to rank in the top 20 in both measures, Strength and Success, and that puts them in rare company with the best teams of the last 5 decades.

1971 Nebraska comes out on top; we've covered how their 1971 season played out much like a playoff with Alabama (who finished at #25 here) and Oklahoma (who is actually at #26). No other team in the top 25 beat another all-time top 25 team (except 2011 LSU and Alabama, who each beat the other one once).

1995 Nebraska gives the Cornhuskers the top two teams of the modern era; they were one of the strongest teams at #3 and their 12-0 season was the 7th most impressive. 1988 Notre Dame had the 2nd greatest season by the Success measure and they were strong enough to end up at #3 overall.

At #4 2005 Texas is just ahead of 2004 Southern Cal interestingly; Texas beat the 2005 version of that team to win the national title. Next comes 2009 Alabama, the weakest team in the top 10; however, they finished 14-0 and beat an undefeated Texas team to win the BCS that year.

2013 Florida State is the highest-ranked team that gets its rating overwhelmingly from Strength. Their 14-0 finish was impressive obviously, but not nearly as impressive as other 14-0 teams or even some 12-0 teams, as their average opponent was somewhat weak. Still, it ranks 19th in our ratings and along with their #8 Strength ranking, puts them at #7 overall.

Rounding out the top 10 are 1987 Miami, 1973 Oklahoma (the highest-ranked team with a blemished record), and 1991 Washington, who split the national title with 1991 Miami (#18).

Though the survey starts from 1964, there were no '60s teams in the top 25, mainly because the bowl system was a mess back then. Many teams played just 10 games and often the best teams didn't go to a bowl game for one reason or another. Seven teams from the 70s made it, as that decade saw great disparity between the haves and have-nots.

Only two teams made it from the 80s as parity started setting in, but those two teams both made the top ten. Five teams from the '90s made it as well as six teams in the first decade of the 2000s as schedules expanded to a normal 12-game slate.

Less than half way through the 2010s there are five teams from the decade already. Note that three of them have 14-0 records which pumps up their Success rating, and that four of the five are from the SEC, which makes for a tough schedule (and therefore a higher rating if you do well).

What does the future hold? With the 4-team playoff starting, look for the winner to place very high on our all-time list. With two post-season games a team could be 15-0 with two big wins to finish the season, and that will make them worthy of consideration for the best team of all-time. Imagine a major-conference team going 12-0, winning their conference title game against a top team, then beating another 13-0 team to get to the championship game against another 14-0 team, and winning that? Their Success rating would be off the charts, and their Strength would presumably be very high to be capable of something like that. So 1971 Nebraska's days at #1 might be numbered.

2013 Florida State - Where do they rank all-time, part II: Strength

Our previous post looked at where this year's FSU ranks all-time in terms of accomplishment for going 14-0 against the schedule they played. This post attempts to look at a more difficult problem: where they stack up in terms of quality against teams of the past 50 years.

It's a tougher question because now you're really comparing different eras. It's one thing to ask how impressive it was for a team to win 14 games; it's another to say, how good are they, really?

Most people believe that today's teams would easily defeat teams of the distant past. The only question is, how distant? Certainly today's FSU would beat 1892 Yale. And 1945 Army. The 1950s Oklahoma dynasty? Sure. Doubt probably creeps in somewhere in the last 50 years. But today's players are far bigger and faster than the great 1970s...what about the 80s? 90s? 10 years ago?

We aren't even going to make guesses, but instead look at teams' Strength ratings, which basically tell how strong a team was relative to the current Division I-A scene at the time. Truly dominant teams will score high, while those that didn't dominate as much don't score as high. Winning all the games doesn't necessarily matter that much, but winning by a lot does, and beating good teams by a lot is critical. After we list the top 20 teams of the last 5 decades, we can speculate about how much "time-correction" should be applied.

Here are the top 20 teams of the last 50 years in our Strength power rating (offense and defense ranks are for that particular year):

#   Year Team                       Rec   Rating  Offense[rnk]  Defense[rnk]
1.  1972 Nebraska                   9-2-1  44.92   46.01 [  1]    1.09 [  2]
2.  1974 Oklahoma                   11-0   44.30   48.17 [  1]    3.86 [  2]
3.  1995 Nebraska                   12-0   42.66   54.30 [  1]   11.64 [  2]
4.  1973 Oklahoma                   10-0-1 42.37   45.62 [  2]    3.25 [  4]
5.  1973 Ohio State                 10-0-1 41.37   43.06 [  4]    1.68 [  2]
6.  1971 Nebraska                   13-0   41.19   43.00 [  2]    1.81 [  1]
7.  2005 Texas                      13-0   41.07   53.74 [  1]   12.66 [  4]
8.  2013 Florida St                 14-0   40.91   53.23 [  2]   12.32 [  4]
9.  1970 Texas                      10-1   40.89   47.19 [  1]    6.29 [  5]
10. 1989 Houston                     9-2   40.50   54.28 [  1]   13.78 [ 15]
11. 1980 Nebraska                   10-2   40.20   44.37 [  2]    4.17 [  3]
12. 1991 Washington                 12-0   39.99   44.56 [  1]    4.56 [  2]
13. 1973 Alabama                    11-1   39.97   44.73 [  3]    4.75 [  5]
14. 1986 Oklahoma                   11-1   39.90   44.71 [  1]    4.81 [  1]
15. 1972 Oklahoma                   11-1   39.82   38.69 [  5]   -1.12 [  1]
16. 2001 Miami (Florida)            12-0   39.26   46.80 [  2]    7.54 [  1]
17. 1971 Oklahoma                   11-1   38.75   49.79 [  1]   11.04 [ 17]
18. 1969 Ohio State                  8-1   38.66   44.48 [  1]    5.82 [  8]
19. 1966 Notre Dame                  9-0-1 38.48   39.76 [  1]    1.27 [  2]
20. 1996 Nebraska                   11-2   38.38   45.55 [  2]    7.17 [  2]

This past season's FSU team ranks 8th best by this measure, the best of the decade so far and 2nd best in this century to the 2005 national champion Texas squad. They're 3rd-best over the last 20 years. So if you believe today's teams would clean up against teams of the 70s, the only question is whether today's teams can beat teams from 10 years ago, or even 20 years ago. If so, then Florida State has a claim to perhaps being the strongest team of all-time (though realistically, their nail-biting win over Auburn won't win many converts to that idea).

There are some big surprises at the top. The early 70s saw a lot of great disparity in college football as the rich got richer and the strong got stronger—you could have 100+ players on scholarship back then and teams like Nebraska, Oklahoma, Ohio State, and Alabama took full advantage.

First on the list is an unlikely team: 1972 Nebraska, a team with 2 losses and a tie. They fell to 11-1 Oklahoma (#15 here), 8-3 UCLA, and tied 5-6-1 Iowa State! But they also had a 5-game run where they beat opponents a combined 278-7. They were erratic but on average, pretty incredible. After beating everyone so badly in 1971 (see 1971 Nebraska at #6) we have to assume some overconfidence set in from game to game the next season.

At #2 is 1974 Oklahoma, who finished 11-0 but couldn't go to a bowl game due to probation. So the best team that actually won a national championship is 1995 Nebraska at #3. That team is legendary for blowing out opponents including previously undefeated Florida 62-24 in the title game.

1973 had several dominant teams, including 1973 Oklahoma at #4 and 1973 Ohio State at #5. Each team had a single tie, but not to each other. The Sooners tied 9-2-1 USC that year while Ohio State tied Michigan, then went to the Rose Bowl and beat USC 42-21. 1973 Alabama also comes in at #13.

At #6 is a team often cited as the best of all time, 1971 Nebraska, whom we covered in the last post. 2005 Texas with Vince Young is #7 and rates the best of the century so far. Then 2013 Florida State, who dominated some very good teams and obliterated the bad ones, until Auburn took them to the wire. Before that game, they rated even higher, at #5 with a 42.20 rating, but the narrow 34-31 qin took them down a bit.

Now, from this list you can see that teams that have an incredible average game-performance rating often screw up in a game or two, which should disqualify them from being considered "the best". And from yesterday's post, it's clear that sometimes teams that aren't really the best get lucky and go undefeated. So in the next post we'll rank the top 20 teams in our Overall power rating, which adds the two results, combining Strength and Success to see who should really be considered the top teams of our era. Since FSU was in both lists they'll show up in the top 20 for sure, but where?

Bizarre Butterfly Effect Boosts Minnesota State-Mankato

Sometimes power ratings are weird, and do unexpected things. Today we have a case in point.

Normally even the "odd" things—such as Alabama not being #1 in a margin-of-victory-based power rating—can be explained until it makes some mathematical sense at least, even if one disagrees or it doesn't seem to reflect reality. Oregon and Baylor's other game performances were so otherworldly that even getting blown out this weekend didn't drop them below the Tide when all the games are averaged.

But in today's update of the All-Division Power Rating—which normally behaves itself very well in naturally segregating the Divisions based on quality—took a turn for the bizarre as Minnesota-Mankato's rating doubled from last week and the Mavericks moved into the #29 spot among ALL teams in the nation.

  #  Team                        rec   Rating Offense[rnk]  Defense[rnk]
 26. Oklahoma                    9-2   57.23   54.48 [ 48]   -2.74 [ 20]
 27. Louisville                 10-1   56.90   53.63 [ 50]   -3.27 [ 18]
 28. Utah St                     7-4   56.67   52.36 [ 59]   -4.30 [ 15]
 29. Minn St-Mankato            11-0   56.16   57.18 [ 34]    1.01 [ 39]
 30. North Carolina              6-5   55.17   55.98 [ 40]    0.81 [ 38]
 31. North Dakota St            11-0   54.84   52.47 [ 58]   -2.37 [ 22]
 32. Mississippi                 7-4   54.68   54.04 [ 49]   -0.64 [ 30]
 33. Boise St                    7-4   54.66   57.34 [ 32]    2.68 [ 47]

Perfectly logical, right? - this week's All-division power rating, #26 to #33

What's odd is they didn't even play a game. The boost seems to be based on Minnesota-Duluth's 55-13 win over Emporia State. This amazingly pushed Duluth to #42, and pushed Mankato—the only team to beat Duluth this year—even higher. 

The All-Division power rating has never had the so-called "Mount Union" problem where teams that dominate lower divisions rank high when in the mix of all teams. When the power rating is executed, Mount Union often starts near the top but quickly bubbles their way down in the 100s or 200s (this week they are #238). The problem is unofficially named for Mount Union because of the team's usual dominance in Division III.

This year it seems there isn't quite enough interplay between Division II and the FCS to keep the Division II teams completely in line—or there isn't enough interplay between the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference and other Division II teams to create a pecking order, so that one game can have an outsized effect.

It wouldn't be so unusual if the condition had existed all season, but it suddenly appeared this week. Not after Mankato beat Upper Iowa 72-6, but the week after. Northwest Missouri State was far and away #1 last week in our Division II-only ratings before this "change of guard" took place. A "tipping point" was apparently reached by Duluth's big win in the opening playoff round (St. Cloud's win over Henderson State added to it) and both Minnesota teams were off to the races. Why they bothered to stop where they did, I don't know. Apparently there is a little bit of "gravity" that kept them from breaching the top 25.

So instead of being a 10-point favorite in the playoffs by our power ratings, Northwest Missouri is a 10+ point underdog just one week later. That's not an update that makes sense. Teams don't get 20+ points better or worse in one week, especially when they didn't play a game. The comparison between Duluth and Emporia—a 55-13 game—must have been one of the few games—maybe the only game—situating the NSIC teams among their peers. There's the chance that it's an accurate re-appraisal of the teams (after all Mankato is #1 in the polls) but judging by its effect against other teams in the nation, I'm suspicious.

Interestingly the Bearcats play Minnesota-Duluth in their first-round playoff game...if they whip the Bulldogs, that will in turn bring Duluth and Mankato's ratings back to earth, while a narrow win would partially restore order. Meanwhile Mankato plays St. Cloud, who ranks a pumped-up #64 due to the same effect; if Mankato wins there, they would then face Northwest Missouri State. And that game is just to get to the Final Four!

It might be up to the other teams in the Division II Final Four to make some sense out of this nonsense. But for now, let's just say our money is on the team that emerges from the bracket in question to win it all. Last week Northwest Missouri State looked like a great bet, now the Minnesota teams' ratings are on steroids. And what's really odd is that Mankato is a 2-seed in the bracket, and they're ranked #1 in the D-II polls...thereby putting the #1 and #2 team (NW Missouri) in the same bracket. Wtf, D-II?

Hopefully the effect that bloated Mankato's rating will disperse, but it's also possible that someone from Division II ends the season ranked silly-high. Meaning, ranked ahead of North Dakota State, which is ridiculous. The FCS teams have so many comparisons to the FBS that their highest-ranked team usually deserves to be where they are. It looks like Division II isn't being held in check—at least, not  this week. Was the sudden revision a bizarre fluke, or does it show the Minnesota teams are really the ones to beat? Stay tuned!

Differences between Bayesian and unbiased power ratings at week 6

As week 7 approaches in the college football season, we're transitioning from referring to our Bayesian-modified pre-season rankings to the unbiased Strength power rating. The main difference between the two is that the former uses pre-season rankings as a basis for comparison, while the latter starts with no knowledge of the teams. The former is more useful in the early weeks of course, but the unbiased version starts to become more reliable by mid-season.

Let's take a look at the "final" Bayesian modification, post-week 6, and compare that to how the teams rank in week 6's Strength power rating. There are some cases where teams are ranking quite differently with no bias. Sometimes that's because the ratings haven't quite jelled yet; other times it's because the pre-season rankings for a team's opponents were off. We'll speculate as to which ranking is more accurate for each example.

#1 Baylor is one of the few teams that have the same rank in both ratings, which is ironic since they are probably the most controversial team in the nation in terms of their correct rating. The Bears deserve to be #1 here for what they've done but the question remains whether their game plan on offense can be short-circuited by a strong defense. Their own defense is suspect, too, at #74 in the All-Division power rating.

Week 6 Pre-season Bayesian modified rankings vs. current Strength*

Week6 Modified	Team	Record	Unbiased Strength	Diff
1	Baylor	4-0	1	0
2	Oregon	5-0	3	-1
3	Florida St	5-0	2	1
4	Alabama	5-0	9	-5
5	LSU	5-1	6	-1
6	Ohio State	6-0	13	-7
7	Texas A&M	4-1	18	-11
8	Louisville	5-0	5	3
9	Stanford	5-0	8	1
10	Clemson	5-0	7	3
11	Oklahoma	5-0	24	-13
12	Texas Tech	5-0	16	-4
13	Arizona St	3-2	19	-6
14	Missouri	5-0	11	3
15	UCLA	4-0	10	5
16	Georgia	4-1	12	4
17	Wisconsin	3-2	20	-3
18	Washington	4-1	4	14
19	Florida	4-1	15	4
20	Utah St	3-3	28	-8
21	Arizona	3-1	17	4
22	Miami FL	5-0	14	8
23	Michigan	5-0	46	-23
24	Utah	3-2	26	-2
25	South Carolina	4-1	32	-7
26	Mississippi	3-2	52	-26
27	BYU	3-2	30	-3
28	Oklahoma St	4-1	21	7
29	Georgia Tech	3-2	23	6
30	Virginia Tech	5-1	34	-4
31	Auburn	4-1	27	4
32	Iowa	4-2	53	-21
33	Michigan St	4-1	57	-24
34	Kansas St	2-3	42	-8
35	Texas	3-2	70	-35
36	Boise St	3-2	33	3
37	Southern Cal	3-2	36	1
38	Notre Dame	4-2	60	-22
39	Central Florida	4-1	35	4
40	Northwestern	4-1	51	-11
41	TCU	2-3	25	16
42	Indiana	3-2	22	20
43	Ball St	5-1	50	-7
44	Washington St	4-2	40	4
45	Nebraska	4-1	31	14
46	Oregon St	4-1	62	-16
47	East Carolina	4-1	38	9
48	Tennessee	3-3	39	9
49	Marshall	3-2	29	20
50	Penn State	3-2	45	5
51	Iowa St	1-3	74	-23
52	Maryland	4-1	37	15
53	Arkansas	3-3	67	-14
54	Illinois	3-2	47	7
55	Northern Illinois	5-0	54	1
56	Houston	4-0	44	12
57	Syracuse	2-3	71	-14
58	Bowling Green	5-1	56	2
59	Fresno St	5-0	58	1
60	Toledo	3-3	68	-8
61	Mississippi St	2-3	41	20
62	Western Kentucky	4-2	73	-11
63	Kentucky	1-4	61	2
64	Cincinnati	3-2	75	-11
65	North Carolina	1-4	72	-7
66	Boston College	3-2	55	11
67	Rice	3-2	80	-13
68	Florida Atlantic	2-4	79	-11
69	Navy	3-1	43	26
70	LA-Lafayette	3-2	66	4
71	Colorado St	2-3	95	-24
72	Vanderbilt	3-3	69	3
73	Pittsburgh	3-1	48	25
74	Minnesota	4-2	87	-13
75	Ohio U.	4-1	49	26
76	North Carolina St	3-2	81	-5
77	Rutgers	4-1	78	-1
78	Wyoming	3-2	65	13
79	Colorado	2-2	86	-7
80	North Texas	2-3	64	16
81	Duke	3-2	63	18
82	West Virginia	3-3	59	23
83	Memphis	1-3	76	7
84	San Jose St	2-3	88	-4
85	Buffalo	3-2	77	8
86	SMU	1-4	91	-5
87	Tulane	4-2	94	-7
88	California	1-4	92	-4
89	Tulsa	1-4	104	-15
90	Nevada	3-3	90	0
91	Wake Forest	3-3	96	-5
92	South Alabama	2-3	83	9
93	Virginia	2-3	82	11
94	Middle Tennessee St	3-3	89	5
95	Hawaii	0-5	106	-11
96	Purdue	1-4	114	-18
97	San Diego St	2-3	103	-6
98	Arkansas St	2-3	85	13
99	Texas-San Antonio	2-4	93	6
100	Army	2-4	101	-1
101	Connecticut	0-4	97	4
102	Kansas	2-2	111	-9
103	Texas St.	3-2	84	19
104	Kent St	2-4	100	4
105	New Mexico	2-3	109	-4
106	UNLV	3-2	108	-2
107	Troy	3-3	99	8
108	UAB	1-4	102	6
109	South Florida	1-4	107	2
110	Akron	1-5	105	5
111	Temple	0-5	98	13
112	UTEP	1-4	116	-4
113	Air Force	1-5	110	3
114	Louisiana Tech	2-4	115	-1
115	Central Michigan	2-4	117	-2
116	Massachusetts	0-5	113	3
117	LA-Monroe	2-4	112	5
118	Western Mich.	0-6	122	-4
119	Southern Miss	0-5	120	-1
120	Georgia State	0-5	119	1
121	Eastern Michigan	1-4	123	-2
122	Idaho	1-5	118	4
123	Miami OH	0-5	121	2
124	New Mexico St	0-6	125	-1
125	Florida Int'l	1-4	124	1

* uses All-Division Strength with non-FBS teams excluded

Florida State takes the #2 spot instead of Oregon in the unbiased ratings, something that isn't hard to argue after the Maryland game. But both teams look like they should be in the top three either way.

Alabama fell from #1 to #4 in our Bayesian updates, but in the current Strength ratings the Tide are only #9. Their defense is at #4 so it's not a question of misinterpreting the Texas A&M game. Mostly the Tide haven't had to use their full power yet except against the Aggies, but there's a question as to whether their offense will "drop the ball" for them at some point. However, we naturally think that the Bayesian rating is more accurate here and that the Tide will move up in the Strength rating over the next few weeks. SEC-mate LSU looks fairly ranked by either system at #5 or #6.

Ohio State had moved up a spot to #6 in the Bayesian rankings but the Buckeyes are #13 in the unbiased rankings; mainly this is because San Diego State is far worse than their pre-season ranking by which OSU's 42-7 win is judged, and to a lesser extent Northwestern. Ohio State has played 6 games already and the unbiased Strength ratings should be accurate for them by now, so don't be surprised if they fail to play like a top ten team—they might not be one. Same goes for Texas A&M, who is only #18 in Strength currently, with their defense ranking #108.

Louisville, Stanford, and Clemson all rank a bit higher when unbiased; that's probably because we ranked them too low in the pre-season and at 5-0 all of their ratings are still 1/6 pre-season; remove that and there's even less discrepancy. Oklahoma, however, is just #24—13 spots lower—when bias is removed. Their 34-0 win over Louisiana-Monroe looks inconsequential when ULM's true strength is used rather than our much-too-high pre-season ranking. Their Tulsa and Notre Dame wins are less impressive, too.

Much of the rest of the top 25 is similar in both lists. Texas Tech isn't quite as high with all bias removed, but they're still solidly in the top 25. Arizona State is 6 spots lower but at 3-2 still remains in the top 25 as well. Missouri, who just made the AP top 25, looks even better at #11, and UCLA is #10. And in both systems Georgia is outside the top 10, either #16 or #12. And Wisconsin is a lower-top 20 team with either modified bias or no bias.

Washington is an interesting case. With pre-season modification the Huskies dropped from #12 to #17, but with no bias they are #4 in the nation. The reason? It's almost all the Illinois game. The modified ratings gave them credit for beating the #108 team by 10 points; the unbiased system sees that as a win over the #47 team.

Florida and Arizona get a small boost from the removal of bias, but Miami gets a bigger one, up 8 spots to #14. The reason is that FAU has outperformed, and even Savannah State is 10 points better than they were last year. Both Utah and Utah State are in the modified top 25 but not in the unbiased top 25; they each played a team that radically underperformed (Oregon State, San Jose State) our pre-season predictions; the unbiased rankings look fairer for these teams who sit at 3-2 and 3-3.

#25 South Carolina also fails to make the unbiased top 25 by 7 spots, but #23 Michigan is a whole 'nother story. The Wolverines only rank #46 with all bias removed. Opponents Notre Dame and UConn both underperformed, but that's a huge discrepancy; the truth is probably somewhere in-between, meaning Michigan might not be a top 25 team despite their 5-0 start—something not too hard to swallow given their struggles with Akron and UConn.

A few teams make the unbiased top 25 that finished outside the top 25 in our modified rankings. Should they be considered top 25 teams? Oklahoma State is #21 despite their recent weakness, vs. #28 with the pre-season starting point; that one's a good sign for the team's future. Indiana—#42 both pre-season and after modification—is #22 despite two losses; their loss to Navy and #118 ranked defense make us think the pre-season number is closer to the truth. Georgia Tech is #23 (unbiased) vs. #28; they haven't looked like a top 25 team the last few weeks though. And surprisingly, TCU, who seems to be a big disappointment, is #25 when unbiased instead of the #41 they fell to. We pegged them as the #24 team to start with and despite a 2-3 record that's how well they're playing; note that they've lost to three top 25 teams.

Mississippi is in the same boat as Michigan—faring quite poor in the unbiased power rating, 26 spots lower than their #26 modified ranking. Their wins over Vanderbilt and Texas carry very little weight with the unbiased rankings. Speaking of Texas, their struggle this year is no secret. They started at #5 in our rankings (!) and fell all the way to #35 when modified for performance. But according to the unbiased power ratings that wasn't nearly far enough—they rank a dismal #70 there. Another pre-season top ten team, Oregon State, fell to #46 for underperformance but the unbiased ratings say the Beavers should be down at #62.

The Big Ten doesn't fare well in the unbiased ratings. Along with Michigan, Iowa and Michigan State are much lower, 21 and 24 spots lower to be exact. The two teams played each other and Iowa got too much credit for only losing by 12; both teams played huge underperformer Western Michigan. The Spartans also lost to Notre Dame, another team that looks very bad with all bias removed (#60 instead of #38). Northwestern is 11 spots lower, but Nebraska looks better in the unbiased rankings at #31, up 14.

Marshall ranks remarkably high at #29 in Strength. Their two losses are to major outperformers Ohio and Virginia Tech, by close scores. Even Gardner-Webb is surprisingly good this year. Iowa State is either #51 or #74 depending on which ratings you spec; the Cyclones faced slight overperformers Northern Iowa and Iowa but also huge underperformers Tulsa and Texas. They've also had just 4 games, meaning both systems are prone to error.

Mississippi State fell from #39 pre-season to #61 adjusted, but they're #41 when unbiased, meaning our pre-season ranking might be valid; the loss to Auburn shouldn't hit them so hard. Navy also ranks much higher when unbiased, #43 to #69, but that's easy to see: at four games the modified system hasn't fully re-evaluated them upward, and the unbiased system could be slightly overrating them for lack of information; they'll probably end up somewhere between the two. Pitt and Ohio are also both more than 20 spots higher in the unbiased ratings, at #48 and #49. But Colorado State is the opposite; despite nearly holding steady from our pre-season ranking over the last 6 weeks, their unbiased ranking is only #95, down 24 spots, due to facing underperformers Tulsa and Cal Poly.

Louisiana-Monroe, who fell the most during our pre-season re-evaluation phase (from #54 to #117) seems to have been evaluated pretty fairly; they rank #112 in the unbiased Strength rating. And Illinois, who moved up from #108 to #54, ranks #47, so the Illini are probably for real—in terms of being an above-average team.

And at the very bottom of the chart, we can try to answer the question of which team is the worst in the FBS. Florida International ranked #125 in our modified rankings, but they beat Southern Miss. In the unbiased ratings, however, it's New Mexico State that takes the #125 spot, one week after getting blown out 66-17 at New Mexico.

Last Bayesian update: Baylor reaches #1

Baylor, the most impressive team compared to our pre-season rankings, finally touches #1 in our final Bayesian update to those rankings. The Bears whomped West Virginia 73-42, which when combined with their three other performances—and still using 1/3 of their pre-season #28 ranking—puts them just ahead of Oregon, who started the year at #2.

Since the Bayesian update doesn't account for movements in opposition quality, its usefulness is coming to an end and our regular, unbiased Strength power rating will supercede it. By next week those ratings will surely be a better measure of a team's strength. For now, let's look at where we started teams and where they've ending up after an average of 5 games per team.

Florida State makes a late push to #3, knocking Alabama to #4; the top four would make for a great playoff. LSU has a loss to Georgia but it was close and their other wins took them from #18 all the way to #5, while Ohio State was nearly static, up just one spot to #6. Texas A&M drifted down slowely week by week from #3 to #7. Louisville and Stanford have both bucked our lower rankings and rose to #8 and #9 respectively, while Clemson rose 4 spots to #10.

Oklahoma was erratic but in the end was up 10 spots to #11; another Big Twelve team, Texas Tech, has been one of the year's surprises, rising from #50 all the way to #12. Arizona State has somewhat disappointed while still playing pretty well at times, dropping from #8 to #13. Missouri and UCLA are decidedly up, while Georgia is down—particularly after needing overtime to beat Tennessee. Wisconsin ended up 10 spots despite 2 losses.

Washington was our pre-season "surprise" pick all the way at #12, and they've nearly lived up to it so far, remaining in the top 20 at #18. Florida has played almost exactly to our projections, down 3 to #19. Utah State doesn't have the record to show for it but they're up from #38 to #20 due to three oversized wins and 2 of 3 losses being very close and on the road. Arizona has only a loss to Washington and is up from #30 to #21. Miami slipped just a bit to #22, while Michigan's poor outings against Akron and UConn dropped the 5-0 Wolverines from #15 to #23. Utah had two close losses but some strong wins that took them from #60 all the way to #24. South Carolina started at #13 and has faded to #25.

Final (week 6) Bayesian update to pre-season rankings

pre- season	Week1	Week2	Week3	Week4	Week5	Week6	Team	Total Change	Rating
28	13	4	4	2	2	1	Baylor	+27	82.17
2	2	2	1	1	1	2	Oregon	0	81.15
9	9	9	6	6	5	3	Florida St	+6	76.66
1	1	1	2	3	3	4	Alabama	-3	73.09
18	16	12	10	10	11	5	LSU	+13	71.58
7	8	6	7	5	4	6	Ohio State	+1	71.30
3	3	3	3	4	6	7	Texas A&M	-4	70.61
26	21	16	16	7	7	8	Louisville	+18	69.30
19	19	15	23	16	8	9	Stanford	+10	68.65
14	15	22	22	22	16	10	Clemson	+4	67.25
21	17	20	15	15	9	11	Oklahoma	+10	66.93
50	42	33	27	24	26	12	Texas Tech	+38	65.19
8	7	7	8	12	12	13	Arizona St	-5	64.96
33	30	28	31	25	24	14	Missouri	+19	64.89
23	20	19	11	11	13	15	UCLA	+8	64.17
4	4	5	5	8	10	16	Georgia	-12	64.08
27	31	29	25	21	20	17	Wisconsin	+10	62.36
12	10	10	14	20	19	18	Washington	-6	62.08
16	18	18	18	19	18	19	Florida	-3	61.68
38	43	40	29	26	14	20	Utah St	+18	61.65
30	29	17	17	18	22	21	Arizona	+9	61.60
17	22	21	21	27	23	22	Miami FL	-5	61.29
15	11	11	20	28	28	23	Michigan	-8	61.08
60	53	37	33	23	25	24	Utah	+36	61.00
13	14	14	13	14	17	25	South Carolina	-12	60.87
11	12	24	12	13	15	26	Mississippi	-15	60.19
31	35	25	26	32	31	27	BYU	+4	60.01
6	6	8	9	9	21	28	Oklahoma St	-22	59.77
34	24	23	19	17	27	29	Georgia Tech	+5	58.83
52	44	44	38	42	32	30	Virginia Tech	+22	58.68
51	49	43	37	36	39	31	Auburn	+20	57.95
66	64	66	59	38	30	32	Iowa	+34	56.72
37	41	45	34	33	34	33	Michigan St	+4	56.53
29	33	32	42	37	40	34	Kansas St	-5	56.30
5	5	13	24	29	29	35	Texas	-30	55.68
45	56	47	47	50	33	36	Boise St	+9	55.64
20	25	31	28	30	36	37	Southern Cal	-17	55.11
22	26	27	32	31	42	38	Notre Dame	-16	54.84
53	45	42	39	41	38	39	Central Florida	+14	54.78
25	28	26	30	35	37	40	Northwestern	-15	54.37
24	27	34	45	48	41	41	TCU	-17	53.37
42	34	52	40	51	50	42	Indiana	0	53.02
78	71	62	61	59	58	43	Ball St	+35	52.83
57	57	51	41	39	52	44	Washington St	+13	52.19
41	48	46	54	45	44	45	Nebraska	-4	52.13
10	23	30	35	43	47	46	Oregon St	-36	51.76
61	60	61	62	64	48	47	East Carolina	+14	51.74
43	46	39	46	49	54	48	Tennessee	-5	51.59
58	50	49	50	53	51	49	Marshall	+9	51.30
55	51	50	51	44	43	50	Penn State	+5	50.49
47	59	60	69	70	62	51	Iowa St	-4	49.75
72	70	57	48	34	35	52	Maryland	+20	49.54
83	68	68	65	63	60	53	Arkansas	+30	49.31
108	103	76	67	69	59	54	Illinois	+54	49.08
36	37	36	52	65	56	55	Northern Illinois	-19	48.95
95	92	86	87	72	57	56	Houston	+39	48.57
62	61	65	53	47	46	57	Syracuse	+5	48.49
69	54	48	58	52	49	58	Bowling Green	+11	48.20
48	55	56	56	58	63	59	Fresno St	-11	48.14
68	66	67	64	60	66	60	Toledo	+8	47.94
39	40	53	57	46	45	61	Mississippi St	-22	47.51
77	67	77	92	76	77	62	Western Kentucky	+15	47.46
64	72	64	66	68	70	63	Kentucky	+1	46.17
46	38	58	49	54	55	64	Cincinnati	-18	46.13
35	36	35	36	40	61	65	North Carolina	-30	45.37
56	58	59	63	66	68	66	Boston College	-10	45.09
40	39	38	44	55	65	67	Rice	-27	44.89
103	99	100	91	89	79	68	Florida Atlantic	+35	44.83
102	100	90	70	71	72	69	Navy	+33	44.64
65	77	78	68	73	73	70	LA-Lafayette	-5	44.62
74	87	81	76	67	69	71	Colorado St	+3	44.42
32	32	41	43	56	53	72	Vanderbilt	-40	44.35
82	85	87	80	80	71	73	Pittsburgh	+9	43.37
63	52	55	60	57	67	74	Minnesota	-11	43.13
89	97	94	94	93	90	75	Ohio U.	14	43.07
76	69	72	75	74	64	76	North Carolina St	0	42.82
75	65	69	72	79	78	77	Rutgers	-2	42.78
97	88	85	77	61	74	78	Wyoming	+19	42.77
96	86	74	78	81	76	79	Colorado	+17	41.72
85	82	82	81	75	75	80	North Texas	+5	41.38
79	74	63	71	78	82	81	Duke	-2	40.35
73	83	70	73	95	80	82	West Virginia	-9	39.82
91	91	96	95	86	85	83	Memphis	+8	39.63
44	47	54	55	62	81	84	San Jose St	-40	39.51
86	79	99	104	100	89	85	Buffalo	+1	38.36
67	78	80	84	83	86	86	SMU	-19	38.15
105	102	103	100	107	92	87	Tulane	+18	37.60
84	80	89	83	85	84	88	California	-4	37.09
59	75	73	88	87	94	89	Tulsa	-30	36.78
106	108	98	109	99	103	90	Nevada	+16	36.73
94	104	101	98	94	101	91	Wake Forest	+3	36.64
109	109	106	99	98	91	92	South Alabama	+17	36.57
71	63	71	74	77	83	93	Virginia	-22	35.94
80	84	88	90	90	93	94	Middle Tennessee St	-14	35.58
111	107	95	96	101	99	95	Hawaii	+16	35.52
70	81	83	79	88	96	96	Purdue	-26	34.91
49	76	84	85	82	87	97	San Diego St	-48	34.57
87	73	79	89	96	97	98	Arkansas St	-11	34.56
98	95	91	93	84	95	99	Texas-San Antonio	-1	33.42
107	101	109	101	103	102	100	Army	+7	33.15
81	93	93	97	92	104	101	Connecticut	-20	33.12
90	90	92	86	91	88	102	Kansas	-12	32.39
101	98	105	106	106	100	103	Texas St.	-2	32.27
88	96	102	105	109	106	104	Kent St	-16	31.54
113	115	112	114	111	113	105	New Mexico	+8	31.36
100	106	115	113	108	107	106	UNLV	-6	30.72
117	116	110	108	112	108	107	Troy	+10	29.48
104	105	107	107	102	105	108	UAB	-4	29.10
92	111	108	115	113	111	109	South Florida	-17	28.83
110	113	113	102	97	98	110	Akron	0	28.53
99	94	97	110	105	110	111	Temple	-12	26.89
112	112	114	111	110	109	112	UTEP	0	26.61
116	110	111	112	117	112	113	Air Force	+3	24.67
118	118	118	118	116	115	114	Louisiana Tech	+4	24.21
114	117	117	116	118	117	115	Central Michigan	-1	23.48
125	124	123	122	120	120	116	Massachusetts	+9	22.62
54	62	75	82	104	114	117	LA-Monroe	-63	20.04
93	89	104	103	114	116	118	Western Mich.	-25	19.87
115	114	116	117	115	118	119	Southern Miss	-4	18.78
124	123	124	125	124	124	120	Georgia State	+4	17.99
120	120	121	120	121	123	121	Eastern Michigan	-1	16.56
123	125	125	123	123	121	122	Idaho	+1	16.55
119	119	119	119	119	122	123	Miami OH	-4	16.36
122	122	120	121	122	119	124	New Mexico St	-2	14.47
121	121	122	124	125	125	125	Florida Int'l	-4	10.78

The teams that started in our top 25 and fell out are: Mississippi, ranked #11 to start but stumbled in a loss to Auburn lately; Oklahoma State, #6 at the beginning but a loss to West Virginia, and trouble with Kansas State, dropped them to #28. Pre-season #5 Texas is a story most are familiar with; the Longhorns fell every week they played, including losses to BYU and Mississippi and a meager win over Iowa State, and now are just #35. Southern Cal started at #20, and Lane Kiffin's job status could tell you they aren't there any more. And Notre Dame played poorly every week until last week but still dropped to #38 from #23. #24 TCU and #25 Northwestern also disappointed a bit and fell to #41 and #40. The worst fall was by Oregon State. Despite a 4-1 record they greatly underperformed their lofty #10 ranking each week, particularly in the opening home loss to Eastern Washington. They settled at #46.

Outperformers who didn't reach the top 25 include Virginia Tech (up from #52 to #30), Auburn (from #51 to #31), and Iowa (up from #66 to #32). Central Florida ended up 14 spots to #39, and Ball State's 48-27 crushing of Virginia capped a 35-spot rise to #43. Washington State was up 13 and East Carolina 14.

Some teams we thought would be awful but turned out to be above average at least: Maryland, despite the 63-0 loss to FSU, was up from #72 to #52. Arkansas didn't win much but they were 30 spots better than our #83 projection. And Illinois outperformed every time out and rose from #108 to #54, an amazing 54 spots. Houston's rise from #95 to #56 is about the opposite of last year's tumble from greatness.

Mississippi State and North Carolina went the other way, falling 22 and 30 spots to #61 and #65 respectively; we picked Rice to have a great year and so far it hasn't been as they have settled back to #67, down 27. And Vanderbilt has crashed from #32 to #72. Meanwhile FAU and Navy, who started at #103 and #102, sit at #68 and #69.

Some teams really hit the skids. So far San Jose State isn't looking like the #44 team we thought they'd be; more like #84. Tulsa is down 30 spots to #89, and San Diego State is down a whopping 48 to #97. Worst of all, of course, was Louisiana-Monroe, down from our pre-season #54 to #117 after three big losses in a row. They're still 2-4 so far, so they aren't remotely the worst team, just the biggest underperformer of the year: their rating is four touchdowns per game lower than we expected.

The worst team looks like Florida International. But they got a road win at Southern Miss last week, showing that even the lowest-performing teams have hope.

Just for curiosities sake: the teams that didn't budge were Oregon (started #2 and lived up to it); Indiana (all over the place before settling back at #42); North Carolina State (at #72, up and down only over their last 2 games); Akron (boosted by close Michigan loss, they were crushed by Ohio and ended up back at #110) and UTEP (the steadiest team, went in a tight range from #109 to #114 and ended where they started at #112)

Next week we stop talking about the pre-season at all, as the pecking order has been established. We'll do one more post comparing these rankings with the current power rating, seeing if and where there are discrepancies and where there is agreement.

Baylor vs. Sagarin Ratings: what gives?

Baylor is (at least according to us) the big story of the college football season as far as power ratings go. After three games it's clear they could be the best team in the nation; they also might be exposed by a team with either a decent offense or a decent defense (we think it will take both).

So far they've won three games by monster margins, but the teams they've defeated aren't anything special. They beat Wofford 69-3; Buffalo, 70-13; and Louisiana-Monroe, 70-7.

It's pretty clear their offense is great, and their defense at least pretty good. Overall, they rank extremely well in our power ratings so far. They're #2 in our modified pre-season ratings, where they're currently credited 50% for this year's performance and 50% for our pre-season ranking of #28. In the early All-Division Strength power rating, which is completely unbiased, they are #1 by a good (and unsustainable) margin.

But evaluating Baylor by their accomplishments—just by who they've beaten—you can't say they've done that much. Wofford is 2-2 in the FCS; Buffalo is 2-2, and ULM is 2-3 now. So using a BCS-style ranking which doesn't take margin of victory into account, the Bears don't fare so well. In our Success power rating they are just #26.

So the schizm we see is: Baylor should be ranked low in BCS-style ratings, and rated high in margin-of-victory-inclusive power ratings.

But here's the rub: Sagarin's ratings have the Bears just the opposite

                  RATING    W   L  SCHEDL(RANK)  | ELO_CHESS    | PREDICTOR 
   3  Baylor A  =  89.46    3   0   54.13( 172)  |   98.96    2 |   84.50   16

Baylor is #3 in Sagarin's current rankings, with an ELO_CHESS ranking of #2, and PREDICTOR of #16. ELO_CHESS is his BCS-style rating, while PREDICTOR is based on victory margins.

The Predictor ranking we can sort of explain...almost. Baylor's schedule strength is horrible, and while their margins of victory make up for that, Sagarin diminishes the value of wide margins. And it's still early enough in the season that Baylor's pre-season value is being partially used. Even if they rank #1 in pure terms, that could be averaged with, say, a #31 start to end up around #16 (this is obviously not what Sagarin does, but the general idea is the same).

The ELO ranking of #2 is very puzzling however. Baylor hasn't beaten any good teams, yet they have climbed to #2? That might make sense if they had started at #1, but they didn't start in his top ten (they were probably started close to last year's #18 finish).

The way we see it, an ELO ranking of #16 and a Predictor ranking of #2 would make a lot of sense right now, and match what our power ratings are showing for the Bears.

It almost makes me wonder if Sagarin mis-labelled his outputs this year. What's interesting is that it's hard to tell by looking at other teams. Alabama is #1 in our Success ratings, implying that they've played the toughest schedule so far in terms of wins and losses, but they aren't #1 in Strength. Sagarin has them only #3 in ELO (Success) and #1 in Predictor (Strength). UCLA is #5 in ELO and just #18 in Predictor, where we have them about the same ranking in both Success and Strength. There aren't really any obvious teams that have played well but lost close games that should be an obvious case for disparity in the two types of ratings. We have to assume the columns are labeled correctly and that there is some other explanation.

Clearly, Sagarin's use of pre-season foundation numbers, or his technique of combining basis numbers and this year's results has caused some seemingly unusual effects for Baylor. Interestingly the language he used to always include (about the ratings not being WELL CONNECTED, and therefore BAYESIAN) is not included this year (he also seems to have removed the previous years of ratings from his site).

When the teams are all "well connected," and the ratings unbiased, Baylor might have a profile closer to ours, that is, high in Strength and mediocre in Success. Of course by then, they might have lost a game or done something else to change the relationship between the two types of rating systems.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

Is Oregon State the most accomplished team so far?

Let's not ask whether Oregon State is the best team in the nation, because that's a different question. What we're asking is are they the most accomplished team, despite being just 3-0?

We also didn't ask, "Is Oregon State #1" since that's the mistake that some people are making as they note that two BCS computers rank Oregon State at #1.

Surprising? Not to us, since our Success power rating puts the Beavers at #1. But that rating—like all of the BCS computer rankings—is not designed to be a predictive measure of strength, but rather a measure of accomplishment over the course of the season. None of the rating systems takes margin of victory into account. And so far, very little of the season has been played.

For reference, here's our Success top ten for games through September 29:

  #  Team                        rec   Overall      Strength      Success
  1. Oregon St                   3-0   24.94 [ 14]  16.26 [ 23]   8.67 [  1]
  2. LSU                         5-0   30.90 [ 12]  23.43 [ 12]   7.46 [  2]
  3. Florida St                  5-0   37.79 [  4]  30.60 [  6]   7.19 [  3]
  4. Texas Tech                  4-0   40.83 [  2]  33.90 [  2]   6.93 [  4]
  5. Notre Dame                  4-0   25.29 [ 13]  18.63 [ 18]   6.65 [  5]
  6. Ohio State                  5-0   20.00 [ 19]  13.45 [ 32]   6.54 [  6]
  7. Georgia                     5-0   33.91 [  8]  27.38 [ 10]   6.52 [  7]
  8. Alabama                     5-0   43.39 [  1]  36.97 [  1]   6.42 [  8]
  9. Oregon                      5-0   37.07 [  5]  30.70 [  5]   6.37 [  9]
 10. South Carolina              5-0   34.51 [  7]  28.26 [  9]   6.24 [ 10]

Note that our predictive formula, the Strength power rating, has Oregon State #23, and Alabama #1, whereas the Tide are only #8 in Success.

To measure a team's accomplishments, you generally want to figure out who has played the toughest schedule and done the best against that schedule. And remember as far as the BCS is concerned, a win by a point is the same as a win by 50 points.

So Oregon State's 38-35 win over Arizona is the same as Oregon's 49-0 win. And although Oregon State has played just 3 games, most of the rest of the nation played an FCS team which in some systems gives them no credit at all. Florida State is 5-0, but just 3-0 against FBS teams.

Oregon State has wins over 4-1 UCLA, 3-2 Wisconsin, and 3-2 Arizona. Those teams are 10-2 when removing the losses to the Beavers, 8-2 against FBS teams.

Alabama, meanwhile, has beaten 2-2 Michigan, 4-1 Western Kentucky, 1-4 Arkansas, 1-4 Florida Atlantic, and 3-2 Mississippi. Those teams are 11-8 against other opponents, and just 7-8 against FBS opponents.

So in just three games, Oregon State's vanquished opponents count for 8 wins over FBS teams, while Alabama's 5 opponents have beaten 7 FBS foes.

That's not exactly how things work, but it gives an idea of how these power ratings work, and why Oregon State can rank ahead of Alabama.

Like we noted, it's very early in the season so there isn't much information to use for judging a team and its opponents, particularly if victory margin is verboten. Given 3 to 5 games, often with one against an FCS team, and only a handful of contests to use to gauge those teams, there isn't "depth" to the season yet. In the next several weeks things will flesh out more, and by the end of the year the BCS computers will more or less match the AP rankings, with each having its own peculiarities—just like the AP rankings have peculiarities, and just as every person's opinion is different.

The linked article closed with the line "We'll go out on a limb and say some of these numbers may fluctuate greatly between now and December. Maybe between now and next Monday."

By the end of the season, of course things will be different. But how different will the computer rankings be next week? In Oregon State's case it could be a lot, as the Beavers play Washington State next week. A loss would of course send the Beavers tumbling—probably to #20 or #25 in those rankings where they are #1. But even if they win as expected they'll still fall; since they've only played three games, the Cougars water down their strength of schedule a lot and a win doesn't add a lot of "points" in cumulative systems.

Here's how we see next week's Success rankings, if things go to plan:

num  Team                       record   rating
  1. LSU                         6-0   10.08
  2. Georgia                     6-0   10.06
  3. Oregon                      6-0    9.35
  4. Ohio State                  6-0    9.19
  5. Florida St                  6-0    8.79
  6. Notre Dame                  5-0    8.50
  7. Kansas St                   5-0    7.24
  8. Texas                       5-0    7.02
  9. Oregon St                   4-0    6.76
 10. TCU                         5-0    6.69

The computers that have Oregon State #1 now might have them closer to #10 next weekend.

Next week the Success #1 might be LSU, as long as they can beat Florida. If not the Tigers, it should be Georgia—again, given than the Bulldogs get past South Carolina. If both lose, then Oregon might be #1 if they beat Washington. Otherwise Ohio State has an outside chance at the top spot by beating Nebraska. This week's #4 team, Texas Tech, could also move to the top if they upset Oklahoma.

Who will replace Oregon State at #1 in the Colley and Massey rankings? It won't be Alabama, who is idle. The Tide can expect to at best hold their #4 spot in Colley and #7 spot in Massey. Florida is #3 in Colley and #4 in Massey, so if they beat LSU they could take the top spot. If not, South Carolina is #6 in both and a win over Georgia might make them #1.

Computer rankings change the most early in the season, and next week's rankings should already begin to look a lot more the way people expect things to look.

Power Ratings: Are FSU, Texas the top challengers to Alabama? Or will an SEC or Pac-12 foe emerge?

After four weeks of play Alabama is looking like a dominant #1 team with almost every 1st place vote in both polls. They'll face a lot of top teams in the SEC, most notably LSU, but is there another team in the country that will challenge them?

Today we look at the first viable power rating of the year, our All-Division Strength power rating. Since this power rating includes every team in the FBS, FCS, Division II, III, and NAIA, every game is factored in. In our FBS-only power ratings, games against non-FBS teams normally aren't factored in, meaning teams only have 2 or 3 scores to go by. That's not a problem in the All-Division power rating, and the week 4 results look reasonable.

Here are the top 25 teams from the All-Division Strength power rating for results through September 22, 2012. Results for teams with 4 or more games are more reliable, so those have been highlighted.

  #  Team                        rec   Rating  Offense[rnk]  Defense[rnk]
  1. Florida St                  4-0   83.52   74.94 [  4]   -8.58 [ 19]
  2. Texas                       3-0   81.26   70.30 [  7]  -10.95 [  6]
  3. Alabama                     4-0   80.01   65.18 [ 14]  -14.83 [  5]
  4. Arizona St                  3-1   78.18   68.97 [ 10]   -9.20 [ 14]
  5. Oregon                      4-0   76.58   71.96 [  6]   -4.62 [ 31]
  6. Georgia                     4-0   76.29   75.63 [  3]   -0.65 [ 53]
  7. Texas A&M                   2-1   75.51   69.67 [  8]   -5.84 [ 25]
  8. South Carolina              4-0   74.80   66.10 [ 13]   -8.70 [ 18]
  9. Texas Tech                  3-0   74.79   64.45 [ 16]  -10.34 [  9]
 10. Stanford                    3-0   71.00   56.11 [ 36]  -14.88 [  4]
 11. Florida                     4-0   70.97   54.31 [ 46]  -16.66 [  3]
 12. LSU                         4-0   70.16   66.99 [ 12]   -3.16 [ 39]
 13. Purdue                      2-1   68.66   69.12 [  9]    0.45 [ 56]
 14. Kansas St                   4-0   68.31   65.12 [ 15]   -3.18 [ 38]
 15. Oklahoma                    2-1   67.11   56.32 [ 34]  -10.79 [  7]
 16. Notre Dame                  4-0   66.95   47.87 [ 99]  -19.08 [  1]
 17. Nebraska                    3-1   66.85   62.22 [ 21]   -4.63 [ 30]
 18. West Virginia               3-0   66.03   67.68 [ 11]    1.64 [ 65]
 19. Southern Cal                3-1   65.52   55.61 [ 40]   -9.91 [ 12]
 20. Missouri                    2-2   65.40   54.75 [ 44]  -10.65 [  8]
 21. Baylor                      3-0   64.68   72.58 [  5]    7.89 [116]
 22. Clemson                     3-1   64.34   63.53 [ 18]   -0.81 [ 51]
 23. Oregon St                   2-0   64.25   46.97 [110]  -17.27 [  2]
 24. UCLA                        3-1   64.00   63.91 [ 17]   -0.08 [ 54]
 25. Fresno St                   2-2   62.68   55.56 [ 41]   -7.12 [ 20]

Right away we notice that Alabama isn't #1, but #3, with Florida State #1 and Texas #2. The Longhorns have played just 3 games, so their result might be suspect, and FSU has played two FCS teams, including a weather-shortened win that we don't factor into the results. So both teams' results may be tentative.

Alabama's first three wins all score in the 80s, while last weekend's win over FAU drags them down a bit:

= # 43 Michigan            41-14  81.2
  # 57 Western Kentucky    35-0   83.2
@ #125 Arkansas            52-0   89.1
  #123 Florida Atlantic    40-7   66.6

It hardly seems like you can fault the Tide for a 40-7 win. Florida State had two games that rated in the high 80s, while the win over Clemson wasn't quite as high:

  #188 Murray St           69-3   89.2
  #467 Savannah St         55-0     NR
  #119 Wake Forest         52-0   87.1
  # 22 Clemson             49-37  74.4

While Clemson ranks higher than any of Alabama's opponents, it might be telling that FSU played their weakest game against their only decent opponent. Note, too, the similarity between Alabama's Arkansas win and FSU's Wake Forest game. Now here's Texas:

  # 80 Wyoming             37-17  62.1
  # 86 New Mexico          45-0   85.9
@ # 30 Mississippi         66-31  95.7

The Longhorns have been all over the place, with a weak Wyoming game in the opener, and monster win over Ole Miss boosting their rating. It's clear that we need to see more of Texas before we can make heads or tails of them; this coming weekend's game with Oklahoma State should provide some good evidence as to whether they're a national title caliber team.

Will Alabama be challenged more in-conference or out?

To make the BCS title game, Alabama will (most likely) have to win the SEC West and the title game. With six teams in the initial power rating's top 12, they might have a tougher time with that than they do in the national championship game itself.

For the most part, however, the Tide avoid the best SEC teams during the regular season. They face only Texas A&M (only 3 games, and 2-1 with a loss to Florida), and Missouri (2 losses already) in addition to their showdown with LSU. And LSU looked very vulnerable last weekend, beating Auburn 12-10.

From that, it looks like Alabama has more to fear in the SEC title game, from one of Georgia, South Carolina, or Florida, all of whom are a solid 4-0 and in the top 11.

Here are the SEC teams in the initial power rating top 25; those that play Alabama in the regular season are bolded:

  #  Team                        rec   Rating  Offense[rnk]  Defense[rnk]
  3. Alabama                     4-0   80.01   65.18 [ 14]  -14.83 [  5]
  6. Georgia                     4-0   76.29   75.63 [  3]   -0.65 [ 53]
  7. Texas A&M                   2-1   75.51   69.67 [  8]   -5.84 [ 25]
  8. South Carolina              4-0   74.80   66.10 [ 13]   -8.70 [ 18]
 11. Florida                     4-0   70.97   54.31 [ 46]  -16.66 [  3]
 12. LSU                         4-0   70.16   66.99 [ 12]   -3.16 [ 39]
 20. Missouri                    2-2   65.40   54.75 [ 44]  -10.65 [  8]

The Pac-12 also has a number of potential challengers according to the early power rating results. Six teams are in the top 25:

  #  Team                        rec   Rating  Offense[rnk]  Defense[rnk]
  4. Arizona St                  3-1   78.18   68.97 [ 10]   -9.20 [ 14]
  5. Oregon                      4-0   76.58   71.96 [  6]   -4.62 [ 31]
 10. Stanford                    3-0   71.00   56.11 [ 36]  -14.88 [  4]
 19. Southern Cal                3-1   65.52   55.61 [ 40]   -9.91 [ 12]
 23. Oregon St                   2-0   64.25   46.97 [110]  -17.27 [  2]
 24. UCLA                        3-1   64.00   63.91 [ 17]   -0.08 [ 54]

Interestingly Arizona State ranks #4 early despite their road loss to Missouri. Their early results are all over the place:

  #109 Northern Arizona    63- 6  93.6
  # 74 Illinois            45-14  73.8
@ # 20 Missouri            20-24  63.4
  # 45 Utah                37- 7  81.9

Is ASU for real? We might not know until they face Oregon in a few weeks. Speaking of the Ducks they've moved up to #2 in the polls lately, and many are thinking they will end up facing the Tide.

  # 79 Arkansas St         57-34  65.2
  # 25 Fresno St           42-25  77.7
  #260 Tennessee Tech      63-14  59.3
  # 35 Arizona             49-0  104.1

No wonder people were impressed with the Arizona win. Beyond Oregon, Stanford beat USC and is 3-0 but it's a bit early to put them in title game contention; USC already has a loss and hasn't looked like one of the best teams yet; Oregon State might be very good but have only played two games; and UCLA lost to Oregon State at home so the Bruins are probably good but not great.

Will a great offense beat Alabama?

The idea is that it will take a great offense to compete with the Tide. Who has the best shot in that scenario?

  #  Team                        rec   offense       defense
 1. Louisiana Tech              3-0   78.33 [  1]   20.12 [253]
 2. Oklahoma St                 2-1   76.40 [  2]   14.30 [180]
 3. Georgia                     4-0   75.63 [  3]   -0.65 [ 53]
 4. Florida St                  4-0   74.94 [  4]   -8.58 [ 19]
 5. Baylor                      3-0   72.58 [  5]    7.89 [116]
 6. Oregon                      4-0   71.96 [  6]   -4.62 [ 31]
 7. Texas                       3-0   70.30 [  7]  -10.95 [  6]
 8. Texas A&M                   2-1   69.67 [  8]   -5.84 [ 25]
 9. Purdue                      2-1   69.12 [  9]    0.45 [ 56]
10. Arizona St                  3-1   68.97 [ 10]   -9.20 [ 14]

Believe it or not, Louisiana Tech might have the country's best offense. So far they've put up 56, 56, and 52 points against Houston, Rice, and Illinois. Their defense ranking—#253—suggests we won't be seeing them against Alabama, though they do have a fair shot at being a BCS buster. Oklahoma State is in familiar territory at #2, but that's after three games, one of which they lost, and one was their 84-0 Savannah State win. Georgia has a much more viable defense (#53) to go with their #3 offense, but it isn't until Florida State (#4; #19) and Texas (#7; #6) that we see strong offensive teams with a defense to match. We've covered the caveats to those teams above.

Defense: Can anyone match Alabama?

The Tide have had the best adjusted scoring defense for three years running, and they're looking good to make it a fourth. What do the preliminary power ratings say?

  #  Team                        rec   offense       defense
 1. Notre Dame                  4-0   47.87 [ 99]  -19.08 [  1]
 2. Oregon St                   2-0   46.97 [110]  -17.27 [  2]
 3. Florida                     4-0   54.31 [ 46]  -16.66 [  3]
 4. Stanford                    3-0   56.11 [ 36]  -14.88 [  4]
 5. Alabama                     4-0   65.18 [ 14]  -14.83 [  5]
 6. Texas                       3-0   70.30 [  7]  -10.95 [  6]
 7. Oklahoma                    2-1   56.32 [ 34]  -10.79 [  7]
 8. Missouri                    2-2   54.75 [ 44]  -10.65 [  8]
 9. Texas Tech                  3-0   64.45 [ 16]  -10.34 [  9]
10. Auburn                      1-3   41.62 [168]  -10.26 [ 10]

Four teams rank above the Tide right now, but the two Pac-12 teams—Oregon State and Stanford—haven't played four games yet. The Beavers nearly shut out Wisconsin and held UCLA to 20, but we need to see what they do against Arizona to verify their quality. In any case their offense doesn't look great yet. Stanford has held every foe to 17 or under including USC.

But the real threats seem to be Notre Dame and Florida. The Irish held Michigan to just 6 points, even fewer than Alabama yielded, and more impressively held Michigan State to just 3 in East Lansing. Florida limited Tennessee and Texas A&M to 20 and 17 and shut out Kentucky. But do those teams have an offense that can deal with Alabama's defense?

Again, Texas shows up on this list, the only team with a top ten offense and defense. But after just three games, it would be a bit premature to forecast a repeat of the 2009 national championship contest.

Power Rating: Report Card at 3 weeks shows Alabama #1 by a country mile

Based purely on the numbers—a combined formula using pre-season estimates and three weeks of results—the Alabama Crimson Tide are a runaway #1 in our power rating update.

USC fell from #1 long before the Stanford loss and while Florida State has been strong, they are just barely within 10 points of Alabama in quality.

Here's a rundown of the top 25 teams in our Week 3 Top 124 Revision: How they've done in the first three games, and what the future might hold if their under/over-performance continues:

Pre- season	Week 1 Rank	Week 2 Rank	Week 3 Rank	Team	Current Record	Revised Rating	Rank Up/Down
2	1	1	1	Alabama	3-0	40.31	+1
5	4	3	2	Florida St	3-0	30.88	+3
4	5	2	3	LSU	3-0	27.15	+1
3	3	5	4	Oklahoma	2-0	27.04	-1
1	2	4	5	Southern Cal	2-1	24.42	-4
6	7	9	6	Texas	3-0	21.42	=
14	8	11	7	Notre Dame	3-0	20.49	+7
8	6	8	8	Oregon	3-0	20.17	=
12	14	6	9	Georgia	3-0	19.75	+3
18	11	7	10	Ohio State	3-0	19.66	+8
11	18	13	11	Stanford	3-0	19.18	=
16	15	10	12	South Carolina	3-0	18.78	+4
21	20	24	13	Texas A&M	1-1	18.51	+8
23	24	19	14	Florida	3-0	17.12	+9
15	12	15	15	Nebraska	2-1	16.96	=
17	16	14	16	West Virginia	2-0	16.04	+1
10	9	20	17	Oklahoma St	2-1	15.94	-7
34	33	26	18	Georgia Tech	2-1	15.66	+16
7	10	16	19	Michigan	2-1	15.58	-12
31	23	22	20	Baylor	2-0	14.91	+11
22	21	12	21	Kansas St	3-0	14.58	+1
48	41	33	22	UCLA	3-0	14.12	+26
62	44	28	23	Arizona St	2-1	13.39	+39
26	25	23	24	Clemson	3-0	13.18	+2
32	32	21	25	Texas Tech	3-0	12.07	+7

1. Alabama - no weaknesses in three dominant wins, with two shutouts. The only negative is that Michigan and especially a hobbled Arkansas weren't as good as advertised.
2. Florida State - Three wins by a total of 146 to 3 have moved the Seminoles from #5 to #2. That includes two FCS teams including one so bad they barely played half of a game. The 52-0 Wake Forest win, however, was probably equal to Alabama's 52-0 win over Arkansas.
3. LSU - The Tigers have basically played as well as expected, which means they're a title contender but haven't impressed like the Tide.
4. Oklahoma - The Sooners haven't looked great in two games, and tests will come soon.
5. Southern Cal - Down from the #1 starting spot, each game has been a minor disappointment, including the loss to Stanford. At this rate the Trojans aren't a top ten team much longer.
6. Texas - The offense looks good, and the Longhorns remain at #6 for now, but they're not a top ten team if the defense doesn't shape up.
7. Notre Dame - Wins over Navy and Michigan State were fantastic, and the narrow win over Purdue might prove to be less of a liability than initially thought as the Boilermakers are doing well. The Irish are well up from pre-season #14.
8. Oregon - No change from #8; we're seeing pretty much what we expected but opponents are scoring a lot of points; hard to say from the competition so far but Oregon looks more like a top 25 than a top 10 team.
9. Georgia - The Bulldogs poked into the top 10 mainly due to a convincing win over Missouri; their other two games don't suggest they're likely to remain, but we'll see.
10. Ohio State - Too bad they're on probation, as they look like the best team in the Big 10 by far. The Buckeyes have looked great, shaky Cal win notwithstanding, and could move up from here.
11. Stanford - Beating up on Duke and beating USC made up for the San Jose State debacle; like the other top Pac-12 teams we wonder about their top 10 potential though.
12. South Carolina - The Gamecocks have actually exceeded our expectations—very mildly—in each game. They seem to be ranked pretty fairly at the moment.
13. Texas A&M - Last weekend's 48-3 demolition of SMU overshadowed the Florida loss; the Aggies are up from #21 pre-season and could move into the top 10.
14. Florida - Three games, three wins, including impressive wins over A&M and Tennessee; the Gators could prove to be a top 10 team.
15. Nebraska - Back where they started at #15, the Cornhuskers were supposed to be undefeated but overall have played a bit better than expected. 
16. West Virginia - Two games in, the Mountaineers haven't suprised either way.
17. Oklahoma State - Two blowouts over outmatched opponents were dampened by a 21-point loss to Arizona. If they continue to wilt against good teams don't expect them to stay in the top 25.
18. Georgia Tech - The Yellow Jackets lost in overtime to Virginia Tech but have dominated since then. They started at #31 and may finish closer to the top 10.
19. Michigan - The 63-13 UMass victory proved nothing, so the Wolverines have to be judged by the 41-14 loss to Alabama and the narrow Air Force win, and by that the teams has a ways to go to prove it can remain in the top 25.
20. Baylor - Starting at #31, the Bears are 2-0 and looked good in both outings.
21. Kansas State - Questionable wins in weeks 1 and 3, but the Miami drubbing made them look top 25 worthy.
22. UCLA - The sky's the limit for the Bruins, who are 3-0 and might be a top ten team.
23. Arizona State - Their first two games were fantastic wins and their third was an understandable road loss. Since Missouri looks weaker than projected we can't say the Sun Devils are headed for the top ten, but they should move higher in our power rating over the coming weeks.
24. Clemson - The Tigers started at #26 so not much has changed, and they seem fairly rated.
25. Texas Tech - They're 3-0 but haven't played anyone; still the Red Raiders appear to be a good, borderline top 25 team.

Here are some other teams with interesting seasons so far:

Future Top 25 in our power rating?

Pre- season	Week 1 Rank	Week 2 Rank	Week 3 Rank	Team	Current Record	Revised Rating	Rank Up/Down
60	50	42	30	Purdue	2-1	10.59	+30
63	67	47	33	Arizona	3-0	9.60	+30
76	69	63	38	Fresno St	2-1	7.72	+38
77	63	55	43	Utah St	2-1	6.26	+34

• Purdue started at #60 in our pre-season rankings and has rised to #30 on the strength of three solid games, wiping out Eastern Kentucky and Eastern Michigan, but more importantly nearly beating Notre Dame on the road. In a weak Big Ten, the Boilermakers could make waves.
• Arizona is off to a 3-0 start; they needed overtime to beat Toledo but then thrashed Illinois and beat South Carolina State 56-0. They're much better then our #63 pre-season ranking and should go higher than their current #33.
• Fresno State dominated Weber State 37-10, and killed Colorado, 69-14. If that doesn't seem impressive, they only lost at Oregon by 17. Depending on how weak those other teams are, the Bulldogs could continue their sharp upward climb that has seen them move from #76 to #38.
• Utah State has been a revelation in every game. They beat in-state rivals Southern Utah (34-3) and Utah (27-20 in overtime) and were a field goal away from beating Wisconsin on the road. Look for them to dominate most of the rest of their schedule and rank quite well in future power ratings.

How Low Can They Go?

Pre- season	Week 1 Rank	Week 2 Rank	Week 3 Rank	Team	Current Record	Revised Rating	Rank Up/Down
9	13	17	31	Wisconsin	2-1	10.35	-22
13	17	30	51	Arkansas	1-2	3.34	-38
37	62	72	90	Houston	0-3	-7.52	-53
65	79	98	100	Florida Int'l	1-2	-11.08	-35
104	107	109	119	Colorado	0-3	-22.86	-15

• Wisconsin: Of our highest-ranked pre-season teams, Wisconsin has clearly been the most disappointing, with underperformances in all three games. They struggled mightily with FCS team Northern Iowa, then proved that wasn't a fluke by losing to Oregon State, scoring just 7 points. Then they hosted Utah State and won 16-14 on a missed field goal. And this from an offense that was supposed to contend for the nation's best! Already the Badgers look like a borderline top 25 team at best, and if they continue to play like they have they'll rank as a below-average FBS team when all is said and done.
• Arkansas: It's no secret the Razorbacks are in trouble. Even with Tyler Wilson available the whole game they gave up 24 to Jacksonville State. Then once Wilson was hurt against ULM the offense couldn't produce while the defense couldn't hold the lead in the overtime loss. With Wilson out the whole game they fell apart in a 52-0 loss to Alabama. Wilson excoriated the team later; will that help or hurt? If Wilson were lost for the year we'd bet on Arkansas finishing just inside the top 100, but he should be back soon; will they do much better than top 50 with the defense playing so poorly?
• Houston proved in week one that they weren't the #37 team in the nation as they lost to Texas State 30-13. Last week's 37-6 blasting by UCLA finished a 3-game slide that suggested they're really about the #90 team. But they could be worse still—well down into the 100s they don't show more of the signs of life on offense they did against Louisiana Tech.
• Florida International: And we thought they'd win the Sun Belt. Technically, they still could, but if their first three games are any indication, that won't be happening. Sure, we overranked them at #65 and the 46-26 loss to Duke showed that, but there was no excuse for needing overtime to beat Akron. The Panthers might have farther to fall, near the bottom ten, if they don't right the ship. The reasonable loss to UCF was actually a good sign.
• Colorado: The Buffs have been worse with each game, losing to Colorado State, then to FCS Sacramento State, then 69-14 to Fresno State last weekend, prompting former players to question whether they're the worst team in the nation. There's little question they're the worst BCS conference team, but we think they'll remain ahead of UMass, our current #124 (dead-last) team. We can't guarantee any more than that.

Next week we will have the first "real" power ratings of the year, using only this season's results. Stay tuned!

Power Rating: Despite Pac-12 surge, SEC still rules at top

Last weekend was a triumph for the Pac-12 and somewhat of a downer for the SEC in some ways. While Oregon State, Arizona, and UCLA all recorded upset wins and joined our Top 25, the SEC lost four teams as Arkansas, Texas A&M, Missouri, and Vanderbilt all lost.

But most of the Pac-12's victims were from the Big Ten (Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Illinois' big loss to Arizona State). And two of the SEC teams were newcomers who lost to other SEC teams, so really only Arkansas' loss to UL-Monroe was a big dent to the league's reputation. And at the very top, the SEC is shining while the Pac-12's top teams are treading water at best so far in 2012.

This week's revised Top 124—our pre-season Top 124 modified by the results so far this year—shows a very familiar #1 and #2: Alabama and LSU, the two SEC teams that finished the 2011 season on top. What's more, Georgia's victory over Missouri and South Carolina's continued strong play gives the conference four of the nation's top ten teams.

Bayesian-modified pre-season top 10 as of September 8, 2012

Pre- season	Week 1 Rank	Week 2 Rank	Team	Current Record	Revised Rating	Total Up/Down
2	1	1	Alabama	2-0	33.17	+1
4	5	2	LSU	2-0	27.16	+2
5	4	3	Florida St	2-0	27.11	+2
1	2	4	Southern Cal	2-0	27.06	-3
3	3	5	Oklahoma	2-0	27.04	-2
12	14	6	Georgia	2-0	21.26	+6
18	11	7	Ohio State	2-0	20.36	+11
8	6	8	Oregon	2-0	20.05	=
6	7	9	Texas	2-0	19.27	-3
16	15	10	South Carolina	2-0	18.47	+6

The Tide followed up their deconstruction of Michigan with a good-enough 35-0 win over Western Kentucky, and right now they're far and away (by 6 points) the #1 team. Behind them in a close race for #2 are LSU, FSU, USC, and Oklahoma, but the Tigers have rised from #4 with their 41-3 crushing of Washington.

Meanwhile USC, the pre-season #1, struggled to hold off Syracuse last weekend, winning 42-29 and Oklahoma struggled to score against UTEP in their opener. #3 Florida State beat Murray State soundly in their opener and we didn't even count their 55-0 win over Savannah State, which was really less than half of a proper game.

Georgia's 41-20 win at Missouri popped the Bulldogs up to #6 while South Carolina crushed East Carolina 45-10 to join the top 10. Meanwhile the Pac-12's other marquee team, Oregon, has appeared a bit lazy on defense, giving up 59 points in two games. Stanford started at #11 but a poor opener (20-17 over San Jose State) has them revised down to #13.

For the Big Ten the best-looking team so far is Ohio State, but the Buckeyes won't go to a bowl no matter how good they are. The rest of the lot have been mostly disappointments, from #15 to #18:

Pre- season	Week 1 Rank	Week 2 Rank	Team	Current Record	Revised Rating	Total Up/Down
15	12	15	Nebraska	1-1	15.81	=
7	10	16	Michigan	1-1	15.45	-9
9	13	17	Wisconsin	1-1	14.79	-8
25	27	18	Michigan St	2-0	14.18	+7

Nebraska was edged by UCLA, Michigan was drubbed by Alabama and then failed to impress against Air Force, and Wisconsin lost 10-7 at Oregon State. Only Michigan State remains undefeated of the Big Ten's pre-season, bowl-eligible top picks; the Spartans had a shaky start against Boise State but coasted at Central Michigan last week.