...our Top 4 are Alabama, Mississippi St, Florida St, and Oregon. As we noted Saturday, we're not likely to punish a team for losing by the amount expected (the Vegas spread was seven; they lost by five), especially on the road against another Tier A school. Sure, we'll move the Tide above them, but was the Seminoles' performance against an unranked, Tier G Miami squad more impressive? No. Certainly, we're much less impressed with TCU's debacle at Kansas than anything the Bulldogs did in Tuscaloosa. If you thought they'd lose at Alabama, and they do, no worse than expected - how can you punish that? To us, this is a classic case of the loss being more impressive than TCU's win.
...We made some adjustments based on some external rankings this week, in particular Peter Wolfe and Jeff Sagarin's work, but also looking through the Massey Index we linked to last week as well. If there were virtual ties within a tier, for example, we'd often turn to those sources for a second opinion (sorting out the middle of the ACC North, for example), but on a few occasions a consensus of opinions different from ours made us re-evaluate our rankings. The most blatant example was Western Kentucky, whom we had within three tiers of the bottom all year but whom every list we consulted had up in the 80's or so. Given their recent body of work (they're up to .500 now) and those opinions, we concurred and moved them up to tier O, number 88 on your radio dial...
...Looking at the list with conferences attached (yes, that's what the lower case letters after the overall record are!), a fairly clear pattern emerges: The SEC gets the benefit of the doubt if there's an extra loss on the record, particularly the West, over the closely regarded Pac-12, Big-12, and Big-10. The ACC is probably not quite as well regarded, or schools like Duke would be higher. Then there's a bit of a gap, because it takes about a two-game better record for a school from the Mountain West or the old Big East, the AAC, to match a school from one of the Power 5. (#37 is Maryland at 6-4; #38 is Boise St at 8-2.) Then, you drop down to the MAC, Conference USA, and the Sun Belt, all of whom lie essentially in a second division as it is (and the MW/AAC are fighting to stay above that). That's why Marshall sits in #25 with a 10-0 record: the schools in that "division" can't run with the "big boys" because they can't play the big boys. Rankings are determined first and foremost by one simple question: if these two teams played on a neutral field, who would win? The winner is ranked higher, the loser lower. Marshall's beaten everyone it's played...but would it beat any of the 24 teams above it? Arizona? Duke? Notre Dame? Oklahoma? It might even be generous to say that they'd beat the teams immediately below it...Utah? Clemson? Louisville? Miami-FL? We'd love to see them against West Virginia, given their proximity!
...In fact, here's an interesting tidbit: The "strength of schedule" parameter for FCS defending champion North Dakota St is actually HIGHER than that of FBS Marshall! It's hard to argue that they're playing opponents that are comparable to what even Florida St is facing, much less the SEC!
...These tiers make for some strange bedfellows! Seeing Texas moving all the way up to #40, right below...East Carolina? And finding 6-4 Nevada at #59, right between North Carolina St (6-5) and North Carolina (5-5)!
...Towards the bottom, in our attempt to keep our six-team tiers consistent (for a change, right?), we ended up with a "Bottom Two" - Georgia St and SMU. Despite the Mustangs' winless record, Georgia St is rated below them in many of the computer systems we looked through. Nevertheless, only a true #128 could lose the game Saturday the way they lost it - giving up a near-legendary twenty-one play drive over the course of the last six minutes of the game, including three fourth down conversions with the game on the line, and letting the opponent you've held scoreless for 3 1/2 quarters score the touchdown they had to score in the last six seconds to win. Amazing. (Admittedly, Idaho is close, though - losing to Tier T Troy, at home, by 17 points, when they'd been favored going in. That's impressive.)
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