Our first rankings, ahead of the CFP committee's Tuesday:

It's time to start breaking down our tiers into rankings, as the NCAA College Football Playoff committee prepares for ITS first rankings on Tuesday evening. Here are our top 35 FBS teams after Week 9 of the 2015 season:

Tier A) 1. LSU (7-0). 2. Clemson (8-0). 3. Alabama (7-1). 4. Notre Dame (7-1). 5. TCU (7-0).
Tier B) 6. Michigan St (8-0). 7. Florida (7-1). 8. Ohio St (8-0).  9. Oklahoma (7-1). 10. Baylor (8-0). 11. Stanford (7-1).
Tier C) 12. Iowa (8-0). 13. Ole Miss (7-2). 14. Michigan (6-2). 15. Texas A&M (6-2). 16. Utah (7-1). 17. Mississippi St (6-2).
Tier D) 18. Oklahoma St (8-0). 19. Memphis (8-0). 20. Toledo (7-0). 21. Houston (8-0). 22. Temple (7-1).
Tier E) 23. UCLA (6-2). 24. Florida St (7-1). 25. BYU (6-2). 26. Wisconsin (7-2). 27. Georgia (5-3).
Tier F) 28. North Carolina (7-1). 29. USC (5-3). 30. Appalachian St (7-1). 31. Duke (6-2).
Tier G) 32. Tennessee (4-4). 33. Navy (6-1). 34. Boise St (7-2). 35. Northwestern (7-2). 36. California (5-3). 37. Auburn (4-4).

Tier H) Pitt, Miami-Fl, West Virginia, Oregon, Arizona St, Arkansas, Louisiana Tech, Bowling Green.
Tier I) Georgia Tech, Minnesota, Kansas St, Kentucky, Missouri, Northern Illinois.
Tier J) Texas Tech, Washington St, Arizona, Vanderbilt, South Carolina, Cincinnati, Marshall, San Diego St.
Tier K) Boston College, Indiana, Iowa St, Texas, East Carolina, Central Michigan, Western Michigan, Air Force, Utah St.
Tier L) Purdue, Nebraska, South Florida, U Conn, Southern Miss, Georgia Southern.
Tier M) Syracuse, Virginia, Illinois, Arkansas St.
Tier N) Wake Forest, Colorado, Tulsa, Ohio, Akron.
Tier O) Rutgers, Maryland, Oregon St, Middle Tennessee, Buffalo.
Tier P) Rice, Colorado St, Nevada, UNLV.
Tier Q) SMU, FIU, Ball St, San Jose St, UL-Lafayette.
Tier R) Tulane, FAU, New Mexico, Texas St, Troy.
Tier S) Kent St, Idaho, Hawaii, Fresno St.

And the Bottom Sixteen...

Tier T) 113. U Mass (1-7). 114. Kansas (0-8). 115. South Alabama (3-4). 116. Old Dominion (3-5). 117. Wyoming (1-8).
Tier U) 118. Army-West Point (2-6). 119. UT-San Antonio (1-7). 120. New Mexico St (1-7). 121. North Texas (1-7). 122. UL-Monroe (1-7).
Tier V) 123. Miami-OH (1-8). 124. UTEP (3-5). 125. Georgia St (2-5). 126. Charlotte (2-6). 127. Eastern Michigan (1-8). 128. Central Florida (0-9).

As for Top Eights, the Power Five conferences hold the first eight spots above, while the Top Eight for the Group Of Five conferences (pivotal for bowl placement) are as follows right now:
1. Memphis (#19) - 2. Toledo (#20) - 3. Houston (#21) - 4. Temple (#22) - 5. BYU (#25) - 6. Appalachian St (#30) - 7. Navy (#33) - 8. Boise St (#34). 

And the Bottom Fives? Well, all of Tier V comes from the Group Of Five conferences, so there's your bottom five there (UTEP through UCF). As for the Power Five conferences, here are their Bottom Five:
1. Kansas (tier T) - 2. Maryland (tier O) - 3. Rutgers (tier O) - 4. Oregon St (tier O) - 5. Wake Forest (tier N). 

Rankings for the FCS teams and the NFL will come out in the next 24 hours or so...

Speaking of college football, how about a few early predictions?

While here at Following Football:ACNC we don't rank our teams early so as not to bias ourselves against what we see, there's nothing to stop us from guessing how things are going to turn out! So, holding back the right to adjust these predictions as circumstances warrant until the season actually starts in September, here are some thoughts as they pertain to the actual conference races this fall...

Atlantic Coast Conference:
- The winner of the Florida St @ Clemson game wins the ACC title. (We bet Clemson.)
- Louisville 3rd and NC St 4th in the Atlantic; everyone else is putrid.
- Flip a coin between Miami, Georgia Tech, and Va-Tech for the Coastal crown...
-...we're taking Miami in an upset right now.
- Duke will still be good; just not AS good. 4th place. 
- Since UNC goes TO Pitt, we'll take Pitt for 5th and the Tar Heels 6th. 
- It'll be Al Golden's last year at Virginia, as they finish 7th in the Coastal division.

The B1G (the Big Ten, which of course has 14 teams):
- Ohio State is as good as they say. Undefeated season going into the CFP.
- Michigan State would be champs except for the Buckeyes.
- Penn St gets the Wolverines at home, so they get 3rd and Harbaugh gets 4th.
- The rest of the division is bad. Take Rutgers, Maryland, and Indiana in that order.
- Take Minnesota for the West Division! They get BOTH Wisc and Neb at home!
- Wisconsin will be ready to pounce on another division crown if the Gophers fail.
- Nebraska third, and nobody close behind them.
(But plan on Iowa, NW, Illinois, and terrible Purdue if you have to.)

The XII (the Big Twelve, which of course has 10 teams):
- TCU all the way, including a pounding of Baylor in Fort Worth and a trip to the CFP.
- The rest of the real class in the XII is Baylor and OU, who we see 2nd and 3rd.
- There's a logjam for mediocrity, which we're deciphering as Texas, K-St, OSU, and WVU.
- The bottom of the conference is still poor. Tech 8th, ISU 9th, KU 10th.

The Pac-12 Conference:
- Two tight races at the top: we'll flip a coin down south and say UCLA has the slightly easier road.
- Up north, we've a hunch that it's finally Stanford's year to get through OU to the CFP!
- The four other good teams in the conference are Arizona, Utah, Cal, and ASU. In that order.
- UW might join them, but let's see them against Boise St first. If they win there, then yes.
- Wazzu and Oregon St may have some chances to at least go to a bowl.
- Colorado definitely does NOT.

The Southeastern Conference:
- We're staying with 'Bama until they prove us wrong. Division, conference, CFP.
-...but LSU and Auburn are good choices, too, should "In Saban we trust" falter.
- 4th/5th is tight between Ole Miss and Arkansas; their game is in Mississippi, so we take the Rebels.
- 6th/7th would be 1st/2nd in most conferences. Here, it's placing Miss St in the cellar because A&M wins in Texas.
- Georgia's the only team in the Eastern Division that would have a chance in the West.
- The other six will go winless against the West. Book it!
- Vanderbilt will be last. But I'd prefer to school there than any of the other SEC schools.
- Spots 2-6 may be a five way tie at 3-5, but we'll say: UK, Mizzou, USC, FLA, and UT.

So to recap: The College Football Playoff should be TCU, Ohio St, Stanford, and 'Bama.
The Power Five Bottom Five (we're splitting it up this year!) may start with Vandy, Kansas, Colorado, Purdue, and Wake Forest. The Group of Five conferences are next.

Highlights of the upcoming Week 12...

Games of interest for the week of November 18-24, 2014...

RIVALRIES! North Carolina @ Duke Thursday night (Duke favored by 6-9 points), and the Kansas City Chiefs head to Oakland Raiders that night as well (KC by 8). The other big FBS rivalries are in California: Stanford @ Cal in the afternoon, and USC @ UCLA in the evening (both FF and Vegas favor the Bruins by 3, so it's a pick'em game on a neutral field!). But the really fun rivalries are in the FCS, where Saturday is the day of The Game: Yale @ Harvard (Harvard should be a 16 point favorite), as well as two classics out west: Sacramento St @ UC Davis (the Hornets are favored by one on the road) and Montana St @ Montana (the Griz should win by 4 at home). Update: upsets Thursday! Duke loses BIG, 45-20, and the Raiders beat the spread AND KC, 24-20!

CANADIAN LEAGUE CONFERENCE FINALS on Sunday! It's going to be Montreal @ Hamilton,  the rubber match of the Eastern Conference slugfest! Hamilton won the last game of the season by more than Montreal beat them earlier, thereby securing the home field for this game to determine the East's entry into the 102nd Grey Cup! We see this as a pick'em game on a neutral field, so give the Ti-Cats the edge at home by three.

Meanwhile, Edmonton earned the right to travel to Calgary for the Western Conference final, where they'll be heavy underdogs against the best team in the regular season at 15-3. We pick the Stampeders by 10 at home, but Edmonton has shown that they're the best hope of preventing Calgary from raising the Cup this year, with a pair of 9-9 teams battling for the chance to face this game's winner next week.

BACK ON THIS SIDE OF THE 49th PARALLEL, there are some great games coming up this weekend! The K-State/WVU matchup Thursday should be a lot of fun, as will Minnesota @ Nebraska on Saturday. Curiosity as to what Kansas will do at Oklahoma - can they continue the strong play of their last two (home) games? Arizona @ Utah offers a hope of some great play, as does Ole Miss @ Arkansas.

THERE ARE SOME BAD MATCH-UPS out there, too...Why are you playing FCS teams at this stage of the season, Florida? Georgia? Alabama? Auburn? For all the chest-puffing and boasting the SEC does, games like this (against Eastern Kentucky, Charleston Southern, Western Carolina, and Samford) make them look foolish and scared. Which is foolish, since they could easily schedule a lower level FBS school if they needed another bodybag game, for the pre-season! If you need a break from the admitted rigors of the SEC schedule, put a bye in there!

The worst one, however, is our old pal Savannah St, who plays their (ahem) traditional rival BYU on Saturday afternoon. Our tier system and Sagarin's ratings make this about a 55-point spread, meaning the Cougars should win by eight touchdowns. WHY? Why play this game at all? Was BYU that desperate for a game that they had to schedule the lowest level FCS team they could find? 

There are two other interesting games in the FCS: former multiple champion Youngstown St plays at current multiple champion North Dakota St (the Bison are twenty point faves), and on the other end of the scale, Towson goes to bottom-feeder Rhode Island, just about the only team lower than they are (Towson's a seven point fave).

And we CAN'T FORGET THE NFL, the league that never goes dark! Following the Adrian Peterson verdict today (out the rest of the season), it'll be interesting to see the Viking crowd reaction when Green Bay comes in Sunday and runs up fifty on them,too. Detroit's got a big challenge, going to New England the week after seeing them annihilate Indy. Miami has a great test this week too, going into Mile High to face Denver. Finally, in the spirit of the SEC, the Jacksonville Jaguars go into Lucas Oil Stadium to face the Indianapolis Colts, a 15-point favorite (a line you very rarely see in the NFL, but a very accurate one in our opinion). Pittsburgh and Carolina get the last byes of the season this week.

Looking at the new FOLLOWING FOOTBALL tier rankings...

...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.)