UPS and DOWNS for Tuesday, the first week of November!

As the college football playoff committee puts out its rankings tonight, and Following Football has done the same over the last two days for all 285 pro and college teams we cover, it's a great time to look at which teams have had a surprisingly UP season, and which ones have been startlingly DOWN...

WHO'S UP? Well, what about the Cincinnati Bengals and the Carolina Panthers? Everyone who saw both of them at 7-0 starting November raise your hands. OK, we've identified the liars in the room...

WHO'S DOWN? It's not hard to find struggling teams in the NFL, but a couple we saw in the playoffs last year are the Baltimore Ravens and the Detroit Lions. Tough schedule, sure - close games, yes - but somewhere in there, you've got to stand up and win a couple of those games.

WHO'S UP? Three "usual suspects": the Green Bay Packers, the Denver Broncos, and the New England Patriots. Remarkable to watch Peyton be Peyton again, but Rodgers and Brady have left no doubt that they're still at the top of their games. And all three have defenses to get them the ball.

WHO'S DOWN? Again, who do you expect? The Tennessee Titans, of course, who just fired another coach...the Cleveland Browns, who continue to put up with Manziel for some odd reason...the Chicago Bears weren't expected to do much, and still haven't lived up to expectations... and even with their shiny new QB, the Tampa Bay Bucs are barely better than they were at this point last year.

WHO'S UP? There are signs of life in Oakland...in Minnesota...in Atlanta...in St. Louis. Parity is always the stated goal of the NFL admin, but what you really want is the feeling as a fan base that any year could be THE YEAR!

WHO'S DOWN? When you've got a fan base like the Sasktachewan RoughRiders do, arguably the best in the Canadian Football League, and you were expecting to be contending for the Grey Cup, when you were right on the heels of the eventual champion Calgary Stampeders all season...and you go a miserable two and fifteen heading into the final week of the season...yeah, the green is blue this year. The Riders were actually eliminated from playoff contention six weeks ago...in a league where 2/3 of the teams make the playoffs. THAT'S impressive in its badness.

WHO'S UP? When you went 2-16 last year in your first campaign as an expansion franchise, you can be forgiven if a successful second season in your mind was, say, six wins. Looking at the two expansion clubs in the AFL (Gold Coast and GWS), they went through about that - two bad years, then two mediocre years. But instead, the Ottawa RedBlacks are one win away from an Eastern Division championship in their second year - already guaranteed a winning record at 11-6, all they need to do is win OR not lose by more than five points at home on Saturday to the Hamilton Ti-Cats...not the first choice of opponents in this situation, especially since it's the Ti-Cats who will earn the title if you fail. But just to have this opportunity in your sophomore campaign! CONGRATULATIONS, OTTAWA!

WHO'S DOWN? My attention span for Canadian football once the American season hit full steam in late September. It was frustrating, because I knew I didn't have the time or energy to stay abreast of every single thing in the NFL, NCAA, and the CFL - and as the footy season was reaching its climax down under, it was the mid-to-late weeks of the Canadian season that got the short shrift. To our readers, I apologize. But of course, all we can do is our best, and we'll continue to do that for you.

WHO'S UP? At the moment, we have our top four "theoretically playoff bound" FBS teams (in the humble opinion of Following Football ACNC!) - LSU, Clemson, Alabama, Notre Dame. To most observers we've heard, the first two names are almost indisputable at the moment (things change quickly in college football, though!), and the other two could be replaced by any of close to a dozen teams: TCU, Baylor, Oklahoma, Oklahoma St, Michigan St, Ohio St, Florida, Stanford, Iowa, Utah, even Memphis or Toledo. (Probably not Idaho, though.)

WHO'S DOWN? Which teams thought they'd be in the mix at this point and aren't? There are some obvious candidates: Georgia, Auburn, Oregon, USC, Tennessee, There are some others whose fan bases might have thought it feasible - but that's another story.

WHO'S UP? There are some remarkable positive stories this fall of teams who weren't expected to fare as successfully as they have, as there are every year. That doesn't make them any less worth applauding: Florida (new head coach Jim McElwain has them sitting at #7 on the Following Football ranking at the moment; finished the 2014 season at #34), Michigan (Harbaugh took a team who finished at #67 last year, bottom half of the FBS, and has them at #14 right now), Houston (up from #69 last year to an undefeated 8-0 at #21 and looking at a possible New Year's bowl); and Temple (similar story arc, moving from #79 to current #22, having just taken Notre Dame to the brink). There are lower eschelon stories as well: Southern Miss moved from tier S up to its current tier L; Tulsa has bounded from tier T up to tier N this year. Vanderbilt from tier R up to its present place in tier I; and Northwestern, who beat Stanford to start the year, Duke for its only legitimate defeat (ahem, Miami), and moved from last year's tier M and #78 all the way into tier G and position #35.

WHO'S DOWN? And then... there are the sob stories. The ones you tsk tsk about behind their backs. The ones who (in your opinion) deserve a bad year every once in a while... How about Texas? Charlie Strong's first year looked promising! But with a blowout, embarrassing loss to Notre Dame (well, ok), embarrassing near-misses against California and OK State (hmmm...), a bad loss at TCU (eww...), a surprise win in the Shootout (hey! Maybe...) followed by definitive losses to two foes they used to pick their teeth with the last two weeks: K-State and Iowa State. Read that again. Iowa State! The Texas offense was not only shut out, they never got past the ISU 40 yard line.

But that pales next to Nebraska, who fired a coach who gave them nine wins a season every year - AGAIN. A decade ago, they fired Frank Solich because he wasn't Tom Osborne. The man they hired to replace him...was no Frank Solich. Disaster - they didn't even make .500! In desperation, they brought in NU guy Bo Pelini - colorful, successful, nine wins a season, just like Solich (who went on to be one of the most successful coaches in MAC history). Seven years of Pelini NOT being Tom Osborne was enough for the faithful, and they brought in Mike Riley, a very nice man with a mediocre program at Oregon State, who has produced a mediocre program at Nebraska, finding exciting ways to lose close games to good teams and sometimes to bad teams like Purdue last weekend.

South Carolina was doing badly enough that the Head Ball Coach simply walked away into retirement. Central Florida saw the same story with Head Resume Inflator in the lead walking role. Whether the story ends the same way at Virginia Tech in Frank Beamer's last year remains to be seen. It looks like Minnesota's going to be hanged if they allow Jerry Kill's epilepsy-induced retirement to end the same way, thankfully.

WHAT'S NEXT? Who knows? And isn't that the beauty of football? It's the best reality show there is - all the drama, the competition, the tension of the staged TV events, except it's actual reality! There IS no script! Maybe Texas turns it around! Maybe Florida nosedives the rest of the way! Maybe Jim Harbaugh takes Michigan to four miraculous victories against Ohio State, Iowa in the B1G title game, the semifinal and the NC game, and the Blue rule the nation! Or...just as unlikely...maybe they lose every game from here on out, including a 59-0 shutout by the Buckeyes. That's the point - we can't know ahead of time! So sit back, turn on the TV, go to a game if you're close enough, and enjoy the ride!

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...

Some great mid-major (and above) thoughts from "Fan-Sided"

Here are a couple of posts from the college football section of SI's FanSided, including one listing five schools who are not only ready to move up but additionally NEED to move up to a Power Five conference ASAP...a short clip about the contract extension for Boise State's head coach, but the real news is that little ol' Boise is giving its DC and OC three-year, million dollar contracts, something unheard of just a few years ago...and an interesting analysis of five schools who turn the two and three star recruits into five star players because of their coaching, style, consistency, and methods.

It's college bowl season!

Sorry for the delay in this post: real life intervened. But, here are the 38 scheduled bowl games and their predicted outcomes, not just from Following Football but from Sagarin, ESPN, and Vegas:

Dec 20:                                          ESPN             SAGARIN           VEGAS           Following FB
Nevada v LA-Lafayette:              Nev by 4        Nev by 1.4           Nev by 1.          ULL by 1/2
Utah St v UTEP:                            USU by 13  USU by 8.8.    USU by 10.     USU by 12
Utah v Colorado St:                      CSU by 3.      Utah by 5.6     Utah by 3       CSU by 1/2
W Michigan v Air Force:             WM by 7.      WM by 0.5.        AF by 1.5.       AF by 6
Bowling Green v S Alabama:     BG by 1         SA by 2.4.           SA by 3.            SA by 1/2 

Dec 22
BYU v Memphis:                            Mem by 7.  Mem by 2.0    Mem by 1.5.    Mem by 3

Dec 23
Marshall v N Illinois:                    Mrsh by 7.  Mrsh by 12.5. Mrsh by 10   Mrsh by 4
Navy v San Diego St:                    SDSU by 1.    SDSU by 3.1.       SDSU by 3.     Navy by 1

Dec 24
C Michigan v W Kentucky:          WK by 13.     WK by 5.0.     WK by 4.      WK by 5
Fresno St v Rice:                            Rice by 8.     Rice by 2.6.    Rice by 2.5   Rice by 1/2

Dec 26
Illinois v Louisiana Tech:            LT by 11.       LT by 9.1.       LT by 6.          LT by 4
Rutgers v North Carolina:          NC by 3.          NC by 2.7.         NC by 3.            Rut by 1/2. 
N Carolina St v UCF:                    NCS by 1.      UCF by 3.3.      UCF by 2.         UCF by 2 1/2

...and we'll pick up the second week later in this week. But for Bowl Season, we're scoring a little differently...or at least, a little additionally! We'll ALSO keep a tally of which of these four highly esteemed methodologies picks the highest number of game winners, straight up. To the victor belong the non-existent spoils! 

A ridiculous, miraculous ending last night!

If you haven't watched the end of the UCF victory over East Carolina last night, you need to watch this! (Hoping they allow this video to stay up on YouTube - it's critical to see the entire lead up to the Hail Mary!) UCF had the lead, 23-9, in the fourth quarter, and the Pirates came back to score three touchdowns and lead by four, 30-26, with 2:17 remaining in the game. Once they forced the Knights to go four-and-out, that looked like the end of the game...

Or was it?

ECU still had to eat up just under two minutes of clock, and UCF had one timeout. Watch the video - they really do a decent job of stalling: running plays at one on the play clock, moving around to buy more time, and so on. The problem was the decision to kneel in the first place - they really needed to simply run their normal offense! As it was, they gave the ball back to UCF with ten seconds to go, and the rest is history.

Week 14 predictions on three fronts, from three directions!

Okay, we've got things organized enough now (finally, at the end of the American college season!) to put the Week 14 predictions together as follows: Here are the Vegas line, the Sagarin rating prediction, and the tier-produced FOLLOWING FOOTBALL projections, all in one place!

What's more, with a small docket of games at the college level on conference championship Saturday, we can list these all for not only the FBS games but also the FCS games (there's no Vegas line for those) and the NFL weekend as well!

Here are the FBS games, with the reminder that "visiting" may not mean anything at a neutral site like many of the conference title games are this week....

"visiting" team	"home" team	vegas line	FF line	sagarin difference
UCF	East Carolina	ECU -6	ECU -10.5	UCF -1.97
Northern Illinois	Bowling Green	NIU -7	NIU -4.5	NIU -5.72
Arizona	Oregon	Ore -13.5	Ore -4	Ore -10.36
Louisiana Tech	Marshall	Mar -12.5	Marsh -6	Marsh - 7.23
Houston	Cincinnati	Cin -6.5	Cin - 12	Cincy -10.20
SMU	U Conn	Con -11.5	Con -5	Conn -13.62
Iowa St	TCU	TCU -33.5	TCU -33	TCU - 33.52
Oklahoma St	Oklahoma	OU -20	OU - 16	OU - 23.51
Alabama	Missouri	Ala -14.5	Ala - 4	Ala -12.35
Temple	Tulane	Tem -3.5	Tem - 5	Temple -6.76
Kansas St	Baylor		Bay -4.5	Bay -4.85
Florida St	Georgia Tech	FSU -4	FSU -1.5	FSU -0.50
Wisconsin	Ohio St	Wisc - 4	OSU -3	OSU -1.35
Fresno St	Boise St	BSU -20	BSU -19	BSU -17.41

Interesting to note the admittedly few differences, particularly Central Florida's being favored by the computer and Wisconsin by the casinos. (There's currently no Vegas line for the Baylor/K-State game.)

Here are the FCS second round playoffs, hosted at the home field of the top eight ranked teams in the nation...

visiting team	home team		FF line	sagarin difference
Fordham	New Hampshire		NH -10	NH - 7.05
Indiana St	Chattanooga		Ch -3	Chat -3.24
Richmond	Coastal Carolina		CC -14	CC -10.96
Sam Houston	Jacksonville St		JSU -3	JSU -11.68
Northern Iowa	Illinois St		NIU -3	Ill St -0.98
South Dakota St	North Dakota St		ND -16	NDSU -12.89
Montana	Eastern Washington		EW -13	EWU -8.47
Liberty	Villanova		Vill -5	Vill -2.71

Of course, the hosts are favored in almost all cases, although we see Illinois State being in even more trouble than the computer does, and the same can be said for J-State's battle with pesky Sam Houston St, a perennial playoff powerhouse. But the top teams should make it through without difficulty.

Now, the NFL scene...

visiting team	home team	vegas line	FF line	sagarin difference
Dallas Cowboys	Chicago Bears	Dal -3.5	Dal - 5	Dallas -1.79
Pittsburgh Steelers	Cincinnati Bengals	Cin -3.5	Cin -4.5	Cincy -5.09
St. Louis Rams	Washington Redskins	StL -3	Wsh -1	St. Louis -0.17
New York Giants	Tennessee Titans	NYG -1.5	Ten -1.5	NYG -0.42
Carolina Panthers	New Orleans Saints	NO -10	NO -5.5	NO -7.86
New York Jets	Minnesota Vikings	Min -6	Min -5	Min - 6.17
Baltimore Ravens	Miami Dolphins	Mia -3	Mia -4	Miami -4.82
Indianapolis Colts	Cleveland Browns	Ind -4.5	Indy - 3	Indy -2.96
Tampa Bay Bucs	Detroit Lions	Det -10	Det -13	Detroit -13.39
Houston Texans	Jacksonville Jaguars	Hou -5.5	Hou -4	Houston -7.46
Buffalo Bills	Denver Broncos	Den -10	Den -11	Denv -10.32
Kansas City Chiefs	Arizona Cardinals	Ariz -1.5	Ariz -7	Ariz - 2.5
Seattle Seahawks	Philadelphia Eagles	Phi -1	Phil -4	Phil -2.59
San Francisco 49ers	Oakland Raiders	SF -9	SF -4	San Fr -6.41
New England Pats	San Diego Chargers	NE -4	NE -2	NE -4.31
Atlanta Falcons	Green Bay Packers	GB -12.5	GB -13	GB -13.59

Again, there's great similarity between the three projections, and ironically the two games that we forecast home "underdogs" to win, we'd personally prefer to see the visiting team win! 

The Arizona game is interesting with a sub quarterback in and the other injuries they're dealing with, which we don't take into account (also why the casinos are higher on Wisconsin, given Ohio St's QB situation. But we resisted the temptation to skew the tiers to match that reality...let the situation play out! How many folks thought JT Barrett would be a bust, too?)

Back to normal for SMU...

Eight minutes into bottom tier SMU's game at Central Florida, it's 14-0 UCF: 

UCF - 18 plays, 148 yards, 10 first downs, two TDs.
SMU - 1 play, 0 yards, 0 first downs, 1 interception.

Go, Mustangs...

Week 8 tiers continued - the Ground Floor!

Continuing out of the Basement and up to the Ground Floor with Tiers K through P, the "second quartile", if you will - we refuse to rank teams this early in the season, but these are teams #62 through #96 (there are seven teams in each of these five tiers). Onward!

Tier P:
Colorado (2-6, 0-5 and the lowest team in the Pac12), Indiana (3-4, and the lowest team in the Big Ten at 0-3), Ohio (4-5, 2-3 MAC), Purdue (3-5, 1-3 in the Big Ten alongside Indiana), Texas St (4-3, 2-1 Sun), UAB (4-4, 2-2 C-USA), and Wyoming (3-5, 1-3 MW).

Tier N (no Tier O - don't really have a reason...):
The Sun Belt's 2-1 Arkansas St (4-3), the MAC's Central Michigan (5-4, 3-2) and Western Michigan (3-3, 3-1), the Mountain West's Fresno St (3-5, 2-2) and San Jose St (3-4, 2-1), Rice (4-3, 2-1 C-USA), and South Florida (3-5, 2-2 ACC).

Tier M:
Only Conference USA has two representatives in Tier M - Florida Atlantic (3-5, 2-2) and Texas-El Paso (4-3, 2-1). The other five schools are Michigan (3-5, 1-3 Big 10), Navy (4-4 as independent), San Diego St (4-3, 3-1 MW), Temple (4-3, 2-2 AAC), and Washington St (2-6, 1-4 Pac12). [Michigan should find it appropriate that they're in Tier "M"...yet somehow we doubt they're pleased!]

Tier L:
BYU has fallen all the way to here (4-4 as an independent), alongside Illinois (4-4, 1-3 Big 10), Middle Tennessee (5-3, 4-1 C-USA), Texas and Texas Tech (both 3-5, although the Longhorns have one more win in the Big 12), Toledo (5-3, undefeated at 4-0 in the MAC), and Louisiana-Lafayette (4-3, and also undefeated in conference at 3-0 in the Sun Belt).

Tier K:
The first tier without a losing record includes six different conferences (there's only one tier without duplicate teams from the same conference...and we haven't reached it yet!) starts with Bowling Green (5-3, 3-1 in the MAC), Central Florida (5-2, 3-0) and Cincinnati (4-3, 2-1) from the American Athletic Conference, Georgia Southern (the highest ranked team from the Sun Belt conference at 6-2 and 5-0), Louisiana Tech (5-3, 4-0 C-USA), Nevada (5-3, 2-2 MW), and North Carolina St (4-4, 0-4 in the ACC).