College Football Rankings Update and Analysis: Week 6

College Football Rankings Update and Analysis: Week 6

October 6, 2015 – by Seth Trachtman

It was a crazy college football weekend with some big upsets and close calls, and our rankings (and the human polls) have seen some big changes as a result.

Here’s how things stand entering Week 6.

Quick Rankings Primer

To review, when we refer to the TR rankings, we mean our college football predictive ratings, which are our core measure of team strength. These rankings are designed, as the name implies, to predict future outcomes of games.

Our rankings are driven by margins of victory. Unlike human voters and opinions, they don’t care only about wins and losses, which can be highly influenced by luck (e.g. a poorly timed fumble). More specifically, this means:

A team that loses a game can still move up in our rankings (e.g. if they lose by less than expected)A team that wins a game can still move down our rankings (e.g. if they win by less than expected)A team with several losses can still be ranked highly (e.g. if they have faced a tough schedule, or potentially just had a few fluke losses)

In addition, our rankings factor in a blend of season performance to date plus each team’s preseason rating, since the results of a small number of early season games can often be misleading. However, the impact of the preseason rating (which you can find in our 2015 preseason college football rankings post) decays as the season goes on.

General Highlights Entering Week 6

Alabama extends lead at No. 1. We took some heat from a few readers for Alabama moving into the #1 spot in our rankings last week, since the Tide had a loss to undefeated Mississippi; our ratings effectively saw Ole Miss’s unimpressive Week 4 home win over Vanderbilt as a warning sign. It was a vindicating week. Alabama thrashed Georgia on the road, winning by 28 points in a game that our ratings expected to be almost even, while Ole Miss lost by 28 in a game our ratings expected them to win by 9. Bama has now faced the toughest schedule in the country thus far and escaped with one somewhat unlucky loss. Of course, it doesn’t get much easier for the Tide, who face four teams in the current TR Top 25 over their next five contests.The Baylor scoring machine makes a statement. Baylor has jumped to No. 2 in our rankings, helped by both their scoring onslaught against Texas Tech and by Ole Miss’ loss. The Bears have faced a weak schedule to this point, but their 28-point victory over Texas Tech came against a win expectation of 13-14 points. Baylor’s schedule is back-loaded with games @ Kansas State, vs. Oklahoma, @ Oklahoma State, and @ TCU in November, so we’ll know more about this team soon enough.Big upsets caused a lot of rankings volatility. The weekend’s surprises had big impacts on some teams’ rankings. Florida increased 11 spots in our rankings, and also made the second biggest jump in the history of the AP Poll after upsetting Ole Miss. (For the record, human pickers gave Florida almost no chance against Ole Miss, causing us to highlight the Gators in our weekly upset watch.) After demolishing Arizona by a 38-point margin, Stanford also continues to prove itself, and also benefits from more evidence that a Week 1 loss at Northwestern isn’t nearly as shameful as it seemed back then. Finally, unexpected losses by Ole Miss, Georgia, and UCLA, as well as closer than expected wins by Ohio State and LSU, sent those five highly ranked teams sliding down in our rankings.Teams with multiple losses after 5 games can still be good teams. The TR Top 25 currently features four teams with multiple losses (Wisconsin, Mississippi State, Tennessee, and Georgia Tech), and two of those teams even have losing records. In short, results like that are going to happen when your system is designed to be predictive, and not to simply reward wins or overreact to a small sample size of results. So a team like 5-0 California, who’s barely slipped by mediocre teams Texas and Washington State, will still earn a place in the AP Top 25 thanks largely to an unblemished record, while a team like 2-3 Tennessee, whose 3 losses have all come against strong teams and by a combined 13 points, would never. Our ratings look much more deeply at the quality of wins and losses than human voters tend to.

Biggest Gainers Last Week

Team	Rating	Change	New Rank	Old Rank	Result
Florida	14.7	+4.5	18	29	W 38-10 vs. #2 Miss
W Kentucky	7.3	+4.4	37	60	W 49-10 @ #91 Rice
Arizona St	6.4	+4.4	45	64	W 38-23 @ #8 UCLA
E Michigan	-20	+3.5	119	125	L 44-22 @ #7 LSU
Boise State	15.8	+3.4	15	24	W 55-0 vs. #99 Hawaii
Navy	6.8	+3.3	41	55	W 33-11 vs. #57 Air Force
E Carolina	-0.2	+3.3	68	75	W 49-23 @ #107 S Methodist
Stanford	18.7	+3.3	6	18	W 55-17 vs. #38 Arizona
Army	-12.3	+3.1	106	113	L 20-14 @ #48 Penn State
Wash State	-6.1	+2.9	84	102	L 34-28 @ #26 California

Florida is our biggest gainer after their impressive 38-10 upset over Ole Miss, and are currently sitting pretty in the SEC East with an early 3-0 conference record. The Gators may have found an offense after searching for one the last few years, and have beaten two teams in the current TR Top 25.Arizona State also got a big boost after beating a highly ranked opponent, shocking UCLA on the road to win by 15 points. The Sun Devils still sit well outside the TR Top 25 after losing by more than 20 points to both Texas A&M and USC earlier in the season, and their wins vs. Cal Poly and New Mexico didn’t help their strength of schedule.Eastern Michigan, Army, and Washington State are on the biggest gainers list despite losing in Week 5. From the cellar of our rankings, Eastern Michigan gave No. 7 LSU a game for three quarters and only lost by a 22-point margin. The Tigers were expected to win by a whopping 45 points, according to last week’s predictive ratings. Army remained within one touchdown at Penn State in a game they were expected to lose by more than 20 points, and Mike Leach’s Washington State squad stayed within one touchdown at California, compared to a 24-point loss expectation.Already ranked in the TR Top 25, Boise State and Stanford saw big boosts due to their margins of victory. Boise State beat a bad Hawaii team by a 55-point margin, while Stanford beat up on No. 38 Arizona by exactly 38 points.

Biggest Losers Last Week

Team	Rating	Change	New Rank	Old Rank	Results
Hawaii	-13.1	-4.9	107	98	L 55-0 @ #24 Boise State
UCLA	13.4	-4.6	21	8	L 38-23 vs. #64 Arizona St
Rice	-12.0	-4.6	105	91	L 49-10 vs. #60 W Kentucky
Texas	-0.3	-4.4	69	50	L 50-7 @ #11 TX Christian
Mississippi	18.3	-4.3	8	2	L 38-10 vs. #29 Florida
Georgia	16.2	-4.0	13	6	L 38-10 vs. #1 Alabama
Arizona	3.9	-3.9	55	38	L 55-17 @ #18 Stanford
LSU	14.8	-3.3	17	7	W 44-22 vs. #125 E Michigan
North Texas	-24.1	-2.9	127	120	L 49-14 @ #81 S Mississippi
Miami (FL)	7.4	-2.9	36	27	L 34-23 @ #71 Cincinnati

Poor Hawaii falls further down in the rankings after getting shut out by Boise State. Their 55-point loss is the third time they’ve been shut out on the road. Granted, those losses have come vs. Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Boise State, but the huge margins have still pushed Hawaii well down the rankings.The Jekyll and Hyde act from UCLA continues. The Bruins ranked among our 10 biggest gainers last week after beating Arizona, but fell sharply this week after losing by 15 points at home to Arizona State. Such can be life while starting a true freshman quarterback, apparently.Texas has received plenty of media attention after losing 50-7 to TCU. Charlie Strong’s Longhorns now sit at 1-4, although three of their four losses have come vs. current TR Top 25 teams. The firestorm probably won’t quiet down with the Red River Showdown vs. Oklahoma this week.Several SEC teams took hard falls in the ratings, including Ole Miss, Georgia, and LSU. Ole Miss were 8.9 point favorites vs. Florida, according to our ratings, and lost by 28. Georgia was basically even with Alabama and also lost by 28, while LSU had a relatively close call vs. a weak Eastern Michigan team.

The TR Top 25: Week 6 Edition

New Teams: #18 Florida (+11 from #29 last week)Teams Dropping Out: #28 Michigan State (-5 from #23)Teams We Like Better Than The AP: Alabama, Baylor, USC, Oklahoma, Stanford, Mississippi, Notre Dame, Michigan, Georgia, Boise State, West Virginia, Georgia Tech, Tennessee, Mississippi State, WisconsinTeams The AP Likes Better Than We Do: TCU, Ohio State, Utah, Clemson, LSU, Florida, Florida State, UCLA, Oklahoma State, Michigan State, Northwestern, Iowa, California, Toledo

There are big changes in both the TR Top 25 and AP Poll, though not necessarily involving the same teams:

The human voters penalized the SEC losses of Ole Miss and Georgia more than our ratings did, while also rewarding Florida moreThe AP Poll also reacted more negatively to Notre Dame’s close loss to a top 25 Clemson team than we didThe biggest discrepancy between the our rankings the and AP rankings continues to be Michigan State. Another week, another unimpressive win for the Spartans, who are now undefeated but 0-5 against he point spread, with five straight wins by less than expected. In Week 5, Michigan State barely edged a one-win Purdue team at home, and their resume features no wins against teams currently in the TR Top 25. The latest close win sent the Spartans down in both our rankings and the AP Poll, but they are still #4 in the AP vs. #28 TR.As usual, the AP Poll also didn’t penalize teams for closer-than-expected wins (e.g. Ohio State, LSU, Florida State, California), while our ratings did

The Complete TR Top 25 (as of Mon 10/5)

“Predictive” refers to the team’s predictive rating, which indicates points better than an average team on a neutral field“SOS” refers to the team’s strength of schedule rating for games played so far this season

Team	Rank	AP Rank	TR Change	AP Change	Rating	Result	SOS
Alabama (4-1)	1	8		+5	25.6	W 38-10 @ #6 Georgia	11.7
Baylor (4-0)	2	3	+1	+2	23.1	W 63-35 vs. #30 Texas Tech	-1.0
USC (3-1)	3	17	+2		22.5	W 42-14 @ #64 Arizona St	7.0
Oklahoma (4-0)	4	10	+5	+5	19.4	W 44-24 vs. #12 W Virginia	7.5
TX Christian (5-0)	5	2	+6	+2	19.2	W 50-7 vs. #50 Texas	1.0
Stanford (4-1)	6	16	+12	+2	18.7	W 55-17 vs. #64 Arizona St	1.3
Ohio State (5-0)	7	1	-3		18.7	W 34-27 @ #72 Indiana	9.4
Mississippi (4-1)	8	14	-6	-11	18.3	L 38-10 @ #29 Florida	10.6
Texas A&M (5-0)	9	9	+8	+5	17.0	W 30-17 vs. #21 Miss State	5.0
Utah (4-0)	10	5	+4	+5	17.0	DNP	4.1
Notre Dame (4-1)	11	15	-1	-9	16.7	L 24-22 @ #15 Clemson	6.1
Michigan (4-1)	12	18	+4	+4	16.6	L 28-0 @ #94 Maryland	4.5
Georgia (4-1)	13	19	-7	-11	16.2	L 38-10 vs. #1 Alabama	5.3
Clemson (4-0)	14	6	+1	+6	15.9	W 24-22 vs. #10 Notre Dame	5.4
Boise State (4-1)	15	25	+9		15.8	W 55-10 vs. #98 Hawaii	0.6
W Virginia (3-1)	16	NR	-4		15.2	L 44-24 @ #9 Oklahoma	4.5
LSU (4-0)	17	7	-10	+2	14.8	W 44-22 vs. #125 E Michigan	5.1
Florida (5-0)	18	11	+11	+14	14.7	W 38-10 vs. #2 Mississippi	5.0
GA Tech (2-3)	19	NR	-6		14.6	L 38-31 vs. #35 N Carolina	7.1
Florida St (4-0)	20	12	-1	-1	14.1	W 24-16 @ #87 Wake Forest	-1.8
UCLA (4-1)	21	20	-13	-13	13.4	L 38-23 vs. #64 Arizona St	1.5
Tennessee (2-3)	22	NR			12.9	L 24-20 vs. #34 Arkansas	7.4
Miss State (3-2)	23	NR	-2		12.8	L 30-17 @ #17 Texas A&M	7.5
Wisconsin (3-2)	24	NR	-4		12.3	L 10-6 vs. #43 Iowa	2.5
Oklahoma St (5-0)	25	21		-1	11.3	W 36-34 vs. #33 Kansas St	-1.6

Week 6 Conference Strength Rankings

As a basic measure of conference strength, we can average the predictive ratings of every team in a conference. Here’s how the conferences compare after Week 5, along with their recent change compared to last week.

Conference	Avg Rating	Avg Rating Change
SEC	11.2	-0.6
Big 12	8.4	-0.1
Pac-12	7.5	+0.1
ACC	6.5	+0.0
Big Ten	4.4	-0.2
AAC	-3.4	+0.9
MWC	-7.2	-0.4
MAC	-7.9	+0.4
CUSA	-10.2	-0.4
Sun Belt	-13.6	-0.5

The conference changes this week are relatively minor, with the SEC and AAC seeing the most significant changes.

The teams with the best odds to win their conference right now include Alabama (SEC), Baylor (Big 12), Stanford (Pac-12), Clemson (ACC), Ohio State (Big Ten), Temple (AAC), Boise State (MWC), Toledo (MAC), Western Kentucky (CUSA), and Appalachian State (Sun Belt).

There were changes to the favorites in the SEC, Pac-12, and Conference USA. You can view the full conference winner odds, updated daily, on our college football projected standings page.

 

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