College Football Rankings Update and Analysis: Week 5

September 28, 2015 - by Seth Trachtman

While the top tier of teams remained relatively intact over the weekend, there were some major rankings shakeups below that tier. There are also some intriguing matchups ahead as we look toward Week 5 of the college football season.

Here’s how things stand in our rankings following Week 4.

Quick Rankings Primer

To review from last week, 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, and unlike human voters, they don’t care about wins and losses — which can be highly influenced by luck (e.g. a poorly timed fumble). Which means:

A team that loses a game can still move up in our rankings, if they lose by less than expected
A team that wins a game can still move down our rankings, if they win by less than expected
A team with several losses in a very tough conference can still be ranked among the top teams in the country

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 5

Alabama and Ole Miss flip-flopped in the top two spots. Bama now re-inherits the crown as our No. 1 team despite losing to Ole Miss at home last week. The teams switched primarily because of Ole Miss’s poor showing at home vs. #64 Vanderbilt, winning by only 11 points (Vegas favored Ole Miss by 27; our ratings favored them by 29), while Alabama only underperformed expectations by a few points in blanking Louisiana-Monroe 34-0. As a result, both teams saw their predictive ratings decrease, but Ole Miss suffered a bigger drop.
Michigan State continues to have a huge discrepancy in our rankings vs. the AP Poll (see below). The Spartans remain at No. 2 in the AP Poll, while they dropped four spots to No. 23 in our rankings. This is a classic example of human voters being unwilling to reconsider the character of past wins. For the fourth week in a row, the undefeated Spartans failed to win by as much as they were expected to, and their close win vs. Oregon at home now looks far less impressive after the Ducks got annihilated 62-20 by Utah in Eugene.
There are several big-time games coming up in Week 5, after some mediocre matchups last week. Those games include West Virginia @ Oklahoma, Alabama @ Georgia, Mississippi State @ Texas A&M, and Notre Dame @ Clemson.

Biggest Gainers Last Week

Team	Rating	Change	New Rank	Old Rank	Result
UNLV	-7.7	+8.3	92	115	W 80-8 vs. Idaho State
Utah	16.5	+6.9	14	32	W 62-20 @ #29 Oregon
Michigan	15.6	+6.7	16	34	W 31-0 vs. #22 BYU
App State	3.3	+6.6	59	75	W 49-0 @ #116 Old Dominion
Houston	5.0	+4.8	44	63	W 59-14 vs. #107 Texas State
Akron	-6.0	+4.3	84	104	W 35-14 @ #79 LA Lafayette
Baylor	22.1	+3.8	3	9	W 70-17 vs. #71 Rice
Toledo	4.9	+3.7	45	61	W 37-7 vs. #76 Arkansas St
NC State	8.6	+3.6	32	44	W 63-13 @ #113 S Alabama
UCLA	18.0	+3.5	8	16	W 56-30 @ #25 Arizona

It didn’t take much for UNLV to be the biggest gainer based on where they were last week, but a 73-point win margin, even against a weak opponent, really helped their rating. UNLV was 0-3 coming into the game, but also has lost to two teams in the current TR Top 25. They’ll be tested against a team more on their level this week, facing in-state rival No. 97 Nevada.
Among teams ranked in the TR Top 25 now, Utah, Michigan, Baylor, and UCLA saw nice boosts. Utah had quite the week, crushing Oregon on the road and then getting a further boost from Michigan beating BYU by 31 (since Utah beat Michigan in its opening game).
By comparison, UCLA only edged BYU by one point the previous week, but smoked #25 Arizona by 26 in a game our ratings expected to be basically even.
Baylor continues to show an elite offense, scoring at least 56 points in each of their first three games and exceeding its margin of victory expectation vs. Rice.
Toledo remains our projected conference champion in the MAC, and took another step forward after defeating Arkansas State by a 30-point margin. The Rockets now have nearly a 20% percent chance of going undefeated.

Biggest Losers Last Week

Team	Rating	Change	New Rank	Old Rank	Result
Oregon	4.1	-6.7	49	29	L 62-20 vs. #32 Utah
S Alabama	-20.9	-5.2	119	113	L 63-13 vs. #44 NC State
North Texas	-21.2	-5.2	120	114	L 62-16 @ #59 Iowa
Old Dominion	-21.5	-5.1	121	116	L 49-0 vs. #75 App State
Rice	-7.4	-4.9	91	71	L 70-17 @ #9 Baylor
LA Lafayette	-9.4	-4.8	104	79	L 35-14 vs. #104 Akron
Virginia	-7.3	-4.5	89	72	L 56-14 vs. #31 Boise State
E Michigan	-23.5	-3.7	125	122	L 58-36 vs. #120 Army
GA Tech	16.8	-3.5	13	5	L 34-20 @ #39 Duke
S Methodist	-13.2	-3.5	107	103	L 48-45 vs. James Madison

Entering Week 4, our ranking were already far more pessimistic on Oregon than the AP Poll, and the Ducks’ lackluster performance on Saturday vs. Utah caused them to free fall even further down. Oregon was also removed from the AP Poll after their second loss of the season, and their initial national title hopes are all but gone.
Some really bad teams got really beat up this past week, demonstrating that yes, it can always get worse. Looking at you, South Alabama, North Texas, and Old Dominion. Those three teams lost by a combined score of 174-29.
There’s no sympathy for Rice, despite losing to a highly-rated Baylor squad. The Owls lost by 53 points, causing them to take a hard fall in the rankings.
Georgia Tech lost their second game in a row, losing by a two touchdown margin at Duke. They’re still ranked No. 13 in our rankings, though, which the human voters would scoff at (Tech is out of the AP Top 25 entirely). Our preseason rating is helping to prop them up a bit, but it’s simply too early to write the Yellow Jackets off at this point. They took a solid slide downward this week, but they still get credit for winning by huge margins vs. Alcorn State and Tulane, and an 8-point road loss to highly-ranked Notre Dame isn’t hurting them too much.

The TR Top 25: Week 5 Edition

New Teams: #14 Utah (+18 from #32 last week), #16 Michigan (+18 from #34), #24 Boise State (+7 from #31)
Teams Dropping Out: #31 BYU (-9 from #22), #36 Virginia Tech (-12 from #24), #38 Arizona (-13 from #25)
Teams We Like Better Than The AP: Alabama, Mississippi, Baylor, USC, Georgia, LSU, Oklahoma, West Virginia, Georgia Tech, Michigan, Tennessee, Boise State
Teams The AP Likes Better Than We Do: Ohio State, UCLA, Notre Dame, TCU, Utah, Clemson, Texas A&M, Florida State, Wisconsin, Michigan State, Oklahoma State, Northwestern, California, Florida

The top tier hasn’t changed much in our rankings or the AP Poll. We still like the SEC teams at the top of the rankings, while the AP Poll prefers the Big Ten. As mentioned above, Michigan State’s signature victory over Oregon is looking far less impressive after Utah beat the Ducks by 42 points, and the Spartans don’t have a highly-ranked opponent on their schedule until October 17 at rival Michigan.

Our rankings penalized teams like Ole Miss, TCU, Florida State, and Wisconsin for some closer than expected wins vs. inferior opponents, while the AP Poll barely moved those teams. The human voters seem hesitant to penalize teams for unimpressive wins as long as they get the “W,” while our ratings look deeper than that — effectively looking for potential warning signs, not just wins.

The Complete TR Top 25 (as of Mon 9/28)

“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	TR Rank	AP Rank	TR Change	AP Change	Predictive	Result	SOS
Alabama (3-1)	1	13	+1	-1	23.9	W 34-0 vs. #93 LA Monroe	11.1
Mississippi (4-0)	2	3	-1		22.6	W 27-16 vs. #64 Vanderbilt	10.3
Baylor (3-0)	3	5	+6		22.1	W 70-17 vs. #71 Rice	-9.1
Ohio State (4-0)	4	1	-1		21.2	W 38-12 vs. #91 W Michigan	2.3
USC (3-1)	5	17	+1	+2	21.2	W 42-14 @ #47 Arizona St	3.9
Georgia (4-0)	6	8	-2	-1	20.2	W 48-6 vs. Southern	-0.8
LSU (3-0)	7	9	+1	-1	18.1	W 34-24 @ #65 Syracuse	9.2
UCLA (4-0)	8	7	+8	+2	18.0	W 56-30 @ #47 Arizona St	3.4
Oklahoma (3-0)	9	15	+2		17.5	DNP	5.5
Notre Dame (4-0)	10	6	-3		17.4	W 62-27 vs. #112 U Mass	2.9
TX Christian (4-0)	11	4	-1	-1	17.0	W 55-52 vs. #35 Texas Tech	2.7
W Virginia (3-0)	12	23	+6		16.9	W 45-6 vs. #85 Maryland	-9.2
GA Tech (2-2)	13	NR	-8		16.8	L 34-20 @ #39 Duke	8.4
Utah (4-0)	14	10	+18	+8	16.5	W 62-20 @ #29 Oregon	4.0
Clemson (3-0)	15	12	+2	-1	15.9	DNP	1.3
Michigan (3-1)	16	22	+18		15.6	W 31-0 vs. #22 BYU	5.8
Texas A&M (4-0)	17	14	-4		15.5	W 28-21 vs. #38 Arkansas	0.3
Stanford (3-1)	18	18	-4	+3	15.4	W 42-24 @ #88 Oregon St	8.8
Florida St (3-0)	19	11	-7	-1	15.2	DNP	-2.2
Wisconsin (3-1)	20	19	-5	+3	14.9	W 28-0 vs. #95 Hawaii	3.8
Miss State (3-1)	21	21	-1		14.1	W 17-9 @ #42 Auburn	5.1
Tennessee (2-2)	22	NR	-1		13.4	L 28-27 @ #33 Florida	5.9
Michigan St (4-0)	23	2	-4		12.4	W 30-10 vs. #86 Central Mich	-2.1
Boise State (3-1)	24	NR	+7		12.4	W 56-14 @ #72 Virginia	1.9
Oklahoma St (4-0)	25	20	-2	+4	12.0	W 30-27 @ #45 Texas	-2.8

Week 5 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 4, along with their recent change compared to last week.

Conference	Avg Rating	Avg Rating Change
SEC	11.8	-0.3
Big 12	8.5	+0.7
Pac-12	7.4	+0.2
ACC	6.5	-0.3
Big Ten	4.6	-0.1
AAC	-4.3	+0.4
Mountain West	-6.8	+0.9
MAC	-8.3	+0.5
CUSA	-9.8	-0.9
Sun Belt	-13.1	-0.8

The biggest changes occurred at the bottom with the smaller conferences. The Mountain West made a leap, but Conference USA and the Sun Belt faltered.

The teams with the highest odds to win their conference right now include Ole Miss (SEC), Baylor (Big 12), USC (Pac-12), Clemson (ACC), Ohio State (Big Ten), Temple (AAC), Boise State (Mountain West), Toledo (MAC), Louisiana Tech (CUSA), and Appalachian State (Sun Belt).

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