College Football Rankings Update and Analysis: Week 9

October 26, 2015 - by Seth Trachtman

There weren’t many high-profile games in Week 8, but there were still plenty of exciting upsets, close calls, and resulting shake ups in the rankings. “Who’s Number One?” has perhaps never been more in question this season than it is following the past weekend’s games.

Here’s how things stand entering Week 9.

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 9

The top of the rankings are getting tight. Baylor beat Iowa State by only 18 points over the weekend, and star quarterback Seth Russell left with a neck injury that will sideline him for the rest of the season. While the Bears remain the No. 1 team, the margin is far tighter than last week after losing 2.3 points in the predictive ratings.
Clemson jumped seven spots in our rankings after blowing out Miami, and now have better than a 58% chance of going undefeated through the regular season. Alabama fell slightly with a close win vs. Tennessee, and are now basically tied with Clemson. Ohio State remains No. 5 in our rankings and No. 1 in the AP Poll after blowing out Rutgers.
USC still gets no respect. The Trojans beat undefeated Utah easily at home, rebounding from consecutive difficult losses to Washington and Notre Dame. With three losses, the voters still didn’t see USC fit to make the AP Top 25, but they remain ranked sixth in our predictive rankings. Games vs. California, Arizona, and UCLA are still ahead for USC.
Miami finally fired Al Golden. Hurricanes fans seemed less than enthused after the team’s embarrassing 58-0 home loss vs. Clemson, and Golden was let go on Sunday. Miami was our biggest loser in the predictive ratings this week, and lost 22 spots in the rankings. The team has now lost three of their last four games, and will have to travel to Duke this week.
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), Bowling Green (MAC), Western Kentucky (CUSA), and Appalachian State (Sun Belt). There were changes to the favorites this week in the MWC and MAC.

Biggest Gainers Last Week

Team	Rating	Change	New Rank	Old Rank	Result
Clemson	23.6	+5.6	2	9	W 58-0 @ #33 Miami (FL)
Troy	-13.3	+4.6	104	114	W 52-7 @ #125 N Mex State
Bowling Grn	6.3	+3.7	46	57	W 48-0 @ #106 Kent State
San Diego St	-1.1	+3.5	71	81	W 48-14 vs. #42 Utah State
Houston	10.6	+3.4	30	43	W 59-10 @ #104 Central FL
Buffalo	-8.5	+2.6	93	100	W 41-17 vs. #90 Ohio
LA Tech	4.4	+2.2	53	59	W 45-16 vs. #65 Middle Tenn
Idaho	-19.2	+2.1	118	121	W 27-13 vs. #109 LA Monroe
Texas State	-16.3	+2.1	111	115	W 36-18 vs. #118 S Alabama
Oklahoma	23.3	+2.0	4	3	W 63-27 vs. #36 Texas Tech

Biggest Losers Last Week

Team	Rating	Change	New Rank	Old Rank	Result
Miami (FL)	3.5	-5.5	55	33	L 58-0 vs. #9 Clemson
Utah State	2.4	-4.9	60	42	L 48-14 @ #81 San Diego St
N Mex State	-28.7	-3.9	128	125	L 52-7 vs. #114 Troy
Kent State	-17.8	-3.4	113	106	L 48-0 vs. #57 Bowling Grn
Fla Atlantic	-18.1	-2.6	115	110	L 27-17 @ #126 TX El Paso
Middle Tenn	-1.8	-2.6	75	65	L 45-16 @ #59 LA Tech
Central FL	-16.3	-2.5	110	104	L 59-10 vs. #43 Houston
Charlotte	-27.6	-2.4	126	127	L 44-10 vs. #84 S Mississippi
Rutgers	-5.7	-2.4	87	78	L 49-7 vs. #5 Ohio State
Baylor	24.8	-2.3	1	1	W 45-27 vs. #83 Iowa State

The TR Top 25: Week 9 Edition

New Teams: Georgia Tech, Wisconsin
Teams Dropping Out: North Carolina, California
Teams We Like Better Than The AP: Baylor, Clemson, Alabama, Oklahoma, USC, Notre Dame, Michigan, Mississippi, Tennessee, Mississippi State, UCLA, Texas A&M, West Virginia, Georgia, Georgia Tech, Boise State, Wisconsin
Teams The AP Likes Better Than We Do: Ohio State, LSU, TCU, Michigan State, Stanford, Iowa, Florida, Oklahoma State, Memphis, Florida State, Houston, Toledo, Temple, Duke, Pittsburgh

Team	Rank	AP Rank	TR Change	AP Change	Rating	Result	SOS
Baylor (7-0)	1	2			24.8	W 45-27 vs. #83 Iowa State	0.9
Clemson (7-0)	2	3	+7	+3	23.6	W 58-0 @ #33 Miami (FL)	7.8
Alabama (7-1)	3	7	-1	+1	23.6	w 19-14 vs. #17 Tennessee	10.9
Oklahoma (6-1)	4	14	-1	+3	23.3	W 63-27 vs. #36 Texas Tech	7.5
Ohio State (8-0)	5	1			21.1	W 49-7 @ #78 Rutgers	0.2
USC (4-3)	6				20.3	W 42-24 vs. #10 Utah	10.2
TX Christian (7-0)	7	5	-3	-1	19.5	DNP	2.2
Notre Dame (6-1)	8	9	-1	+2	19.3	DNP	9.7
Stanford (6-1)	9	8	-1	+2	18.5	W 31-14 vs. #34 Washington	7.4
LSU (7-0)	10	4	+3	+1	17.5	W 48-20 vs. #39 W Kentucky	6.3
Michigan (5-2)	11	15			17.2	DNP	4.8
Mississippi (6-2)	12	19		+5	17.1	W 23-3 vs. #15 Texas A&M	8.9
Utah (6-1)	13	13	-3	-10	15.8	L 42-24 @ #6 USC	8.4
Tennessee (3-4)	14		+3		15.7	L 19-14 @ #2 Alabama	12.5
Florida (6-1)	15	11	-1	+2	15.2	DNP	8.1
Miss State (6-2)	16	25	+5		14.8	W 42-16 vs. #71 Kentucky	4.6
Oklahoma St (7-0)	17	12	+5	+2	14.4	W 58-10 vs. #116 Kansas	2.3
Florida St (6-1)	18	17	-2	-8	14.1	L 22-16 @ #26 GA Tech	2.8
UCLA (5-2)	19	24	+4		13.5	W 40-24 vs. #25 California	6.2
Texas A&M (5-2)	20		-5		13.5	L 23-3 @ #17 Mississippi	9.0
W Virginia (3-3)	21		-1		13.4	DNP	9.5
Georgia (5-2)	22		-3		13.2	DNP	5.4
GA Tech (3-5)	23		+3		12.9	W 22-16 vs. #20 Florida St	9.5
Boise State (6-2)	24		-6		12.3	W 34-14 vs. #121 Wyoming	0.1
Wisconsin (6-2)	25		+2		12.1	W 24-13 @ #60 Illinois	3.1

Table notes:

“Predictive” refers to the team’s predictive rating, which is 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

Week 9 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 8, along with their recent change compared to last week.

Conference	Avg Rating	Avg Rating Change
SEC	10.8	-0.1
Big 12	8.6	+0.0
Pac-12	7.7	-0.1
ACC	6.7	+0.3
Big Ten	4.5	+0.2
AAC	-2.9	+0.4
MWC	-7.3	-0.3
MAC	-8.1	-0.1
CUSA	-11.6	-0.8
Sun Belt	-13.1	+0.8

You can view our full conference winner odds, updated daily, on our college football projected standings page.