College Football Rankings Update and Analysis: Week 8

October 20, 2015 - by Seth Trachtman

Week 7 may go down as the most exciting football weekend of the year, with several moments and games fans will remember for years to come. There have also been some major shakeups in our rankings and the AP Poll.

Here’s how things stand entering Week 8.

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 8

The Big 12 dominates the top of our rankings. Baylor extended their lead over the rest of the FBS with a 24-point win against West Virginia, Oklahoma made a big jump to No. 3 (increasing its rating by 5 points after demolishing Kansas State on the road 55-0), and TCU remained in the top 5 at No. 4. The conference is top-heavy, though. The only other Big 12 team in our top 25 rankings is Oklahoma State at No. 22, and the Big 12 still trails the SEC in terms of the average team’s predictive rating.
Ohio State starting to wake up? It’s been a disappointing year for those expecting the Buckeyes to absolutely dominate the college football landscape after winning the first College Football Playoff last season, as they’ve won several of their games ugly. It remains to be seen if they’ve settled on a starting quarterback, but Ohio State did make a nice statement with their 38-10 win vs. Penn State. They increased their rating by almost two points after beating the Nittany Lions by 10 points more than the ratings expected.
Changes at USC and Florida didn’t impact them as much as some anticipated. While these two teams battled major distractions last week, whether it was the dismissal of their head coach (USC) or loss of their starting quarterback (Florida), they remained very competitive in tough losses on the road. USC lost to Notre Dame by 10, and was in contention most of the game. Florida lost to LSU by one touchdown, thanks to LSU’s successful fourth quarter fake field goal. Both Florida and USC dropped in our ratings, but each by less than a point.
The Week 8 schedule looks deceptively strong. It’s nothing like the schedule we saw in Week 7, but there are still four matchups between teams in our top 25: California at UCLA, Tennessee at Alabama, Texas A&M at Ole Miss, and Utah at USC. Plus, LSU could be tested vs. our No. 39 team, Western Kentucky, and Florida State will visit our No. 26, Georgia Tech.

Biggest Gainers Last Week

Team	Rating	Change	New Rank	Old Rank	Result
W Michigan	-1.0	+5.7	73	88	W 49-14 @ #75 Ohio
Oklahoma	21.3	+5.0	3	14	W 55-0 @ #30 Kansas St
Georgia State	-21.3	+4.3	122	126	W 31-19 @ #99 Ball State
App State	7.6	+4.3	40	54	W 59-14 @ #102 LA Monroe
Utah State	7.3	+4.3	42	58	W 52-26 vs. #8 Boise State
Bowling Grn	2.6	+4.2	57	73	W 59-10 vs. #79 Akron
Central Mich	-1.0	+3.9	72	81	W 51-14 vs. #95 Buffalo
Iowa	9.5	+3.7	31	47	W 40-10 @ #44 Northwestern
Memphis	8.5	+3.5	35	49	W 37-24 vs. #6 Mississippi
Michigan St	11.5	+3.1	28	35	W 27-23 @ #5 Michigan

Western Michigan is the top gainer after beating Ohio on the road by 35 points. Ohio were eight point favorites, according to last week’s predictive ratings, and suffered only their second loss of the season. It was a tough loss for a team that had hopes of competing for the MAC title.
Oklahoma rebounded from a bad loss vs. Texas, and they rebounded in a huge way. Kansas State took TCU to the limit in Week 6, but they were no match for the Sooners, and Oklahoma more than made up for its performance last week in the ratings.
Underdogs that pulled off big upsets notched big gains. Utah State shocked Boise State as 7.5-point Vegas underdogs, and they were about 12 point underdogs according to our predictive ratings. Memphis shocked Ole Miss by 13 as about 10 point underdogs in our ratings.
Iowa, a three point underdog according to our ratings, now has a 25% chance to go undefeated this season after beating Northwestern by 30 points.
Finally, the game everyone is talking about vaulted Michigan State up 3.1 points in our ratings, as they were about 14 point underdogs over Michigan in our ratings. Of course, the final play of the game was quite lucky, but still helped give their rating an extra little boost.

Biggest Losers Last Week

Team	Rating	Change	New Rank	Old Rank	Result
Kansas St	3.9	-6.3	55	30	L 55-0 vs. #14 Oklahoma
Ohio	-6.9	-4.8	90	75	L 49-14 vs. #88 W Michigan
Northwestern	2.2	-4.2	61	44	L 40-10 vs. #47 Northwestern
Akron	-8.8	-4.1	95	79	L 59-10 @ #73 Bowling Grn
Ball State	-12.2	-3.7	102	99	L 31-19 vs. #126 Georgia State
LA Monroe	-15.0	-3.6	109	102	L 59-14 vs. #54 App State
Boise State	14.3	-3.6	18	8	L 52-26 @ #58 Utah State
Buffalo	-11.1	-3.3	100	95	L 51-14 @ #81 Central Mich
San Jose St	-10.3	-3.0	97	93	L 30-7 vs. #90 San Diego St
Minnesota	-1.3	-2.7	74	62	L 48-25 vs. #41 Nebraska

Kansas State lost by only one touchdown to TCU in Week 6 and increased their predictive rating, but that rating plummeted more than six points after the 55-point loss to Oklahoma, dropping them 25 spots in the rankings. The Wildcats are now 0-3 in the Big 12, although they’ve lost to three teams ranked in both our top 25 and the AP Top 25.
Just as the Big Ten had several big gainers this week, they also had teams take big falls. Northwestern’s 30 point loss to Iowa as a favored team dropped their rating over four points. They’ve now been blown out by at least 30 points in consecutive weeks, and their Week 1 upset of Stanford is an increasingly distant memory.
Minnesota has been one of Northwestern’s victims, and they took a bad 23-point loss to Nebraska on Saturday, as only two point underdogs according to our ratings. Their schedule certainly doesn’t get any easier, with Michigan, Ohio State, and Iowa their next three opponents.
Boise State peaked at No. 8 in our rankings last week, only to lose big to Utah State. They’ve salvaged a spot in our top 25, but dropped 3.6 points in our predictive ratings. They’re now 0-2 vs. the state of Utah, also losing to BYU earlier this season, and have lost top position in the MWC. Our projections now show only a 14.3% chance of Boise State winning the conference.

The TR Top 25: Week 8 Edition

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

The TR Top 25 saw only two additions, with California now in both our rankings and the AP Top 25. The AP Poll added three teams (Memphis, Temple, Pittsburgh), while dropping two teams (UCLA, Boise State) that are still in our top 25. Other notable changes:

USC didn’t get any love from the AP Poll, as expected, after losing their third game of the year. However, they still rank No. 6 in the TR Top 25 with one of the most difficult schedules thus far and losses to two TR Top 25 teams. They face another top 10 team in Utah this week, before visiting California.
Michigan State gained ground in our rankings, increasing seven spots to No. 28. They remain ranked No. 7 in the AP Poll, but have been in trouble on a weekly basis with all three of their Big Ten wins by one touchdown or less. They’re nearly 18 point favorites vs. Indiana this week, according to our ratings.
While our rankings have only one mid-major (Boise State) in the top 25, the AP Poll has four teams, and doesn’t include Boise. The voters kept Toledo and Houston in the rankings, and added Memphis and Temple. While we rate the AAC as the best conference outside the big five, it’s still nowhere near those five conferences in terms of overall strength. Memphis is the only team of the AAC top three that has faced an opponent currently in the TR Top 25, beating Ole Miss on Saturday.

The Complete TR Top 25 (as of Mon 10/19)

“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
Baylor (6-0)	1	2			27.1	W 62-38 vs. #22 W Virginia
Alabama (6-1)	2	8		+2	24.7	W 41-23 @ #12 Texas A&M
Oklahoma (5-1)	3	17	+11	+2	21.3	W 55-0 @ #30 Kansas St
TX Christian (7-0)	4	4	-1	-1	19.6	W 45-21 @ #84 Iowa State
Ohio State (7-0)	5	1	+6		19.2	W 38-10 vs. #53 Penn State
USC (3-3)	6		-2		18.8	L 41-31 @ #9 Notre Dame
Notre Dame (6-1)	7	11	+2	+3	18.3	W 41-31 vs. #4 USC
Stanford (5-1)	8	10	+2	+5	18.2	W 56-35 vs. #18 UCLA
Clemson (6-0)	9	6	-2	-1	18.0	W 34-17 vs. #60 Boston Col
Utah (6-0)	10	3	+3	+1	17.7	W 34-18 vs. #38 Arizona St
Michigan (5-2)	11	15	-6	-3	16.9	L 27-23 vs. #35 Michigan St
Mississippi (5-2)	12	24	-6	-11	16.1	L 37-24 @ #49 Memphis
LSU (6-0)	13	5	+3	+1	15.7	W 35-28 vs. #15 Florida
Florida (6-1)	14	13	+1	-5	15.5	L 35-28 @ #16 LSU
Texas A&M (5-1)	15	15	-3	-6	14.9	L 41-23 vs #2 Alabama
Florida St (6-0)	16	9	+4	+2	14.7	W 41-21 vs. #43 Louisville
Tennessee (3-3)	17		+2		14.4	DNP
Boise State (5-2)	18		-10		14.3	L 52-26 @ #58 Utah State
Georgia (5-2)	19		-2		13.4	W 9-6 vs. #56 Missouri
W Virginia (3-3)	20		+2		13.3	L 62-38 vs. #1 Baylor
Miss State (5-2)	21		+3		13.1	W 45-20 vs. #51 LA Tech
Oklahoma St (6-0)	22	14	-1	+2	13.0	DNP
UCLA (4-2)	23		-5		12.2	L 56-35 vs. #10 Stanford
N Carolina (5-1)	24		+8		12.0	W 50-14 vs. #77 Wake Forest
California (5-1)	25	20	+1	+3	11.8	DNP

Week 8 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 7, along with their recent change compared to last week.

Conference	Avg Rating	Avg Rating Change
SEC	10.9	+0.3
Big 12	8.6	-0.2
Pac-12	7.9	-0.4
ACC	6.4	+0.1
Big Ten	4.3	+0.1
AAC	-3.2	-0.2
MWC	-7.0	-0.2
MAC	-7.9	+0.0
CUSA	-10.8	+0.6
Sun Belt	-13.9	+0.3

Conference USA was again the only conference to see significant change this week, making up for its loss in rating last week. They still sit near the bottom with the three of the worst teams in our predictive rankings (UTEP, Old Dominion, Charlotte).

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), Utah State (MWC), Toledo (MAC), Western Kentucky (CUSA), and Appalachian State (Sun Belt).

There were changes to the favorites in the SEC, Big Ten, and MWC. You can view our full conference winner odds, updated daily, on our college football projected standings page.