With week 4 now in the books, it’s time to take a look at how my little ranking experiment is going. As always, if you need a refresher on how this works, check out the original post for all formulas.
This week, it appears that everything is starting to stabilize a bit. There are still some interesting appearances in the NDtex25 this week, but now with many teams having a few games in the books things are starting to look “normal” if you will. For example, this week, the NDtex25 only has seven teams that are unranked in the AP Poll and eight unranked teams from the Coaches’ Poll. Only one team from the AP Poll’s top 10 doesn’t appear as well.
My guess would be that next week, my rankings will include nearly all of the teams from the two polls, but in different order. By the time the first BCS poll comes out, this should definitely be the case. One thing is for sure though, slowly but surely, the NDtex25 is becoming a bit less of “wtf how did that team make it” and now will be more of a comparison on how my top teams differ from the order that they appear in the polls.
This week’s rankings are below with their AP and Coaches’ Poll ranks also in the table for comparison.
Rank Team Final Score Previous Rank AP Rank Coaches' Rank
1 Oklahoma State 114.5 1 5 6
2 Nebraska 107.75 7 8 8
3 Georgia Tech 105 5 21 21
4 Texas 103 4 17 17
5 LSU 101.5 9 1 2
6 USF 100.5 14 16 14
7 Alabama 100.25 16 3 2
8 Clemson 100.25 6 13 15
9 Oklahoma 100 3 2 1
10 Stanford 96.25 21 6 4
11 Auburn 95.75 19 NR NR
12 Boise State 95.25 10 4 5
13 Florida 93.25 23 12 12
14 Michigan 93 26 19 19
15 South Carolina 90.25 30 10 9
16 Ohio State 89.75 82 NR NR
17 Arizona State 89.5 39 25 NR
18 Wisconsin 84.75 27 7 7
19 Michigan State 84.75 67 NR NR
20 FIU 83.75 25 NR NR
21 Baylor 82.75 59 15 16
22 Houston 82.5 28 NR NR
23 Mississippi State 82.5 44 NR NR
24 Vanderbilt 81.5 10 NR NR
25 Virginia Tech 81.25 13 11 10
Knocked Out (Previous Rank): Ohio (2), Illinois (11), Utah (12), Texas A&M (15), Kansas State (17), San Diego State (18), Texas Tech (20), Wyoming (22), USC (24)
Just Missing the Cut: Illinos, Rutgers, Bowling Green, Kansas State, Missouri
Much like last week, any team that raises eyebrows are still benefiting from blowout wins over middle of the road teams. Ohio State and Auburn are the best examples. Michigan State as well rebounded from a multiple possession beating by ND to claw their way back into the top 25. I believe that much of this is due to the small amount of games that have been played as the blowout wins easily cancel out the majority of the losses and then some.
Once again, the Big XII is king, having five teams in the NDtex25, three of which are in the top five. The SEC though has the numbers with seven teams appearing the top 25 with LSU cracking the top 5. The Big Ten also checks in this week with five teams thanks to the crazy additions of Michigan State and Michigan and one team in the top 5.
The worst team in the nation this week: Akron. You’ve made LeBron James proud!
As always, to close things out, it’s time to look at the rankings as they concern Notre Dame:
- Notre Dame’s Rank: 42 (Previous Rank: 32)
- Opponent Rankings
- USF: 5
- Michigan: 15
- Michigan State: 20
- Pitt: 63
- Purdue: 47
- Air Force: 84
- USC: 54
- Navy: 33
- Wake Forest: 71
- Maryland: 98
- Boston College: 109
- Stanford: 10