The midpoint in the college football season is past and the College Football Playoff has released their first rankings of the season. These rankings are created by the playoff Selection Committee. The committee consists of Kirby Hocutt, Director of Athletics at Texas Tech, Barry Alvarez, Director of Athletics at Wisconsin-Madison, Jeff Bower, former Southern Miss Head Coach, Herb Deromedi, former Head Coach of Central Michigan, Tom Jernstedt, former NCAA Vice President, Bobby Johnson, former Head Coach of Vanderbilt, Jeff Long, Vice Chancellor and Director of Athletics of Arkansas, Rob Mullens, Director of Athletics at Oregon, Dan Radakovich, Director of Athletics at Clemson, Condoleeza Rice, Stanford Professor and former United States Secretary of State, Steve Wieberg, former USA Today reporter, and Tyrone Willingham, former college football head coach.
The committee meets once per week to cast their votes to rank the top 25 teams. The final ranking will be revealed on December 4th. Their first ranking is listed below since this is the first mention of it on this blog, but it will be omitted in the future when USF is not listed. Also worth nothing there are no AAC teams in the first playoff top 25 ranking.
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1 Alabama 8-0 2 Clemson 8-0 3 Michigan 8-0 4 Texas A&M 7-1 5 Washington 8-0 6 Ohio State 7-1 7 Louisville 7-1 8 Wisconsin 6-2 9 Auburn 6-2 10 Nebraska 7-1 11 Florida 6-1 12 Penn State 6-2 13 Louisiana State 5-2 |
14 Oklahoma 6-2 15 Colorado 6-2 16 Utah 7-2 17 Baylor 6-1 18 Oklahoma State 6-2 19 Virginia Tech 6-2 20 West Virginia 6-1 21 North Carolina 6-2 22 Florida State 5-3 23 Western Michigan 8-0 24 Boise State 7-1 25 Washington State 6-2 |
The two national polls will be presented next, along with the other ranking systems supplied for context, in alphabetical order. Up first, the AP Poll, which has been explained in a previous USF Blog post.
| 1 Alabama 2 Michigan 3 Clemson 4 Washington 5 Louisville 6 Ohio State 7 Texas A&M 8 Wisconsin 9 Nebraska 10 Florida 11 Auburn 12 Oklahoma 13 Baylor 14 West Virginia 15 LSU 16 Utah |
17 Western Michigan 18 North Carolina 19 Florida State 20 Penn State 21 Colorado 22 Oklahoma State 23 Virginia Tech 24 Boise State 25 Washington State 26 Houston 27 USC 28 San Diego State 29 Troy 30 Tennessee 31 South Florida |
This week, there are no American Athletic Conference teams in the AP Top 25. Houston comes in at 26th and the Bulls are back on the board at 31. They’re getting ten vote points this week, which is akin to them getting voted 25th ten times or 24th five times. While down this week, the overall trend for USF in this poll is up, illustrated by the trendline in the graph below.
This late in the season the two major polls begin to reflect one another. The USA Today Coaches’ Poll methodology was explained on a previous USF Blog posting.
| 1 Alabama 2 Michigan 3 Clemson 4 Washington 5 Louisville 6 Ohio State 7 Texas A&M 8 Wisconsin 9 Florida 10 Nebraska 11 Oklahoma 12 Auburn 13 Baylor 14 LSU 15 West Virginia |
16 Utah 17 North Carolina 18 Western Michigan 19 Florida State 20 Colorado 21 Virginia Tech 22 Oklahoma State 23 Penn State 24 Boise State 25 Washington State 26 Houston 27 Tennessee 28 San Diego State 29 South Florida |
The Bulls continue to do better in this poll, even if just by a couple of rank spots. They were dropped following an embarrassing loss to Temple, but rebound with 34 vote points this week, good for 29th overall. As with the AP poll, there are no ranked AAC teams. Navy’s loss to USF cost them their brief appearance in the top 25.
The trendline for the Coaches’ Poll is also upward. Ironically, the only week that these two polls agreed on USF was the week they had them at 27th, an unofficial ranking.
The CBS 128 ranks every team in the FBS division, with methodology previously explained on USF Blog.
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1 Alabama Crimson Tide (8-0) 2 Michigan Wolverines (8-0) 3 Clemson Tigers (8-0) 4 Washington Huskies (8-0) 5 Louisville Cardinals (7-1) 6 Ohio State Buckeyes (7-1) 7 Texas A&M Aggies (7-1) 8 Wisconsin Badgers (6-2) 9 Auburn Tigers (6-2) 10 Florida Gators (6-1) 11 Nebraska Cornhuskers (7-1) 12 Oklahoma Sooners (6-2) 13 Western Michigan Broncos (8-0) 14 LSU Tigers (5-2) |
15 West Virginia Mountaineers (6-1) 16 Baylor Bears (6-1) 17 Colorado Buffaloes (6-2) 18 Penn State Nittany Lions (6-2) 19 Utah Utes (7-2) 20 Virginia Tech Hokies (6-2) 21 North Carolina Tar Heels (6-2) 22 Southern California Trojans (5-3) 23 Florida State Seminoles (5-3) 24 Washington State Cougars (6-2) 25 Boise State Broncos (7-0) 26 San Diego State Aztecs (7-1) 27 Oklahoma State Cowboys (6-2) 28 South Florida Bulls (7-2) |
This ranking has been high on the Bulls all season. Their current rank of 28th appears to be a normalization of ranks in the mid to low 20s. USF is the highest ranked AAC team in this poll, one spot above Houston, 29th, and four spots higher than Navy, at 32nd.
Since USF debuted in this ranking system at 30th, they have had a peak of 22 and a low of 30. Their overall trend has been downward, putting their ending rank in line with the human polls a little better.
Up next is the Congrove 128, a ranking of every FBS team previously discussed on USF Blog.
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1 Alab 2 Mich 3 Wash 4 Clem 5 Ohio St 6 WMU 7 Lville 8 TexA&M 9 LSU 10 Wisc 11 Okla 13 Auburn 14 Neb 15 Fla |
16 Baylor 17 WVU 18 Boise 19 OkSt 20 VT 21 Wash St 22 UNC 23 Utah 25 Hou 26 Colo 27 PSU 28 FSU 29 USF |
The Congrove 128 is one of the ranking systems combined into the Massey Rating composite score, as is Sagarin. The Bulls rank 29th, just four spots below the highest rated AAC team, Houston, who is 25th.
The Congrove tend is slightly upward. Interestingly, they went from their peak rank of 18th to tie their lowest rating of 34th in this system in one week.
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1 Alabama, SEC 2 Michigan, Big Ten 3 Louisville, ACC 4 Clemson, ACC 5 OSU, Big Ten 6 Auburn, SEC 7 Washington, Pac-12 8 LSU, SEC 9 Texas A&M, SEC 10 FSU, ACC 11 Oklahoma, Big 12 12 USC, Pac-12 13 Colorado, Pac-12 14 Ole Miss, SEC 15 Florida, SEC 16 Wisconsin, Big Ten 17 Oklahoma State, Big 12 |
18 Baylor, Big 12 19 Tennessee, SEC 20 West Virginia, Big 12 21 UNC, ACC 22 Washington St, Pac-12 23 VT, ACC 25 Miami, ACC 26 Penn State, Big Ten 27 Stanford, Pac-12 28 Nebraska, Big Ten 29 UCLA, Pac-12 30 Pitt, ACC 31 Boise State, MW 32 Texas, Big 12 33 Houston, American 34 USF, American |
The FPI continues the trend of no top ranked AAC teams. Houston is at 33 and USF is at 34.
The overall trendline is up for USF in this system, but this happens to be one of the few rankings where USF dropped after beating Navy. That’s likely due to the way that Navy was allowed to make the score close in the end, suggesting a close game, which it was not. Navy was 61st prior to that matchup and barely beating them drops them down a spot from 33rd.
The Massey Composite Rating includes to individual ranking systems discussed here. The composite ranking was explained somewhat on USF Blog in the past.
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1 Alab 2 Mich 3 Clem 4 Wash 5 Ohio St 6 TexA&M 7 Auburn 8 Lville 9 Wisc 10 LSU 11 Colo 12 PSU 13 USC 14 Stan 15 FSU 16 Wash St 17 Fla 18 Neb |
19 WMU 20 Okla 21 Utah 22 UTK 23 WVU 24 VT 25 UNC 26 Baylor 27 Ark 28 Boise 29 Ole Miss 30 NWestern 31 Minn 32 OkSt 33 Iowa 34 Pitt 35 BYU 36 USF |
USF is the top ranked American Athletic Conference team in this ranking system at 36th overall.
This has been one of the more consistent ranking systems, probably due to the extremely high number of other ranking systems that combine to contribute to this one. The Bulls have not been in the top 25 of the composite ranking system, which combines more than 100 ranking systems.
The Sagarin Ranking, explained in previous USF Blog posts, is one factor of the Massey system, illustrated above. Sagarin happens to have one of the more respected computer models, a model which has not been a fan of USF, this season.
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1 Alab 2 Mich 3 Clem 4 Wash 5 Ohio St 6 TexA&M 7 Auburn 8 Lville 9 Wisc 10 LSU 11 Colo 12 PSU 13 USC 14 Stan 15 FSU 16 Wash St 17 Fla 18 Neb |
19 WMU 20 Okla 21 Utah 22 UTK 23 WVU 24 VT 25 UNC 26 Baylor 27 Ark 28 Boise 29 Ole Miss 30 NWestern 31 Minn 32 OkSt 33 Iowa 34 Pitt 35 BYU 36 USF |
Sagarin has ranked USF 40th twice, 34th twice, and 35th twice. They’re currently 40th, one spot lower after beating Navy. They ranked the Midshipmen in the low 50s, which might explain the drop after the win.
