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2018 TipTop 25 Week Ten

Tulane is the first school picked at random from my hat

Welcome back to the college football ranking system that began with a preseason top 25 that was based solely on picking teams at random out of a hat, as shown above. You can see that Tulane was selected first, thereby securing our preseason #1 slot, but they lost their opener 23-17 in overtime to previously unranked Wake Forest, so their stay at the top was brief.

As the games are played, I am also ranking teams completely blind to their histories and "name" value, so that they are ranked solely based on what they do this season and, for now at least, on where they were ranked in the preseason (and on where their opponents were ranked in the preseason). Eventually, where teams were ranked in the preseason should have little or no impact on their current rankings.

All unranked FBS teams are treated the same here, but this ranking assumes that FCS teams are a level below, and therefore it is unacceptable for a ranked FBS team to struggle with an FCS team, let alone lose. On the other hand, beating an FCS team, regardless of how "impressive" the score, means nothing and is treated the same as though the winner did not play a game at all.

Alabama Still #1

Get used to this subheading: hard to see it changing this year. Alabama was not ranked in the preseason top 50, but they dropped a hydrogen bomb on #8 Mississippi in the third week, 62-7 on the road, and entered the TipTop 25 at #3. The next week they manhandled #17 Texas A&M 45-23 (the closest anyone has gotten to them so far), while #1 Virginia Tech was embarrassed 49-35 at unranked Old Dominion. Since #2 Central Florida hadn't played anyone of value (and they won't until their bowl game), Alabama rose to #1. This week Alabama slapped around #5 Louisiana State 29-0 on the road, so at this point the only debate worth having about Alabama is whether or not they are the greatest team of all time.

TipTop 25 After Week Ten Games

Following 2 weeks of fairly stable rankings, Last week's top 25 saw a big shake-up. This week, 6 ranked teams took upset losses, the same as last week, but this time there is much less of a shake-up in the TipTop 25, so we are back to relatively stable rankings. The SEC's stranglehold on the top 25 has only increased this week, and now we have a ridiculous 10 SEC teams in our top 14! A total of 12 are ranked in the top 25. How did this happen? Two factors are at work here: a lot of SEC teams were ranked in our preseason top 50, several quite highly, and the SEC has lost very, very, very few nonconference games (mostly because their nonconference schedules are a joke). This week's TipTop 25 is as follows:

	Team	Record	LW	This Week's Result
#1	Alabama	9-0	1	Won 29-0 at #5 Louisiana State
#2	Clemson	9-0	2	Won 77-16 over Louisville
#3	Central Florida	8-0	3	Won 52-40 over Temple
#4	Notre Dame	9-0	4	Won 31-21 at #30 Northwestern
#5	Louisiana State	7-2	5	Lost 29-0 to #1 Alabama
#6	Georgia	8-1	6	Won 34-17 at #7 Kentucky
#7	Michigan	8-1	9	Won 42-7 over #32 Penn State
#8	Kentucky	7-2	7	Lost 34-17 to #6 Georgia
#9	Florida	6-3	8	Lost 38-17 to unrated Missouri (now #14)
#10	Mississippi State	6-3	10	Won 45-3 over Louisiana Tech
#11	Auburn	6-3	23	Won 28-24 over #11 Texas A&M
#12	Texas A&M	5-4	11	Lost 28-24 at #23 Auburn (now #11)
#13	South Carolina	5-3	21	Won 48-44 at #27 Mississippi (now #24)
#14	Missouri	5-4	Unrated	Won 38-17 at #8 Florida
#15	Oklahoma	8-1	12	Won 51-46 at #38 Texas Tech
#16	Washington State	8-1	13	Won 19-13 over California
#17	West Virginia	7-1	14	Won 42-41 at #28 Texas
#18	Syracuse	7-2	16	Won 41-24 at Wake Forest
#19	North Carolina State	6-2	17	Won 47-28 over Florida State
#20	Tennessee	4-5	22	Won 14-3 over Charlotte
#21	Oregon	6-3	25	Won 42-21 over UCLA
#22	Washington	7-3	26	Won 27-23 over #20 Stanford
#23	Stanford	5-4	20	Lost 27-23 at #26 Washington
#24	Mississippi	5-4	27	Lost 48-44 to #21 South Carolina (now #13)
#25	Utah	6-3	19	Lost 38-20 at unrated Arizona State

Notes on Changes to This Week's TipTop 25

Florida took an ugly home loss to previously unrated Missouri, who is now #14, but the Gators are buoyed from dropping very far due to a previous victory over #10 Mississippi State (they also own a huge win over #5 LSU). Missouri's big win at Florida jets them into the top 25. Their 4 losses have come to #1, #6, #8, and #13. Florida isn't their only win of note, as they have also beaten Purdue, who has moved up close to being ranked (covered below). South Carolina, who has previously beaten Missouri, moves up in the rankings with the Tigers.

Utah hangs onto a spot in the top 25 despite losing badly at unranked Arizona State. This is because that is their first upset loss, and they have previously notched a big win over a team that is now rated higher, 40-21 at #23 Stanford.

San Diego State drops out of the top 25 because their performances have been consistently poor: 8 of their 9 games have either been losses or close wins, and the 9th was a poor 14-point win over Sacramento State. This week they won by 8 at New Mexico. San Diego State has an upset loss, like Utah, but they do not have a win over a rated team, unlike Utah, so I decided to keep Utah rated higher. San Diego State is now #26 (covered below), but even that high a rating is due mostly to their being rated #10 in the preseason rankings.

Close to the Top 25

The following teams are next in line to be ranked:

#26 San Diego State
#27 Arizona State
#28 Georgia Southern
#29 Texas
#30 Ohio State
#31 Northwestern
#32 Michigan State
#33 Penn State
#34 Utah State
#35 Purdue
#36 Pittsburgh
#37 Boston College
#38 Virginia
#39 Duke
#40 Army
#41 Buffalo
#42 Appalachian State
#43 Wisconsin
#44 Iowa
#45 Iowa State
#46 Texas Tech
#47 Fresno State
#48 Houston
#49 South Florida

Looking Ahead to Next Week's Games

Big week ahead! This week the following ranked teams play each other: #10 Mississippi State at #1 Alabama, #11 Auburn at #6 Georgia, #8 Kentucky at #20 Tennessee, #13 South Carolina at #9 Florida, #24 Mississippi at #12 Texas A&M, and #21 Oregon at #25 Utah. In addition, we have #2 Clemson at #37 Boston College, #29 Texas at #46 Texas Tech, #30 Ohio State at #32 Michigan State, #31 Northwestern at #44 Iowa, #43 Wisconsin at #33 Penn State, 7-2 Troy at #28 Georgia Southern, #47 Fresno State at 7-2 Boise State, and #49 South Florida at 8-1 Cincinnati. Join me next week as we continue to hone the top 25 that was born from my magic hat.

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