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2018 TipTop 25 Week Twelve

 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

MS Paint of Alabama player

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 napped their way through a 50-17 win over the Citadel. They currently own 5 victories over teams ranked in the TipTop 25, all in routs, and at this point the case they are making is not for best of 2018, but for best of all time.

TipTop 25 After Week Twelve Games

Last week's top 25 saw relatively little change for the second week in a row, and that stability continues for a third time this week. In fact, the top 10 remains exactly the same. This week's TipTop 25 is as follows:
Team Record LW This Week's Result
#1 Alabama 11-0 1 Won 50-17 over the Citadel
#2 Clemson 11-0 2 Won 35-6 over #37 Duke
#3 Central Florida 10-0 3 Won 38-13 over 9-2 Cincinnati
#4 Notre Dame 11-0 4 Won 36-3 over #19 Syracuse
#5 Louisiana State 9-2 5 Won 42-10 over Rice
#6 Georgia 10-1 6 Won 66-27 over Massachusetts
#7 Michigan 10-1 7 Won 31-20 over Indiana
#8 Florida 8-3 8 Won 63-10 over Idaho
#9 Kentucky 8-3 9 Won 34-23 over Middle Tennessee
#10 Mississippi State 7-4 10 Won 52-6 over Arkansas
#11 Texas A&M 7-4 16 Won 41-20 over 9-2 Alabama Birmingham
#12 Auburn 7-4 15 Won 53-0 over Liberty
#13 Missouri 7-4 18 Won 50-17 at #14 Tennessee
#14 South Carolina 6-4 17 Won 49-9 over Chattanooga
#15 Washington State 10-1 12 Won 69-28 over Arizona
#16 Tennessee 5-6 14 Lost 50-17 to #18 Missouri
#17 Oklahoma 10-1 11 Won 55-40 over Kansas
#18 Syracuse 8-3 19 Lost 36-3 to #4 Notre Dame
#19 North Carolina State 7-3 20 Won 52-10 at Louisville
#20 West Virginia 8-2 13 Lost 45-41 at unrated Oklahoma State
#21 Washington 8-3 21 Won 42-23 over Oregon State
#22 Utah 8-3 22 Won 30-7 at Colorado
#23 Stanford 6-4 23 Did not play
#24 Oregon 7-4 24 Won 31-29 over #28 Arizona State
#25 Ohio State 10-1 27 Won 52-51 in OT at Maryland

Notes on Changes to This Week's TipTop 25

Washington State and Oklahoma got adjusted downward, but it was more like I was adjusting a block of 4-loss SEC teams upward. The major issue is that WSU and Oklahoma each have a loss to an unranked team, and none of the ranked SEC teams do. Oklahoma is further troubled by the fact that they have no wins over ranked opponents, and they have repeatedly posted poor performances against teams that are mediocre or worse, including this week's abysmal defensive outing against Kansas.

The ranked SEC teams were reshuffled a bit due to Missouri's huge 50-17 win at Tennessee. That moves Texas A&M back ahead of Auburn because Auburn's loss to Tennessee is more of a drag on them now, and that combined with Texas A&M's win over a higher-rated team (#9 Kentucky) more than makes up for the fact that Auburn defeated Texas A&M earlier this year. Missouri moves ahead of South Carolina because they have performed far better, and also because Missouri was ranked #46 in the preseason top 50, while SC was not rated.

Tennessee has put up a lot of terrible performances, but they have no losses to unranked teams, and they have beaten #9 Kentucky and #12 Auburn, and that is why they are still ranked at 5-6.

10-1 Ohio State finally moves back into the top 25! They have been dogged all year by a number of issues. First of all, they were not ranked in the preseason top 50. Secondly, their schedule has been very weak. Then they were trounced by mediocre Purdue, and barely got by a bad Nebraska team at home. This week, they were taken to overtime by mediocre Maryland. But at least they won, whereas Texas, who had been #26, had previously lost to Maryland, so I moved Ohio State past them and into the top 25.

Close to the Top 25

The following teams are next in line to be ranked:

#26 Texas
#27 Vanderbilt
#28 Mississippi
#29 Arizona State
#30 Northwestern
#31 Michigan State
#32 Penn State
#33 Utah State
#34 Pittsburgh
#35 Wisconsin

End of the TipTop 25

The point of this top 25 has been an experiment with random preseason ratings and with trying to ignore teams' historic reputations and "brand name" values. Ideally, after next week's games the preseason ratings should mean very little, so this will be my last top 25. Starting next week, I'll be doing what I normally do after Thanksgiving, which is commenting on the AP poll top 25 each week until I fix the final AP poll top 25 in January.
 
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