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2018 TipTop 25 Week Two

 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.

Virginia Tech Still #1

MS Paint of Virginia Tech players 2018

I pulled the Hokies out of my hat for the #3 slot in the preseason, but in the first week of games, #1 Tulane lost and #2 Illinois struggled to win 31-24, both against teams that were not ranked in the preseason top 50, clearing the way for Virginia Tech to take the top spot. This week the Hokies stomped on an FCS team.

TipTop 25 After Week Two Games

Last week's top 25 was facing a weak slate of opponents, including 11 FCS teams, so only 4 ranked teams took losses, quite an unusually low number for the TipTop 25. This week's TipTop 25 is as follows:
Team Record LW This Week's Result
#1 Virginia Tech 2-0 1 Won 62-17 over an FCS team
#2 Vanderbilt 2-0 2 Won 41-10 over Nevada
#3 Boise State 2-0 3 Won 62-7 over Connecticut
#4 Central Florida 2-0 4 Won 38-0 over an FCS team
#5 Oklahoma 2-0 6 Won 49-21 over UCLA
#6 Louisiana State 2-0 9 Won 31-0 over an FCS team
#7 Georgia Southern 2-0 10 Won 34-13 over Massachusetts
#8 Mississippi 2-0 11 Won 76-41 over an FCS team
#9 North Carolina State 2-0 16 Won 41-7 over Georgia State
#10 Baylor 2-0 14 Won 37-20 at Texas San Antonio
#11 Wake Forest 2-0 17 Won 51-20 over an FCS team
#12 Stanford 2-0 18 Won 17-3 over #39 Southern Cal
#13 Ohio State 2-0 Unranked Won 52-3 over #15 Rutgers (now unranked)
#14 Colorado 2-0 5 Won 33-28 at #31 Nebraska (now #29)
#15 Kentucky 2-0 Unranked Won 27-16 at #8 Florida (now unranked)
#16 Indiana 2-0 Unranked Won 20-16 over #7 Virginia (now #20)
#17 Illinois 2-0 20 Won 34-14 over an FCS team
#18 Auburn 2-0 21 Won 63-9 over an FCS team
#19 Tulane 1-1 22 Won 42-17 over an FCS team
#20 Virginia 1-1 7 Lost 20-16 at unranked Indiana (now #16)
#21 Akron 1-0 23 Won 41-7 over an FCS team
#22 Oregon 2-0 24 Won 62-14 over an FCS team
#23 North Texas 2-0 25 Won 58-16 over an FCS team
#24 Boston College 2-0 26 Won 62-14 over an FCS team
#25 Washington State 2-0 27 Won 31-0 over San Jose State

Notes on Changes to This Week's TipTop 25

I let North Carolina State (now #9) slip past Baylor (#10) because the Bears were fairly unimpressive this week against Texas San Antonio, a team that unranked Arizona State beat much worse the week before.

Colorado's 5-point win at #31 Nebraska was not the performance of a top 5 team, so they dropped quite a bit (from #5 to #14). Nebraska, meanwhile, actually moved up a bit, to #29, as posting a close loss to the #5 team (now #14) is a good performance for an unranked team.

Close to the Top 25

The following teams are next in line to be ranked:

#26 West Virginia
#27 Georgia
#28 South Florida
#29 Nebraska
#30 Hawaii
#31 Louisiana
#32 Duke
#33 Missouri

Looking Ahead to Next Week's Games

Last week gave us a very poor slate of games, but this week is much hotter. We have 2 games featuring ranked teams: #6 Louisiana State at #18 Auburn and #24 Boston College at #11 Wake Forest. Also, #26 West Virginia is at #9 North Carolina State, #28 South Florida faces #17 Illinois, and #32 Duke visits #10 Baylor. On top of all that, 3 teams that are highly ranked in the AP poll get a shot at teams that are highly ranked in the TipTop 25: #2 Vanderbilt at Notre Dame, #7 Georgia Southern at Clemson, and Alabama at #8 Mississippi. Join me next week as we continue to hone the top 25 that was born from my magic hat.

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