Home

2018 TipTop 25 Week Six

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, 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 routed 1-5 Arkansas.

TipTop 25 After Week Six Games

Last week's top 25 saw a huge shake-up for the third straight week, and this week sees more of the same. Six ranked teams took upset losses, including 4 of the top 7. I'm wondering if the TipTop 25 will ever settle down. This week's TipTop 25 is as follows:

	Team	Record	LW	This Week's Result
#1	Alabama	6-0	1	Won 65-31 at Arkansas
#2	Central Florida	5-0	3	Won 48-20 over Southern Methodist
#3	Georgia	6-0	8	Won 41-13 over Vanderbilt
#4	Ohio State	6-0	9	Won 49-26 over #28 Indiana
#5	North Carolina State	5-0	4	Won 28-23 over Boston College
#6	West Virginia	5-0	11	Won 38-22 over Kansas
#7	Clemson	6-0	12	Won 63-3 at Wake Forest
#8	Colorado	5-0	13	Won 28-21 over #25 Arizona State
#9	Texas A&M	4-2	33	Won 20-14 in OT over #5 Kentucky
#10	Kentucky	5-1	5	Lost 20-14 in OT at #33 Texas A&M
#11	Florida	5-1	14	Won 27-19 over #2 Louisiana State
#12	Louisiana State	5-1	2	Lost 27-19 at #14 Florida
#13	Penn State	4-1	15	Did not play
#14	Mississippi State	4-2	32	Won 23-9 over #6 Auburn
#15	Auburn	4-2	6	Lost 23-9 at #32 Mississippi State
#16	Notre Dame	6-0	16	Won 45-23 at Virginia Tech
#17	Michigan	5-1	19	Won 42-21 over Maryland
#18	Washington	5-1	10	Won 31-24 at UCLA (0-5)
#19	Mississippi	4-2	21	Won 70-21 over Louisiana-Monroe
#20	Texas Tech	3-2	22	Did not play
#21	Appalachian State	3-1	31	Did not play
#22	Georgia Southern	4-1	Unrated	Won 48-13 over South Alabama
#23	South Florida	5-0	34	Won 58-42 at Massachusetts
#24	Cincinnati	6-0	Unrated	Won 37-21 over Tulane
#25	Houston	4-1	Unrated	Won 41-26 over Tulsa

Notes on Changes to This Week's TipTop 25

Texas A&M's 2 losses have come to #1 Alabama and #7 Clemson. They leap into the top 10 this week due to defeating #10 Kentucky, who has previously beaten #11 Florida, who just beat #12 LSU.

Stanford, previously ranked #17, was sent out of the top 25 this week after getting routed by unranked Utah. That doesn't just give Stanford the boot though: #18 Oregon and #20 San Diego State had previously lost to Stanford, so they fall out as well.

I moved Georgia Southern past South Florida and into the top 25 because their only loss has come to #7 Clemson, and they were rated #18 in the preseason top 25.

Close to the Top 25

The following teams are next in line to be ranked:

#26 Miami (Florida)
#27 Texas
#28 Oklahoma

Looking Ahead to Next Week's Games

Really poor slate of games this week. We have just 1 game between ranked teams, #3 Georgia at #12 Louisiana State. We have a couple more tough tests: 4-1 Wisconsin at #17 Michigan and #18 Washington at 4-1 Oregon. And the top 25 teams are playing 13 road games and only 7 home games, so maybe we'll see some upsets. Join me next week as we continue to hone the top 25 that was born from my magic hat.

Home