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2018 TipTop 25 Week Seven

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 routed 3-3 Missouri.

TipTop 25 After Week Seven Games

Last week's top 25 saw a huge shake-up for the fourth straight week, but although another 5 ranked teams took upset losses this week, the latest top 25 sees less of a shake-up than it has all season. Of course, we still have some big changes. This week's TipTop 25 is as follows:

	Team	Record	LW	This Week's Result
#1	Alabama	7-0	1	Won 39-10 over Missouri
#2	Central Florida	6-0	2	Won 31-30 at Memphis
#3	Clemson	6-0	7	Did not play
#4	North Carolina State	5-0	5	Did not play
#5	Ohio State	7-0	4	Won 30-14 over Minnesota
#6	Texas A&M	5-2	9	Won 26-23 at South Carolina
#7	Kentucky	5-1	10	Did not play
#8	Florida	6-1	11	Won 37-27 at Vanderbilt
#9	Louisiana State	6-1	12	Won 36-16 over #3 Georgia
#10	Georgia	6-1	3	Lost 36-16 at #12 Louisiana State
#11	Mississippi State	4-2	14	Did not play
#12	Notre Dame	7-0	16	Won 19-14 at Pittsburgh
#13	Michigan	6-1	17	Won 38-13 over Wisconsin
#14	Mississippi	5-2	19	Won 37-33 at Arkansas
#15	West Virginia	5-1	6	Lost 30-14 at unranked Iowa State
#16	Tennessee	3-3	Unrated	Won 30-24 at #15 Auburn
#17	Auburn	4-3	15	Lost 30-24 to unrated Tennessee (now #16)
#18	Texas Tech	4-2	20	Won 17-14 at Texas Christian
#19	Cincinnati	6-0	24	Did not play
#20	Houston	5-1	25	Won 42-20 at East Carolina
#21	Texas	6-1	27	Won 23-17 over Baylor
#22	Oklahoma	5-1	28	Did not play
#23	Georgia Southern	5-1	22	Won 15-13 at Texas State
#24	South Florida	6-0	23	Won 25-24 at Tulsa
#25	Virginia	4-2	Unrated	Won 16-13 over #26 Miami (Florida)

Notes on Changes to This Week's TipTop 25

I moved Clemson up a bit because their win over #6 Texas A&M is looking better and better as A&M moves up. I dropped Ohio State a bit because their 1-point win over Penn State looks poor now that Penn State has dropped out of the rankings (upset by Michigan State this week). On that point, Appalachian State, who had been ranked #21 last week, falls out of the top 25 along with PSU, as they had lost their opener to the Nittany Lions.

Tennessee's win over Auburn vaults them into the top 25 because Tennessee's 3 losses have come to #8 Florida, #10 Georgia, and #15 West Virginia, and Tennessee was rated #31 in the preseason, Auburn #13. As for West Virginia, their upset loss at Iowa State sends them tumbling this week, but they are buoyed from taking a bigger drop by Tennessee, and they have also already beaten #18 Texas Tech.

Georgia Southern and South Florida just keep putting up poor performances, and they're barely holding onto top 25 slots. But they also just keep winning.

The SEC has completely taken over the top 25 at this point, with 6 top 10 teams, including #1, and 10 teams in the top 25!

Close to the Top 25

The following teams are next in line to be ranked:

#26 Miami (Florida)
#27 Oregon
#28 Washington
#29 Washington State
#30 Utah
#31 Stanford
#32 Southern Cal
#33 Virginia Tech
#34 Wisconsin
#35 Iowa
#36 Colorado
#37 San Diego State
#38 Duke
#39 Army
#40 Buffalo

Looking Ahead to Next Week's Games

This is a big week for the TipTop 25! The following ranked teams play each other: #1 Alabama at #16 Tennessee, #4 North Carolina State at #3 Clemson, #11 Mississippi State at #9 Louisiana State, and #17 Auburn at #14 Mississippi. In addition, we have #25 Virginia at #38 Duke, #27 Oregon at #29 Washington State, #36 Colorado at #28 Washington, and #32 Southern Cal at #30 Utah. Join me next week as we continue to hone the top 25 that was born from my magic hat.

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