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2018 TipTop 25 Week Eight

 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

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 #16 Tennessee 58-21 on the road. Unstoppable.

TipTop 25 After Week Eight Games

Last week's top 25 saw less of a shake-up than these rankings had seen all season, but only 3 ranked teams took upset losses this week, and the latest top 25 is even more stabilized. This week's TipTop 25 is as follows:
Team Record LW This Week's Result
#1 Alabama 8-0 1 Won 58-21 at #16 Tennessee
#2 Clemson 7-0 3 Won 41-7 over #4 North Carolina State
#3 Central Florida 7-0 2 Won 37-10 at East Carolina
#4 Texas A&M 5-2 6 Did not play
#5 Kentucky 6-1 7 Won 14-7 over Vanderbilt
#6 Florida 6-1 8 Did not play
#7 Louisiana State 7-1 9 Won 19-3 over #11 Mississippi State
#8 Georgia 6-1 10 Did not play
#9 Notre Dame 7-0 12 Did not play
#10 Michigan 7-1 13 Won 21-7 at Michigan State
#11 Mississippi State 4-3 11 Lost 19-3 at #9 Louisiana State
#12 West Virginia 5-1 15 Did not play
#13 Tennessee 3-4 16 Lost 58-21 to #1 Alabama
#14 Auburn 5-3 17 Won 31-16 at #14 Mississippi
#15 Mississippi 5-3 14 Lost 31-16 to #17 Auburn
#16 Texas Tech 5-2 18 Won 48-16 over Kansas
#17 Houston 6-1 20 Won 49-36 at Navy
#18 North Carolina State 5-1 4 Lost 41-7 at #3 Clemson
#19 Texas 6-1 21 Did not play
#20 Oklahoma 6-1 22 Won 52-27 at Texas Christian
#21 Georgia Southern 6-1 23 Won 48-31 at New Mexico State
#22 South Florida 7-0 24 Won 38-30 over Connecticut
#23 Virginia 5-2 25 Won 28-14 at #38 Duke
#24 Miami (Florida) 5-2 26 Did not play
#25 Washington State 6-1 29 Won 34-20 over #27 Oregon

Notes on Changes to This Week's TipTop 25

Ohio State was ranked #5 last week, but after unrated Purdue stomped them 49-20 this week, the Buckeyes fall out of the top 25, and in fact they are not one of the teams even close to being ranked (below). That's because OSU was not rated in the preseason top 50, and at this point they have not played a team that is ranked or close to ranked. And they won't until their finale with Michigan (now #10).

Close to the Top 25

The following teams are next in line to be ranked:

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

Looking Ahead to Next Week's Games

This week the following ranked teams play each other: #4 Texas A&M at #11 Mississippi State, #6 Florida vs. #8 Georgia, and #22 South Florida at #17 Houston. In addition, #25 Washington State visits #29 Stanford and 5-1 Appalachian State travels to #21 Georgia Southern. Join me next week as we continue to hone the top 25 that was born from my magic hat.

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