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2018 TipTop 25 Week Nine

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 did not play, but next week they face their toughest test yet, a road trip to #5 Louisiana State.

TipTop 25 After Week Nine Games

Last week's top 25 saw less of a shake-up than these rankings had seen all season, and that was the second straight week of relatively stable rankings, but this week we are back to seeing a huge shake-up in the TipTop 25. Six ranked teams took upset losses this week, and on top of that, 9 of the 11 teams ranked #26-36 took upset losses! So that is a crazy amount of upset losses for the top 36. This week's TipTop 25 is as follows:

	Team	Record	LW	This Week's Result
#1	Alabama	8-0	1	Did not play
#2	Clemson	8-0	2	Won 59-10 at Florida State
#3	Central Florida	7-0	3	Did not play
#4	Notre Dame	8-0	9	Won 44-22 over Navy
#5	Louisiana State	7-1	7	Did not play
#6	Georgia	7-1	8	Won 36-17 over #6 Florida
#7	Kentucky	7-1	5	Won 15-14 at Missouri
#8	Florida	6-2	6	Lost 36-17 to #8 Georgia
#9	Michigan	7-1	10	Did not play
#10	Mississippi State	5-3	11	Won 28-13 over #4 Texas A&M
#11	Texas A&M	5-3	4	Lost 28-13 at #11 Mississippi State
#12	Oklahoma	7-1	20	Won 51-14 over Kansas State
#13	Washington State	7-1	25	Won 41-38 at #29 Stanford (now #20)
#14	West Virginia	6-1	12	Won 58-14 over Baylor
#15	Georgia Southern	7-1	21	Won 34-14 over Appalachian State
#16	Syracuse	6-2	Unranked	Won 51-41 over #18 North Carolina State
#17	North Carolina State	5-2	18	Lost 51-41 at unranked Syracuse
#18	Virginia	6-2	23	Won 31-21 over North Carolina
#19	Utah	6-2	28	Won 41-10 at UCLA
#20	Stanford	5-3	29	Lost 41-38 to #25 Washington State (now #13)
#21	South Carolina	4-3	Unranked	Won 27-24 over #13 Tennessee
#22	Tennessee	3-5	13	Lost 27-24 to unranked South Carolina
#23	Auburn	5-3	14	Won 31-16 at #15 Mississippi (now unrated)
#24	San Diego State	6-2	35	Lost 28-24 at unranked Nevada
#25	Oregon	5-3	26	Lost 44-15 at unranked Arizona

Notes on Changes to This Week's TipTop 25

Texas A&M, rated #4 last week, was whacked by #11 Mississippi State, and that puts a bit of a dent in the fortunes of Kentucky (lost to A&M), Florida (lost to Kentucky), and LSU (lost to Florida), and that enables unbeaten Notre Dame to slip by all those teams and move up to #4.

#12-25 sees a complete reshuffling this week due to the onslaught of upset losses. This affected more than the teams that were upset, of course. West Virginia, for example, won big, but they dropped a bit because their best wins this season had come over Tennessee and Texas Tech, both of whom took upset losses and dropped substantially in the rankings.

Auburn also won big, but they had previously lost to Tennessee, and drop with the Volunteers.

San Diego State is a highly unusual case. They had been way back at #35, and were upset by a team that was not close to ranked this week, yet they jump all the way into the top 25 at #24. That's a result of the complete reshuffling that resulted from 9 of the 11 teams that had been #26-36 taking upset losses. San Diego State benefits from having previously beaten Arizona State (who has beaten Michigan State and, this week, Southern Cal), and mostly from the fact that they had been rated #10 in the preseason top 25. And their upset loss at Nevada was not nearly so embarrassing as #25 Oregon's 44-15 stomping at unranked Arizona this week. Oregon's previous win over Washington, now #26, is all that is keeping them afloat.

Houston had been #17 last week, and they crushed #22 South Florida 57-36, but they had previously lost by 14 at Texas Tech, who was upset this week and falls out of the top 25. Houston falls with them.

Close to the Top 25

The following teams are next in line to be ranked:

#26 Washington
#27 Mississippi
#28 Texas
#29 Ohio State
#30 Northwestern
#31 Michigan State
#32 Penn State
#33 Utah State
#34 Appalachian State
#35 Wisconsin
#36 Iowa
#37 Iowa State
#38 Texas Tech
#39 Houston
#40 South Florida
#41 Oklahoma State
#42 Boise State
#43 Fresno State

Looking Ahead to Next Week's Games

This week the following ranked teams play each other: #1 Alabama at #5 Louisiana State, #6 Georgia at #7 Kentucky, and #11 Texas A&M at #23 Auburn. In addition, we have #4 Notre Dame at #30 Northwestern, #32 Penn State at #9 Michigan, #12 Oklahoma at #38 Texas Tech, #14 West Virginia at #28 Texas, #20 Stanford at #26 Washington, and #21 South Carolina at #27 Mississippi. Join me next week as we continue to hone the top 25 that was born from my magic hat.

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