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2015 TipTop 25 Week Two

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 Duke was selected first, thereby securing our preseason #1 slot, and at 2-0 they still remain our #1 team!

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. Eventually, where they were ranked in the preseason should have little or no impact on their current rankings.

All 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.

Top 25 After Week Two Games

In week one, 7 of our top 25 preseason teams were upset, including 3 of our top 6, and this week we had another shakeup, but it was not so dramatic. This time out we saw 6 of our top 25 teams take an upset loss, but none of our top 15 teams lost. Obviously, we are already stabilizing a bit. After the week two games, this week's TipTop 25 is as follows:

	Team	Record	LW	This Week's Result
#1	Duke	2-0	1	Won 55-0 over an FCS team
#2	California	2-0	2	Won 35-7 over unrated San Diego State
#3	Florida State	2-0	3	Won 34-14 over unrated South Florida
#4	Boston College	2-0	4	Won 76-0 over an FCS team
#5	North Carolina State	2-0	5	Won 35-0 over an FCS team
#6	Utah	2-0	6	Won 24-14 over unrated Utah State
#7	Baylor	2-0	7	Won 66-31 over an FCS team
#8	Michigan	1-1	8	Won 35-7 over unrated Oregon State
#9	Texas Christian	2-0	15	Won 70-7 over an FCS team
#10	Syracuse	2-0	9	Won 30-17 over unrated Wake Forest
#11	Georgia	2-0	11	Won 31-14 at unrated Vanderbilt
#12	Notre Dame	2-0	10	Won 34-27 at unrated Virginia
#13	Minnesota	1-1	33	Won 23-20 in overtime at previous #16 Colorado State
#14	Colorado State	1-1	16	Lost 23-20 in overtime to previous #33 Minnesota
#15	Oklahoma	2-0	12	Won 31-24 in overtime at near-rated Tennessee (now #28)
#16	Southern Cal	2-0	13	Won 59-9 over unrated Idaho
#17	Temple	2-0	14	Won 34-26 at unrated Cincinnati
#18	Air Force	2-0	Unrated	Won 37-16 over previous #18 San Jose State
#19	Penn State	1-1	Near-rated	Won 27-14 over previous #21 Buffalo
#20	Clemson	2-0	22	Won 41-10 over an FCS team
#21	Kansas State	2-0	Unrated	Won 30-3 at unrated Texas-San Antonio
#22	Arizona	2-0	24	Won 44-20 at near-rated Nevada
#23	Alabama	2-0	27	Won 37-10 over unrated Middle Tennessee State
#24	Northwestern	2-0	29	Won 41-0 over an FCS team
#25	Florida	2-0	28	Won 31-24 over unrated East Carolina

Counting Notre Dame, we had 13 major conference teams in our top 25 in the preseason, 20 after week one, and now we have 22. It hasn't taken long at all to winnow out the mid-major teams, even when we rate teams "blindly," ignoring their histories.

Notes on Changes to This Week's Top 25

Texas Christian moved from #15 to #9 not because they destroyed an FCS team, but because Minnesota, whom TCU beat on the road in week one, upset previous #16 Colorado State on the road this week, boosting TCU as well as themselves.

Penn State had been randomly picked out of my magic hat 19th for the preseason ranking, but fell out of the top 25 when they were upset by Temple in week one. This week, they reclaim their #19 slot with a big win over previous #21 Buffalo.

I moved Kansas State ahead of Arizona because both teams have played Texas-San Antonio, and KSU was much more impressive in their win (AZ beat them by 10 at home, KSU by 28 on the road). I should note here that UCLA also did better against Virginia than Notre Dame did (UCLA beat them by 18 at home, Dame by 7 on the road), but taking home field advantage into account, that isn't actually much of a difference, and it is certainly not nearly so clear as the Arizona-KSU case. Still, I will be keeping my eye on UCLA vs Notre Dame going forward.

Close to the Top 25

The following teams are next in line to be ranked:

#26 Miami-Florida 2-0
#27 Mississippi 2-0
#28 Tennessee 1-1
#29 UCLA 2-0
#30 Ohio State 2-0
#31 Texas A&M 2-0

UCLA, Ohio State, and Texas A&M come in because they are the only previously-unrated FBS teams that have won big against 2 FBS opponents so far.

In addition, we're going to keep our eyes on these two groups of teams for next week (these are our "near-rated" teams):

Teams that were ranked highly in the preseason, but that have fallen out of the top 25 due to one poor result: San Jose State, Texas State, Troy, Northern Illinois, and Buffalo.

Teams that were not in the preseason top 50 that have at least one big win over an unrated FBS opponent: Oklahoma State, Ohio, Illinois, West Virginia, Wisconsin, Georgia Tech, Iowa, and Memphis.

Looking Ahead to Next Week's Games

The AP poll had its first big game this week when Oregon visited Michigan State, two teams who are not yet even on the TipTop 25 radar (that could change next week, as our #18 Air Force travels to Michigan State). Well, this week we get our own huge game when our #3 Florida State visits our #4 Boston College! Could the winner rise to #1 next week? Maybe, but that depends on how our #1 team, Duke, fares against our #24 Northwestern.

We've also got #23 Alabama hosting #27 Mississippi, and faltering #12 Notre Dame hosting near-rated Georgia Tech. This is the best slate of games our top 25 has seen yet. Join me next week as we continue to hone the top 25 that was born from my magic hat.

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