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2015 TipTop 25 Week Five

Welcome back again 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, but they lost in week 3 to Northwestern, and now they are ranked behind the 5-0 Wildcats at #6 (as you will see in this week's top 25 below).

As the games are played, I am ranking teams completely blind to their histories and "name" value, so that they are ranked solely based on what they do this season and, to a lesser degree each week, on where they were randomly 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.

Our New #1

Here is a little MS Paint I made to commemorate our new #1 Utah. I pulled Utah out of my hat for the #17 slot in the preseason, and they got off to a great start when they defeated #15 Michigan 24-17 in the first week. Since then they and Michigan have both won every game by more than a touchdown, and now both are ranked in our top 5. Last week's #1 team, Florida State, only won 24-16 at unrated Wake Forest this week. So Utah, who has not had a weak performance, and who has beaten a higher-ranked opponent than FSU has, moves to the top of our mountain. For now.

Top 25 After Games of Week Five

Last week only 3 of our top 25 teams lost to a lower-rated team, but this week 7 of them were upset, the most since the first week of games. This week's TipTop 25 is as follows:

	Team	Record	LW	This Week's Result
#1	Utah	4-0	2	Off
#2	Florida State	4-0	1	Won 24-16 at unrated Wake Forest
#3	Michigan	4-1	3	Won 28-0 at unrated Maryland
#4	Baylor	4-0	4	Won 63-35 over nearly-rated Texas Tech
#5	Northwestern	5-0	6	Won 27-0 over unrated Minnesota
#6	Duke	4-1	7	Won 9-7 over #8 Boston College
#7	Stanford	4-1	11	Won 55-17 over unrated Arizona
#8	Boston College	3-2	9	Lost 9-7 at #6 Duke
#9	Clemson	4-0	19	Won 24-22 over #10 Notre Dame
#10	Notre Dame	4-1	10	Lost 24-22 at #9 Clemson
#11	Texas Christian	5-0	16	Won 50-7 over unrated Texas
#12	Oklahoma	4-0	17	Won 44-24 over #22 West Virginia
#13	Florida	5-0	unrated	Won 38-10 over #14 Mississippi
#14	Mississippi	4-1	13	Lost 38-10 at #13 Florida
#15	Alabama	4-1	14	Won 38-10 at #17 Georgia
#16	Southern Cal	3-1	18	Off
#17	Georgia	4-1	12	Lost 38-10 to #15 Alabama
#18	Texas A&M	5-0	unrated	Won 30-17 over unrated Mississippi State
#19	Louisiana State	4-0	23	Won 44-22 over unrated Eastern Michigan
#20	California	5-0	8	Won 34-28 over unrated Washington State
#21	Ohio State	5-0	20	Won 34-27 at unrated Indiana
#22	West Virginia	3-1	24	Lost 44-24 at #12 Oklahoma
#23	Michigan State	5-0	25	Won 24-21 over unrated Purdue
#24	Oklahoma State	5-0	unrated	Won 36-34 over unrated Kansas State
#25	Iowa	5-0	unrated	Won 10-6 at nearly-rated Wisconsin

Counting Notre Dame, we had 13 major conference teams in our top 25 in the preseason, 20 after week one, 22 after week two, and now there are no "Little Big Teams" on the list. It obviously doesn't take long to winnow out the mid-majors, even when we rate teams "blindly," ignoring their histories.

Notes on Changes to This Week's Top 25

I do not rate teams the way the AP poll does, so a team's movement up or down is not just based on winning or losing their latest game. It's also based on how they've performed (a close win over an unrated opponent is a poor performance), and on how the teams they've previously played have done this week.

Boston College is 3-2, but they remain in the top 10 because a 2-point loss at #6 Duke is about what you expect a #8 team to do.

California started out #8, and now they're 5-0, but they've fallen to #20 because they've just barely beaten 3 unrated opponents in a row. As one example, they only won by 1 point over Texas, a team #10 Notre Dame beat by 35 and #11 TCU by 43.

Close to the Top 25

The following teams are next in line to be ranked: Texas Tech, Temple, Navy, Penn State, and Wisconsin.

4-0 Navy visits #10 Notre Dame this week, so this is their big chance to get into the top 25. Even a close loss could do it.

Looking Ahead to Next Week's Games

We've got a big one next week, #5 Northwestern visiting #3 Michigan. Northwestern has 2 wins over top 10 teams -- can they make it 3? Also, #20 Cal will get their chance to return to the top 10 with a trip to #1 Utah. And down at the bottom of the top 25, we've got #24 Oklahoma State at #22 West Virginia. Join me next week as we continue to hone the top 25 that was born from my magic hat.

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