Tip Top 25 in helmets, smaller
                                                    Home

2021 TipTop 25 Week One

Utah State is picked first out of my hat for 2021

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 Utah State was selected first, thereby securing our preseason #1 slot. Unfortunately, the Aggies were unimpressive enough in their opener that we will have a new team at the top of the list this week, as covered below.

As the games are played, I will be ranking teams completely blind to their histories and "name" value, so that they are ranked entirely based on what they do this season and, for the first few weeks 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 all FCS teams are at a lower power level, and therefore it is unacceptable for a ranked FBS team to struggle with an FCS team, let alone lose. Similarly, 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

MS Paint of a Baylor player in 2015

The top 9 teams in the preseason TipTop 25 all lost or performed poorly this week, so Baylor, #10 on the preseason list, ends up on the throne by default as all those teams fall back behind them. Baylor has been #1 in the TipTop 25 before, for 2 weeks in 2015, and I created the above MS Paint then to commemorate their rise to the top, so now I'm bringing it out again to celebrate their return to the throne.

Last week's #1, Utah State, did win, but by only 26-23 at #35 Washington State. That's just not as strong as #10 Baylor's performance, a 29-20 win at #32 Texas State, so Utah State falls behind them and ends up #2 this week. They would have fallen farther than that if the rest of the preseason top 10 hadn't fared so poorly. Here is how the other teams that had been ranked ahead of Baylor performed this week:

#2 Mississippi State only beat #47 Louisiana Tech 35-34 at home.
#3 Charlotte only beat unranked Duke 31-28 at home.
#4 Arizona lost 24-16 to unranked BYU in Las Vegas.
#5 Oregon only beat unranked Fresno State 31-24 at home.
#6 Georgia Tech lost 22-21 to unranked Northern Illinois at home.
#7 Colorado State was stomped 42-23 at home by an FCS team!
#8 Arkansas State won 40-21 over an FCS team at home, and they were losing at halftime (more on this one below).
#9 Georgia Southern only won 30-25 over an FCS team at home.

I should note that although Arkansas State's winning score may look impressive on its face, 40-21 is just not a good enough performance for a #1 team to post over an FCS team, especially at home. However, Arkansas State is the only team listed here that moved up in the rankings, so their performance didn't really hurt them. Again, it just wasn't good enough to merit moving them to #1.

TipTop 25 After Week One Games

Seven of our preseason top 25 teams took a loss in the first week, which isn't an unusual amount compared to years past, but another 6 teams posted close wins over unrated opponents, 2 of those FCS teams, so there is an unusually large amount of movement in the TipTop 25 for an opening week. After a pretty big shake-up, this week's TipTop 25 is as follows:

Team Record LW This Week's Result
#1 Baylor 1-0 10 Won 29-20 at #32 Texas State
#2 Utah State
 1-0 1 Won 26-23 at #35 Washington State (now #14)
#3 Mississippi State
 1-0 2
 Won 35-34 over #47 Louisiana Tech (now #15)
#4 Arkansas State
 1-0 8 Won 40-21 over an FCS team
#5 Coastal Carolina
 1-0 12 Won 52-14 over an FCS team
#6 Kansas State
 1-0 20
 Won 24-7 over #11 Stanford in Texas (now unrated)
#7 Charlotte
 1-0 3 Won 31-28 over unrated Duke (now #24)
#8 Oregon 1-0 5 Won 31-24 over unrated Fresno State
#9 Air Force
 1-0 13 Won 35-14 over an FCS team
#10 Syracuse 1-0 14 Won 29-9 at #33 Ohio
#11 Tennessee 1-0 17 Won 38-6 over unrated Bowling Green
#12 Pittsburgh 1-0 21 Won 51-7 over unrated Massachusetts
#13 Brigham Young
 1-0 Unrated Won 24-16 over #4 Arizona in Las Vegas (now #18)
#14 Washington State
 0-1 35 Lost 26-23 to #1 Utah State (now #2)
#15 Louisiana Tech
 0-1 47 Lost 35-34 at #2 Mississippi State (now #3)
#16 Northern Illinois
 1-0 Unrated Won 22-21 at #6 Georgia Tech (now #17)
#17 Georgia Tech
 0-1 6 Lost 22-21 to unrated Northern Illinois (now #16)
#18 Arizona
 0-1 4 Lost 24-16 to unrated BYU in Las Vegas (now #13)
#19 Utah 1-0 22 Won 40-17 over an FCS team
#20 Virginia
 1-0 23 Won 43-0 over an FCS team
#21 Liberty 1-0 24 Won 48-7 over an FCS team
#22 UAB
 1-0 25 Won 31-0 over an FCS team on a neutral field
#23 South Alabama 1-0 Unrated Won 31-7 over #19 Southern Miss
#24 Duke
 0-1 Unrated Lost 31-28 at #3 Charlotte (now #7)
#25 Nevada 1-0 Unrated Won 22-17 at #18 California (now #33)

Notes on Changes to This Week's Top 25

It's not just winning and losing that will cause a team to rise or drop in the rankings: struggling to beat an FCS team or an unranked (in top 50) FBS team can cause a team to sink in the rankings as well. Six top 25 teams that posted close wins fell in the rankings this week, and 2 teams that struggled to beat FCS opponents dropped out entirely, those teams being formerly #9 Georgia Southern (30-25 over Gardner-Webb) and #16 Iowa State (16-10 over Northern Iowa).

#2 Utah State and #3 Mississippi State benefit from all the carnage suffered by top 10 teams this week, each only dropping one spot despite close wins over opponents that had been unrated. Those opponents, Washington State and Louisiana Tech, are now rated #15 and #16. But bear in mind that if WSU and LT suffer losses going forward, it can not only knock them out, but also send Utah State and Mississippi State sinking in the rankings.

Similarly, the fortunes of #16 Northern Illinois are tied to those of #17 Georgia Tech due to NIU's close win over GT. If either team does poorly, the other team's ranking will be adversely affected as well.

Close to the Top 25

The following teams are next in line to be ranked:

#26 Maryland
#27 West Virginia
#28 Fresno State
#29 Texas Tech
#30 Southern Cal
#31 Mississippi
#32 Ohio State
#33 California
#34 Arizona State
#35 UCLA
#36 Troy
#37 Florida
#38 Wake Forest
#39 Army
#40 Purdue
#41 Missouri

Looking Ahead to Next Week's Games

This week we get 2 games pitting top 25 teams against each other: #12 Pittsburgh at #11 Tennessee, and #19 Utah at #13 Brigham Young. We also have a pair of games that feature top 25 teams taking on nearly-ranked opponents: #8 Oregon at #32 Ohio State, and #21 Liberty at #36 Troy. Join me next week as we continue to hone the top 25 that was born from my magic hat.

Home