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2021 TipTop 25 Week Twelve

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 they slipped down out of the top spot after that.

As the games have been played, I have been ranking teams completely blind to their histories and "name" value, so that they are ranked entirely based on what they did 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).

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.

Georgia Still #1

MS Paint of a Georgia football player

Georgia was not randomly selected from my hat before the season, so they were not ranked in the preseason top 25, or even top 50. They entered the TipTop 25 at #13 in week 2 due to beating then-#22 UAB 56-7. But because they had struggled to beat Clemson in the first week, and because Clemson played poorly in week 3, Georgia was dragged down with Clemson and out of the top 25 again. They rose back into the top 25 in week 4 as teams fell out of their way, and in week 5 they smashed then-#18 Arkansas 37-0 to move all the way up to #6. Two more smashings of rated teams put them all the way to the top. This week they smashed a lower-division team 56-7.

TipTop 25 After Week Twelve Games

Only two teams from last week's TipTop 25 suffered losses to lower-ranked teams, by far the fewest we've seen this season. Our top 25 has been quite stable for about 7 weeks now, and I have to think that this season has given us the most stable TipTop 25 since I started doing this in 2015. This week's TipTop 25 is as follows:

Team Record LW This Week's Result
#1 Georgia 11-0 1 Won 56-7 over an FCS team
#2 Cincinnati 11-0 2
 Won 48-14 over Southern Methodist
#3 Ohio State 10-1 4
 Won 56-7 over #10 Michigan State (now #9)
#4 Notre Dame 10-1 5 Won 55-0 over Georgia Tech
#5 Alabama 10-1 6 Won 42-35 over #19 Arkansas (now #17)
#6 Oklahoma State 10-1 7 Won 23-0 at Texas Tech
#7 Baylor 9-2 8
 Won 20-10 at #22 Kansas State
#8 Oklahoma 10-1 9 Won 28-21 over #21 Iowa State
#9 Michigan State 9-2 10 Lost 56-7 at #4 Ohio State (now #3)
#10 Michigan
10-1 11 Won 59-18 at Maryland
#11 Oregon 9-2 3 Lost 38-7 at #31 Utah (now #25)
#12
 Wisconsin 8-3
 12
 Won 35-28 over Nebraska
#13 Purdue 7-4 13 Won 32-14 at Northwestern
#14 Iowa 9-2 14 Won 33-23 over Illinois
#15 Penn State 7-4 15 Won 28-0 over Rutgers
#16 Mississippi 9-2 16 Won 31-17 over Vanderbilt
#17 Arkansas 7-4 19 Lost 42-35 at #6 Alabama (now #5)
#18 Texas A&M 8-3 17 Won 52-3 over an FCS team
#19 Auburn 6-5
 18 Lost 21-17 at unrated South Carolina
#20 Mississippi State
 7-4
 20 Won 55-10 over an FCS team
#21 Iowa State 6-5 21 Lost 28-21 at #9 Oklahoma (now #8)
#22 Kansas State 7-4 22 Lost 20-10 to #8 Baylor (now #7)
#23 Brigham Young 9-2 23 Won 34-17 at Georgia Southern
#24 San Diego State 10-1 24 Won 28-20 at UNLV
#25 Utah 8-3 31 Won 38-7 over #3 Oregon

Notes on Changes to This Week's Top 25

Auburn's upset loss at South Carolina gives them a worse relevant record than Arkansas has, so Arkansas moves past them despite Auburn beating them this season. And once Arkansas is freed from those Auburn shackles, we can move them ahead of Texas A&M as well, since Arkansas beat the Aggies earlier this season (and Texas A&M does not have a better relevant record than that of Arkansas). Auburn remains ranked ahead of Mississippi State thanks to big wins over Arkansas and Mississippi, while MSU is still hurt by upset losses to a pair of unranked teams, Memphis and LSU.

Close to the Top 25

The following teams are next in line to be ranked:

#26 Fresno State
#27 Nevada
#28 Boise State
#29 Air Force
#30 Utah State
#31 Texas-San Antonio
#32 Minnesota
#33 Washington State
#34 Pittsburgh
#35 Clemson
#36 Wake Forest
#37 North Carolina State
#38 Army
#39 Louisiana
#40 Appalachian State
#41 Coastal Carolina

End of the TipTop 25

The point of this top 25 has been an experiment with random preseason ratings and with trying to ignore teams' historic reputations and "brand name" values. Ideally, after next week's games the preseason ratings should mean very little, so this will be my last TipTop 25. Starting next week, I'll be doing what I normally do after Thanksgiving, which is commenting on the AP poll top 25 each week until I fix the final AP poll top 25 in January.

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