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2021 TipTop 25 Week Two

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 their opener.

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.

Baylor Still #1... Barely

MS Paint of a Baylor player in 2015

Baylor came out of my hat tenth, so they started at #10 on the preseason list, but all 9 of the teams ranked ahead of them lost or performed poorly in the first week, enabling Baylor to float to the top. Utah State, who had started #1, fell to #2 after the first week due to struggling to win by only 26-23 at then-#35 Washington State. However, at this point Washington State is now ranked #10, so I heavily considered moving Utah State back ahead of Baylor to #1 this week. It's very close, and you could go either way on it, but in the end I decided that on average, a #1 team will win by more than 3 points against the #10 team, even on the road. Furthermore, although Utah State beat an FCS team by 24 points this week, they only led 27-24 going into the 4th quarter, which should never happen to a #1 team. But Utah State next plays #6 Air Force on the road, and if they win that game, they ought to move back to #1. On the other hand, Washington State plays Southern Cal, and if they lose, or even struggle to win, Utah State's close win over WSU will hurt them a lot more. We'll see what happens.

TipTop 25 After Week Two Games

Five teams from last week's TipTop 25 suffered upset losses to unranked opponents, and another 3 teams posted poor enough performances over bad or lower-division opponents to fall out of the rankings, so this week we see another big shake-up in the list, including 10 new teams! This week's TipTop 25 is as follows:

Team Record LW This Week's Result
#1 Baylor 2-0 1 Won 66-7 over an FCS team
#2 Utah State
 2-0 2
 Won 48-24 over an FCS team
#3 Coastal Carolina 2-0 5
 Won 49-22 over Kansas
#4 Oregon 2-0 8 Won 35-28 at #32 Ohio State (now #24)
#5 Charlotte 2-0 7 Won 38-10 over an FCS team
#6 Air Force 2-0 9
 Won 23-3 at Navy
#7 Pittsburgh 2-0 12 Won 41-34 at #11 Tennessee (now #21)
#8 Memphis 2-0 Unrated Won 55-50 at #4 Arkansas State (now #11)
#9 Rutgers
 2-0 Unrated Won 17-7 at #10 Syracuse (now unranked)
#10 Washington State 1-1 14 Won 44-24 over an FCS team
#11 Arkansas State 1-1 4 Lost 55-50 to unranked Memphis (now #8)
#12 Virginia 2-0 20 Won 42-14 over Illinois
#13 Georgia
 2-0 Unrated Won 56-7 over #22 UAB (now unranked)
#14 Liberty 2-0 21 Won 21-13 at #36 Troy
#15 Duke 1-1 24 Won 45-17 over an FCS team
#16 San Diego State
 2-0 Unrated Won 38-14 at #18 Arizona (now unrated)
#17 Brigham Young 2-0 13 Won 26-17 over #19 Utah (now unrated)
#18 Nevada 2-0 25 Won 49-10 over an FCS team
#19 Maryland 2-0 26 Won 62-0 over an FCS team
#20 West Virginia
 1-1 27 Won 66-0 over an FCS team
#21 Tennessee 1-1 11 Lost 41-34 to #12 Pittsburgh (now #7)
#22 Fresno State
 1-1 28 Won 63-10 over an FCS team
#23 Mississippi 2-0 31 Won 54-17 over an FCS team
#24 Ohio State
 1-1 32 Lost 35-28 to #8 Oregon (now #4)
#25 Arizona State
 2-0 34 Won 37-10 over UNLV

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. This week, Kansas State (#6 last week) only beat Southern Illinois 31-23, Louisiana Tech (#15) only beat SE Louisiana 45-42, and South Alabama (#23) only beat Bowling Green 22-19, and as a result all 3 teams have been sent packing.

BYU posted a big win this week, 26-17 over then-#19 Utah, but they still moved down in the rankings a bit. That's because their previous win, 24-16 over Arizona in Las Vegas, looks a whole lot worse now that San Diego State has won by a far more impressive 38-14 at Arizona. SD State comes into the top 25, and BYU moves back just behind them. Similarly, Mississippi State, who was #3 last week, has dropped out of the top 25 not because of what they did this week, but because they only beat Louisiana Tech 35-34 at home the previous week, and again, Louisiana Tech only beat an FCS team 45-42 at home this week. Louisiana Tech's plummet out of top 25 consideration takes Mississippi State with them.

Along those lines, last week I wrote the following: "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." Well, this week Northern Illinois gets knocked out due to a loss to a bad Wyoming team, and that takes Georgia Tech out of the rankings with them.

I moved Oregon back ahead of Charlotte (they started ahead of them in the preseason) because at this point, both of Oregon's opponents are now ranked in the top 25, which is fairly impressive.

Close to the Top 25

The following teams are next in line to be ranked:

#26 Clemson
#27 UCLA
#28 Troy
#29 Florida
#30 Wake Forest
#31 Purdue
#32 Texas Christian
#33 California
#34 Kentucky

Looking Ahead to Next Week's Games

Like last week, this week we get 2 games pitting top 25 teams against each other: #2 Utah State at #6 Air Force is the headliner, and then we have #25 Arizona State at #17 Brigham Young. In addition, #22 Fresno State visits #27 UCLA, a spot in the top 25 at stake for the winner. Finally, though Mississippi State, #3 last week, is no longer rated, they are still 2-0, and they visit #8 Memphis this week, a prime opportunity to get back into the rankings. Join me next week as we continue to hone the top 25 that was born from my magic hat.

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