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2021 TipTop 25 Week Three

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... Still 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, by last week Washington State had moved up to #10, so I heavily considered moving Utah State back ahead of Baylor to #1, 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 had beaten an FCS team by 24 points last week, they only led 27-24 going into the 4th quarter, which should never happen to a #1 team.

This week, Utah State defeated #6 Air Force 49-45 on the road, which would have moved them back to #1 if not for the fact that earlier in the day, then-#10 Washington State was routed 45-14 at home by then-unranked Southern Cal. That knocks WSU out of the top 25 entirely, and Utah State's 3-point win over them is now simply unacceptable for a #1 team. So Utah State will remain at #2, just behind Baylor. But bear in mind that at this point, Baylor hasn't beaten anyone of value, and Utah State would be a valid option for #1.

Another team that I considered for the top spot was Oregon. They started #5 in the preseason, and though they have struggled twice to beat teams that were unranked when they played them, those teams, Fresno State and Ohio State, are now ranked #11 and #13. Fresno State particularly helped Oregon's cause when they rallied to top UCLA this week. Oregon thus owns an impressive pair of wins, and I do think that they are also a valid option for #1, though I am putting them at #3 for now. Perhaps that will change if Fresno State and Ohio State climb higher, into the top 10.

TipTop 25 After Week Three Games

Six teams from last week's TipTop 25 suffered upset losses to unranked opponents, and another 6 teams posted poor enough performances over unranked opponents to fall in the rankings, so this week we see another big shake-up in the list, and like last week, that includes 10 new teams! This week's TipTop 25 is as follows:

Team Record LW This Week's Result
#1 Baylor 3-0 1 Won 45-7 at Kansas
#2 Utah State
 3-0 2
 Won 49-45 at #6 Air Force (now #4)
#3 Oregon 3-0 4
 Won 48-7 over an FCS team
#4 Air Force 2-1 6 Lost 49-45 to #2 Utah State
#5 Kansas State
 3-0 Unrated Won 38-17 over #18 Nevada
#6 Stanford 2-1 Unrated Won 41-23 at Vanderbilt
#7 Rutgers 3-0 9 Won 45-13 over an FCS team
#8 Liberty 3-0 14 Won 45-17 over Old Dominion
#9 Southern Cal
 2-1 Unrated Won 45-14 at #10 Washington State (now #26)
#10 Brigham Young 3-0 17 Won 27-17 at #25 Arizona State (now #27)
#11 Fresno State 3-1 22 Won 40-37 at #27 UCLA (now #19)
#12 Mississippi 3-0 23 Won 61-21 over Tulane
#13 Ohio State
 2-1 24 Won 41-20 over Tulsa
#14 Coastal Carolina 3-0 3 Won 28-25 at Buffalo
#15 Michigan 3-0 Unrated Won 63-10 over Northern Illinois
#16 Western Michigan
 2-1 Unrated Won 44-41 at #7 Pittsburgh (now #17)
#17 Pittsburgh 2-1 7 Lost 44-41 to unrated WMU (now #16)
#18 Tennessee 2-1 21 Won 56-0 over an FCS team
#19 UCLA 2-1 27 Lost 40-37 to #22 Fresno State (now #11)
#20 Troy
 2-1 28 Won 21-9 at Southern Miss
#21 Wake Forest
 3-0 30 Won 35-14 at Florida State
#22 Alabama
 3-0 Unrated Won 31-29 at #29 Florida (now #23)
#23 Florida 2-1 29 Lost 31-29 to unrated Alabama (now #22)
#24 Maryland
 3-0 19 Won 20-17 at Illinois
#25 West Virginia
 2-1 20 Won 27-21 over Virginia Tech

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, a prime example of this effect is Coastal Carolina, who has dropped from #3 to #14 due to a very unimpressive 28-25 win at unranked Buffalo.

Kansas State comes storming back into the top 25 this week all the way up at #5, but needless to say, that's not just because they beat previously-#18 Nevada 38-17. They were also buoyed by Southern Cal pummeling previously-#10 Washington State 45-14, as KSU has already beaten Stanford 24-7, who has already beaten USC 42-28. All 3 enter the top 10 this week. Helping their cause further is where the 3 teams were drawn out of my hat before the season started: KSU #20, Stanford #11, and USC #29.

Fresno State, previously rated #22, won 40-37 at UCLA (then #27), and now Fresno State is rated #11 and UCLA #19. You may be wondering why both teams rose so much in the rankings due to that result, and the answer is that they didn't. What happened is that a bunch of teams ranked ahead of them took upset losses or posted very poor performances, and thus fell back behind them. This is generally the case when a team rises dramatically in the rankings following a rather pedestrian performance. Alabama and Florida find themselves entering the bottom of the top 25 in a similar fashion.

Michigan jumps into the rankings at #15 not because they demolished Northern Illinois 63-10, but because Western Michigan (previously unrated) won 44-41 at Pittsburgh (then #7), and Michigan has previously smashed WMU 47-14. Despite that poor result in WMU's opener, their big win at then-#7 Pitt moves them into the top 25 right behind Michigan (and right ahead of Pitt).

Georgia, #13 last week, drops out of the top 25 despite an impressive 40-13 win over South Carolina. That is because Clemson only won 14-8 at home over a bad Georgia Tech team, and Georgia has previously posted a close win over Clemson. Neither Georgia nor Clemson came out of my hat for the preseason top 50, so unlike some of the teams still ranked in the top 25, they cannot afford poor performances.

Close to the Top 25

The following teams are next in line to be ranked:

#26 Washington State
#27 Arizona State
#28 Virginia Tech
#29 North Carolina
#30 Virginia
#31 Georgia
#32 Clemson

Looking Ahead to Next Week's Games

This week we get 3 games pitting top 25 teams against each other: #19 UCLA at #6 Stanford, #7 Rutgers at #15 Michigan, and #18 Tennessee at #23 Florida. In addition, #21 Wake Forest visits #30 Virginia. Join me next week as we continue to hone the top 25 that was born from my magic hat.

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