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2022 TipTop 25
Week Twelve
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 Arkansas was selected first, thereby
securing our
preseason #1 slot. Sadly for the Razorbacks, they were unimpressive
enough
in their opener that they fell out of the top slot immediately, and by
now they have fallen all the way out of the TipTop 25.
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 half of
the season
at least, on
where they were ranked in the preseason (as well as 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.
Oklahoma had initially replaced Arkansas at #1, but Ohio State took
over the top slot after Oklahoma lost to Kansas State
on September 24. Ohio State has been very impressive, winning every
game by more than a touchdown, but 4 weeks ago Clemson passed them up
anyway, because Clemson had beaten 4 ranked opponents by then, Ohio
State none. However, Ohio State returned to the top spot with a win
over a top 10 team (Penn State) the next week, and there the Buckeyes
have remained ever since.
TipTop
25 After Week Twelve Games
This is my last TipTop 25 of the season (as covered below). The rankings are
stabilizing, meaning that we're not seeing many big changes from the
rankings we saw last week, or even the week before that. The
latest rankings:
#1 Ohio State 11-0
#2 Georgia 11-0
#3 Michigan 11-0
#4 Penn State 9-2
#5 Texas
Christian 11-0
#6 Tennessee 9-2
#7 Louisiana State 9-2
#8 Alabama 9-2
#9 Clemson 10-1
#10 Florida State 8-3
#11 Notre Dame 8-3
#12 North Carolina 9-2
#13 Wake Forest 7-4
#14 Syracuse 6-5
#15 Louisville 7-4
#16 North
Carolina State 7-4
#17 Pittsburgh 7-4
#18 Oregon 9-2
#19 Southern Cal 10-1
#20 UCLA 8-3
#21 Utah 8-3
#22 Washington 9-2
#23 Oregon State 8-3
#24 Washington State 7-4
#25 Mississippi 8-3
Notes
on Changes to This Week's TipTop 25
I'm moving 9-2 Penn State ahead of 11-0 Texas Christian because of vastly better performance:
TCU has posted 5 close wins (touchdown or less) over unranked foes, PSU
just 1. Both of PSU's losses have come to teams ranked higher than TCU,
so those losses are irrelevant when comparing PSU to TCU. Heck, TCU has
not even played a single rated opponent.
Similarly, 8-3 Florida State moves ahead of 8-3 Notre Dame due to superior performance.
Utah had been stuck behind Florida all season due to Florida's
season-opening win over the Utes, but this week Florida took another
upset loss (this time to Vanderbilt), so Utah can finally pop up ahead
of Florida... and they're bringing the whole pack of PAC 12 teams with
them. But I'm keeping them all ranked behind the pack of ACC teams, the
bottom currently being Pittsburgh, largely because Pitt was ranked #2
in the preseason rankings (and Wake Forest was ranked #5).
Tennessee took a big upset loss to an unranked team this week, but they
barely fell in the rankings at all, whereas Mississippi took a big
upset loss to an unranked team this week and plummeted from #9 last
week to #25 this week. That's because Tennessee was buoyed by big wins
over #7 LSU and #8 Alabama, while Ole Miss does not have a win over a
currently ranked team. Their best win came over 6-5 Kentucky, which
does nothing, really, to counterbalance getting routed by 6-5 Arkansas
this week. 8-3 Oregon State and 7-4 Washington State, both ranked just
ahead of Ole Miss, have taken no upset losses, so each has a better relevant record than Mississippi does.
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.