Collecting new college football rankings, days before the Playoff committee’s first top 25
We’ll add the major top 25s as they’re released. If they’re not listed in here, they’re not out yet.
By SB Nation College News on October 29, 2017 11:59 am
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College football had a wild Week 9. The country’s No. 2, 4, 16, and 17 teams all lost to lower-ranked teams in the span of a half-hour, creating new chaos on the eve of the first ranking that really matters: the College Football Playoff selection committee’s, which will be released on Tuesday.
Penn State lost at Ohio State, moving the Buckeyes into Big Ten and Playoff frontrunner status. TCU lost at Iowa State, which might really be good. South Florida’s loss to Houston solidified UCF in the lead to be the mid-major conferences’ New Year’s bowl representative. And Notre Dame dominated another ranked team, this time NC State.
For the first nine weeks of the season, the most definitive human poll is the AP Top 25. That tends to be only somewhat predictive of how the first Playoff ranking shakes out. Come Tuesday night, there’ll be no need to be predictive, because we’ll have the actual ranking. (Georgia, fresh off a blowout of Florida, is likely to be No. 1 in that ranking.)
Until then, the polls and other top 25s we’re collecting here as they release:
The Associated Press Top 25
The gold standard of human polls, until the Playoff committee starts releasing its top 25s later in the year.
Jeff Sagarin’s ratings
A long-running computer rating of FBS and FCS teams, all in one list, usually out very early Sunday morning.
Alabama
Ohio State
Penn State
Georgia (Computers often do stuff humans wouldn’t agree with. This just means the Sagarin formula would favor those three teams over UGA on a neutral field, not that UGA’s undefeated resume is inferior. Human rankings will favor the Dawgs, and other computers might as well.)
Notre Dame
Clemson
Washington
Auburn
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
Wisconsin
Virginia Tech
TCU
Mississippi State
UCF
USF
Stanford
Miami
Iowa State
Texas
Georgia Tech
Michigan
NC State
Washington State
LSU
The USA Today Coaches Poll
Doesn’t matter much.
Alabama
Georgia
Ohio State
Wisconsin
Clemson
Miami
Penn State
Notre Dame
Oklahoma
Oklahoma State
Washington
TCU
Virginia Tech
UCF
Auburn
Iowa State
USC
Stanford
NC State
LSU
Memphis
Mississippi State
USF
Michigan
Arizona
Bill Connelly's S&P+ ratings
SB Nation’s favored college football advanced stat, which tends to perform very well against the Vegas spread.
The Massey computer composite
Every poll and rating smashed into one continually updating ranking, basically. We’ll update this one a couple times throughout Sunday.
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