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2017 TipTop 25 Week Four

Clemson is the first school picked at random from my hat

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 Clemson was selected first, thereby securing our preseason #1 slot, and at 4-0 now, including 2 wins over then-rated opponents, they easily remain #1.

As the games are played, I am also ranking teams completely blind to their histories and "name" value, so that they are ranked solely based on what they do this season and, for now at least, on where they 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 FCS teams are a level below, and therefore it is unacceptable for a ranked FBS team to struggle with an FCS team, let alone lose. On the other hand, 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.

TipTop 25 After Week Four Games

This week we saw 9 of our top 25 teams from last week take losses, tying a TipTop25 record that was set just a couple of weeks ago. Six of those losses were upset losses. So once again, we have a huge shake-up in the rankings this week. This week's TipTop 25 is as follows:

	Team	Record	LW	This Week's Result
#1	Clemson	4-0	1	Won 34-7 over Boston College
#2	Washington	4-0	3	Won 37-10 at #11 Colorado (now unrated)
#3	Auburn	3-1	2	Won 51-14 at Missouri
#4	Georgia	4-0	5	Won 31-3 over 3-0 Mississippi State
#5	Wisconsin	3-0	4	Did not play
#6	Central Florida	2-0	7	Won 38-10 at #17 Maryland
#7	Notre Dame	3-1	6	Won 38-18 at 2-0 Michigan State
#8	Michigan	4-0	8	Won 28-10 at Purdue
#9	Miami (Florida)	2-0	13	Won 52-30 over #18 Toledo
#10	Alabama	4-0	Unrated	Won 59-0 at #24 Vanderbilt
#11	Texas Christian	4-0	Unrated	Won 44-31 at #15 Oklahoma State
#12	Minnesota	3-0	16	Did not play
#13	Oklahoma	4-0	14	Won 49-41 at Baylor
#14	Wake Forest	4-0	12	Won 20-19 at Appalachian State
#15	Southern Cal	4-0	19	Won 30-20 at #29 California
#16	San Diego State	4-0	20	Won 28-24 at Air Force
#17	Texas Tech	3-0	21	Won 27-24 at #9 Houston (now #23)
#18	Virginia Tech	4-0	25	Won 38-0 over Old Dominion
#19	Penn State	4-0	Unrated	Won 21-19 at #23 Iowa
#20	West Virginia	3-1	Unrated	Won 56-34 at Kansas
#21	Iowa	3-1	23	Lost 21-19 to unrated Penn State (now #19)
#22	Iowa State	2-1	28	Did not play
#23	Houston	2-1	9	Lost 27-24 to #21 Texas Tech
#24	Duke	4-0	Unrated	Won 27-17 at North Carolina
#25	South Florida	4-0	Unrated	Won 43-7 over Temple

Notes on Changes to This Week's TipTop 25

There's been so much carnage to the TipTop25 every week that we're running out of teams to rank. Duke and South Florida enter the bottom of the rankings this week despite not beating a single ranked or near-ranked opponent. What each team has done, though, is to win every game by more than a touchdown.

Pretty soon we'll have to start looking again at teams that have lost by more than a touchdown, such as Ohio State, Oklahoma State, and Louisville.

Only 6 of our preseason top 25 teams are ranked at this point. West Virginia, entering the rankings this week at #20, benefits from the fact that they were at least close to being ranked in the preseason (#32), and furthermore, their season-opening loss to #18 Virginia Tech was by just a touchdown.

Close to the Top 25

The following teams are next in line to be ranked:

#26 Utah
#27 Arizona
#28 Arizona State
#29 Oregon

Looking Ahead to Next Week's Games

#1 Clemson faces their 3rd ranked opponent already, this time visiting #18 Virginia Tech. We've also got #9 Miami (Florida) at #24 Duke this week. That's it for ranked teams playing each other, but we've been seeing a lot of "upsets" so far this season, so I wouldn't be surprised to see some more this week.

Join me next week as we continue to hone the top 25 that was born from my magic hat.

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