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2017 TipTop 25 Week Five

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 5-0 now, including 3 wins over then-rated opponents, they easily remain #1. This week they defeated #18 Virginia Tech 31-17 on the road.

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 Five Games

This week our top 11 teams remain the same, as no one came within a touchdown of any of them. However, 8 of the teams that had been ranked #12-25 last week took losses, so this week we see a big shake-up in our rankings yet again. It seems like this weekly carnage may never end. This week's TipTop 25 is as follows:

	Team	Record	LW	This Week's Result
#1	Clemson	5-0	1	Won 31-17 at #18 Virginia Tech
#2	Washington	5-0	2	Won 42-7 at Oregon State
#3	Auburn	4-1	3	Won 49-10 over Mississippi State
#4	Georgia	5-0	4	Won 41-0 at Tennessee
#5	Wisconsin	4-0	5	Won 33-24 over Northwestern
#6	Central Florida	3-0	6	Won 40-13 over 3-0 Memphis
#7	Notre Dame	4-1	7	Won 52-17 over Miami (Ohio)
#8	Michigan	4-0	8	Did not play
#9	Miami (Florida)	3-0	9	Won 31-6 at #24 Duke
#10	Alabama	5-0	10	Won 66-3 over Mississippi
#11	Texas Christian	5-0	11	Did not play
#12	Oklahoma	5-0	13	Did not play
#13	Penn State	5-0	19	Won 45-14 over Indiana
#14	Virginia Tech	4-1	18	Lost 31-17 to #1 Clemson
#15	West Virginia	3-1	20	Did not play
#16	South Florida	5-0	25	Won 61-31 at East Carolina
#17	Washington State	5-0	Unrated	Won 30-27 over #15 Southern Cal (now #21)
#18	Oklahoma State	4-1	Unrated	Won 41-34 at #17 Texas Tech (now #23)
#19	Maryland	3-1	Unrated	Won 31-24 at #12 Minnesota (now #20)
#20	Minnesota	3-1	12	Lost 31-24 to unrated Maryland
#21	Southern Cal	4-1	15	Lost 30-27 at unrated Washington State
#22	San Diego State	5-0	16	Won 34-28 over Northern Illinois
#23	Texas Tech	3-1	17	Lost 41-34 to unrated Oklahoma State
#24	Texas	2-2	Unrated	Won 17-7 at #22 Iowa State
#25	Michigan State	3-1	Unrated	Won 17-10 over #21 Iowa

Notes on Changes to This Week's TipTop 25

Virginia Tech lost by 2 touchdowns and still rose 4 places in the rankings this week! Well, it is more correct to say that they just remained where they were as a bunch of other teams, most of whom lost to unrated opponents, fell back behind them.

San Diego State drops 6 places after posting their second straight close win over an unrated opponent.

Close to the Top 25

The following teams are next in line to be ranked:

#26 Iowa
#27 Houston
#28 Utah
#29 Arizona
#30 Ohio State
#31 Stanford

Looking Ahead to Next Week's Games

Much like last week, we don't have many rated teams playing each other this week. There are once again just 2 games matching ranked opponents: #25 Michigan State at #8 Michigan and #15 West Virginia at #11 Texas Christian. In addition, #19 Maryland visits #30 Ohio State.

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

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