Home

2017 TipTop 25 Week Six

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 6-0 now, including 3 wins over then-rated opponents, they easily remain #1. This week they defeated 4-2 Wake Forest 28-14.

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 Six Games

Last week, 8 of our ranked teams took losses, but this week that number dropped to 5, so this top 25 sees less of a shake-up. Things are finally starting to stabilize. This week's TipTop 25 is as follows:

	Team	Record	LW	This Week's Result
#1	Clemson	6-0	1	Won 28-14 over 4-2 Wake Forest
#2	Washington	6-0	2	Won 38-7 over California
#3	Auburn	5-1	3	Won 44-23 over Mississippi
#4	Georgia	6-0	4	Won 45-14 at Vanderbilt
#5	Wisconsin	5-0	5	Won 38-17 at Nebraska
#6	Central Florida	4-0	6	Won 51-23 at Cincinnati
#7	Notre Dame	5-1	7	Won 33-10 at North Carolina
#8	Texas Christian	5-0	11	Won 31-24 over #15 West Virginia
#9	Miami (Florida)	4-0	9	Won 24-20 at Florida State
#10	Alabama	6-0	10	Won 27-19 at 4-2 Texas A&M
#11	Penn State	6-0	13	Won 31-7 at Northwestern
#12	Washington State	6-0	17	Won 33-10 at 4-2 Oregon
#13	South Florida	5-0	16	Did not play
#14	Michigan State	4-1	25	Won 14-10 at #8 Michigan (now #15)
#15	Michigan	4-1	8	Lost 14-10 to #25 Michigan State (now #14)
#16	Virginia Tech	5-1	14	Won 23-10 at Boston College
#17	West Virginia	3-2	15	Lost 31-24 at #11 Texas Christian
#18	Iowa	4-2	(26)	Won 45-16 over Illinois
#19	Oklahoma State	4-1	18	Did not play
#20	Southern Cal	5-1	21	Won 38-10 over Oregon State
#21	San Diego State	6-0	22	Won 41-10 at UNLV
#22	Stanford	4-2	(31)	Won 23-20 at #28 Utah (now #24)
#23	Texas Tech	4-1	23	Won 65-19 at Kansas
#24	Utah	4-1	(28)	Lost 23-20 to #31 Stanford (now #22)
#25	Houston	4-1	(27)	Won 35-22 over 4-2 Southern Methodist

Notes on Changes to This Week's TipTop 25

Iowa didn't do anything themselves this week that earned their big jump into the ratings at #18. They benefited from Michigan State's upset win over Michigan, which sent MSU up to #14. Iowa has lost close games to Michigan State and to #11 Penn State. Also, earlier this year Iowa defeated Iowa State, and this week Iowa State upset Oklahoma, who had been ranked #12. ISU now sits just outside this top 25.

Stanford has gotten hot of late, and I moved them up ahead of Texas Tech because they performed better against Arizona State than Tech did. Similarly, Utah is just ahead of Houston because they performed slightly better against Arizona.

Close to the Top 25

The following teams are next in line to be ranked:

#26 Arizona
#27 Ohio State
#28 Iowa State
#29 Oklahoma

Looking Ahead to Next Week's Games

For the third straight week, we don't have many rated teams playing each other, and for the third straight week, we have just 2 games matching ranked opponents: #23 Texas Tech at #17 West Virginia and #24 Utah at #20 Southern Cal.

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

Home