College Football Rankings

The bowls if selections were based on my C Ratings. TCU is #2 in the C Ratings; teams in parenthesis among the BCS bowls are the teams that would be selected with Alabama still going to the national championship game. Realistically Central Florida is going to the St. Petersburg Bowl (creating a USF-UCF showdown the regular season somehow missed) and Southern Miss is probably going to the New Orleans Bowl because of proximity. Notre Dame ranks ahead of UCLA, but I picked UCLA partly because Notre Dame opted out of the bowls and partly because Notre Dame would have a rematch with Nevada if they were selected. Notre Dame, Texas A&M, Louisiana-Monroe, and Louisiana-Lafayette, all 6-6 teams, are left out. All times Eastern.

Remember 2004? We had five undefeated teams going into the bowls. Utah became the first BCS buster, but Auburn was the only team people were crying about not making the title game. We’re headed for five undefeated teams again, but boy, have times changed.

For one, people are talking about Boise State not being jilted for a BCS bowl this time, something that has now happened twice. What’s more, a stumble by Texas or the eventual SEC champion could, conceivably, open the door for a Cincinnati or even (whisper) TCU to enter the mix. (Or it could allow a one-loss champion to get in ahead of the other three unbeatens. But despite the fact few are yet willing to vault Texas to number 1, there would be rioting in the streets if that turned out to be the eventual SEC champion.)

A lot of teams further down in the ratings lose, creating upheaval from the 19 spot on down, starting with a booming move onto the Top 25 for the new darlings, Stanford, and continuing with a whopping three teams moving from negative B Points to the top 25, and in what may be a record this late in the year, five teams moving off the top 25, and in quite a few cases, out of positive B Points. And a behind-the-scenes alert: Utah falls so far down that they and BYU are almost neck-in-neck. Maybe within the conference, it’s not so much that BYU’s overrated as Air Force is underrated. We’ll know for sure when the two play each other this week.

How the C Ratings are tabulated: First, A Ratings are tabulated by multiplying the total score ratio, which is expressed by (points-opponents’ points)/points, by the winning percentage. Score ratio minimizes the effect of running up the score. Next, B Points for each game are tabulated by (margin of victory)/(opponent’s A rating)+/-1 for wins, and -(margin of loss)/(1-opponent’s A Rating)+/-1 for losses. The “+/-” is + for road games and – for home ones. The total number of B Points is multiplied by the A Rating to get the B Rating. Conference Ratings are tabulated by averaging the B Ratings of all teams in the conference. (Independents are counted separately, and Army and Navy are counted as one conference.) Finally, the C Rating is tabulated by taking the difference between the team’s B Rating and his conference’s rating, taking a fraction of that equal to the fraction of Division I-A the conference makes up, and taking the result off the B Rating. The three ratings go A, B, C across. Click here to see the complete ratings.

29 teams total with positive C Rating (none with negative B Rating)

Off Top 25: #27 Miami (FL) (was #20), #31 Arizona (was #24), #32 Utah (was #25), #40 Tennessee (was #23), #46 USC (was #21)

Watch List: #26 Air Force, #27 Miami (FL), #28 Wisconsin, #29 Connecticut

Other Positive B Ratings: #31 Arizona, #32 Utah, #33 BYU*, #36 Houston, #37 Temple*, #39 Northern Illinois (*=Newly Positive)

No Longer Positive: #30 West Virginia, #40 Tennessee, #46 USC, #52 Fresno State

Bottom 10: #111 Memphis, #112 Miami (OH), #113 San Jose State, #114 Tulane, #115 New Mexico State, #116 New Mexico, #117 Western Kentucky, #118 Eastern Michigan, #119 Washington State, #120 Rice

Conference Rating: #1 SEC (-2.703), #2 Big East (-3.546), #3 Big 12 (-11.135), #4 Big Ten (-13.244), #5 ACC (-13.560), #6 Pac-10 (-22.596), #7 Mountain West (-30.266), #8 WAC (-38.237), #9 MAC (-44.758, leader #37 Temple), #10 Conference USA (-46.569, leader #36 Houston), #11 Sun Belt (-51.211, leader #58 Troy)

Best game of week: Oklahoma @ Texas Tech, 9:30am PT, FSN

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An intriguing subplot is developing in college football this year, and it’s not SEC Referee-Gate. It’s not even the rise of Cincinnati, which this week looks to be less a result of the Bearcats being underrated as the Crimson Tide being overrated. No, it’s the very real possibility of a non-BCS school in TCU making the title game, in fourth place in the BCS standings and third in the C Ratings.

In a year of one of the largest gaps between the BCS and non-BCS conferences I’ve yet seen, TCU is in such a position that if Texas or the eventual SEC champion loses, you would normally expect them to move into the top two and the unprecedented heights of the BCS Championship Game. In the polls, that’s attributable to the Mountain West’s reputation, earned in years past, but this year BYU in particular is way overrated. It’s also attributable to the fact that the closest games they’ve played, Clemson and Air Force, were both road games. In the C Ratings, you can attribute their success to their games against Virginia and Clemson, both good ACC teams (the latter is finally ranked in the AP and Harris polls this week). Even in the BCS computers the Horned Frogs are just ahead of Texas for third, and the BCS computers don’t include margin of victory, and TCU hasn’t beaten an Oregon like Boise State.

Is TCU really that great? Or are they the beneficiary of a weak year across college football? There’s a growing consensus that Florida and Alabama are being propped up by the SEC officials. Texas has been doing their work quietly, and have been met with skepticism, especially after a lackluster effort against Colorado. Last year at this time TCU’s C Rating of 35.706 would be second behind Florida, but it wouldn’t be a five-point drop to the next team back; four teams had better C Ratings than what Cincinnati has now, and #6 Boise State’s 22.318 rating would be ninth last year.

Whatever happens, it could be an exciting end to the season. I suspect you may start seeing a growing movement to drop Florida and especially Alabama from their current perches, and to exclude them from the BCS Championship Game even if they go undefeated (and I’m a little surprised it hasn’t started already; even in the usually more trustworthy AP poll, Texas has one fewer first-place vote than Alabama). And if the Big Three start losing and TCU and Cincinnati keep winning, it’ll be exciting to watch. Either a team from a conference many see as weak will go into the national championship game, causing riots among the big boys, or a one-loss team will sneak into the national championship game, causing the Mountain West to moan “What do we have to do?!?” and the Big East to start thinking about what the BCS really means to them.

How the C Ratings are tabulated: First, A Ratings are tabulated by multiplying the total score ratio, which is expressed by (points-opponents’ points)/points, by the winning percentage. Score ratio minimizes the effect of running up the score. Next, B Points for each game are tabulated by (margin of victory)/(opponent’s A rating)+/-1 for wins, and -(margin of loss)/(1-opponent’s A Rating)+/-1 for losses. The “+/-” is + for road games and – for home ones. The total number of B Points is multiplied by the A Rating to get the B Rating. Conference Ratings are tabulated by averaging the B Ratings of all teams in the conference. (Independents are counted separately, and Army and Navy are counted as one conference.) Finally, the C Rating is tabulated by taking the difference between the team’s B Rating and his conference’s rating, taking a fraction of that equal to the fraction of Division I-A the conference makes up, and taking the result off the B Rating. The three ratings go A, B, C across. Click here to see the complete ratings.

29 teams total with positive C Rating (none with negative B Rating)

Off Top 25: #28 West Virginia (was #24)

2006 Boise State Title: #36 Stanford (6-3), .417, .040, -1.425

Watch List: #26 Oregon State*, #27 Fresno State, #28 West Virginia, #29 Connecticut

Other Positive B Ratings: #32 Air Force, #33 Wisconsin*, #35 Houston, #36 Stanford*, #40 Northern Illinois (*=Newly Positive)

No Longer Positive: #43 Temple

Bottom 10: #111 Miami (OH), #112 Memphis, #113 San Jose State, #114 New Mexico State, #115 Tulane, #116 New Mexico, #117 Washington State, #118 Eastern Michigan, #119 Western Kentucky, #120 Rice

Best game of week: Iowa @ Ohio State, 12:30pm PT, ABC/ESPN2

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Up to this point, the big story in the C Ratings was that, unusually, no one team was pulling away. The Big Four of Texas, Florida, Alabama, and disrespected Cincinnati kept trading spots. That’s still the case, but now one team has fallen far enough behind the others to fall behind a fifth team, and it’s a doozy – at least considering how much not only the C Ratings, but the whole country, loved them just two weeks – and only one game – ago.

That team is Alabama, and they are solely the victims of a lackluster effort against Tennessee. In some ways it’s unfair for them to drop down, as they had a bye last week – but that bye only dropped them back down to the same number of games the others had. Alabama is now a full eight points behind #3 Cincinnati in the C Rating, a Cincinnati team that is two points behind Florida. If Texas can maintain their current tear, maybe they can be the team that starts pulling away; after leading Florida by only two last week, the satisfying performance the Longhorns had against a good Oklahoma State team gives them a five-point edge this week.

Perhaps, with a good enough performance against an LSU team that can steal the SEC West, Alabama can come roaring back into the Top 4. But perhaps, with the way the Tide have played recently, they’ve set themselves up to fall, and fall hard.

Meanwhile, the team that leapfrogged Alabama may be just as much a story as Alabama’s woes: TCU. The unbeaten Horned Frogs are playing in a year of one of the biggest gaps between the BCS and non-BCS schools since I’ve kept conference ratings and haven’t played Utah, the only other Mountain West team in the Top 25, yet. The unspoken real driving force of TCU’s success, especially in the BCS computers where their ranking is comparable to Cincinnati and Oregon while Boise State languishes further back, isn’t their performance against grossly overrated (yet still good in the A Ratings) BYU or their lackluster performance against Air Force. It’s in their nonconference ACC opposition, especially the way they manhandled Virginia. I’m not ready to pick them for the national title game, but they are a good argument for a playoff. Once again, this week’s rankings do not include games already played.

How the C Ratings are tabulated: First, A Ratings are tabulated by multiplying the total score ratio, which is expressed by (points-opponents’ points)/points, by the winning percentage. Score ratio minimizes the effect of running up the score. Next, B Points for each game are tabulated by (margin of victory)/(opponent’s A rating)+/-1 for wins, and -(margin of loss)/(1-opponent’s A Rating)+/-1 for losses. The “+/-” is + for road games and – for home ones. The total number of B Points is multiplied by the A Rating to get the B Rating. Conference Ratings are tabulated by averaging the B Ratings of all teams in the conference. (Independents are counted separately, and Army and Navy are counted as one conference.) Finally, the C Rating is tabulated by taking the difference between the team’s B Rating and his conference’s rating, taking a fraction of that equal to the fraction of Division I-A the conference makes up, and taking the result off the B Rating. The three ratings go A, B, C across. Click here to see the complete ratings.

27 teams total with positive C Rating (none with negative B Rating)

Off Top 25: #26 Oklahoma State (was #16), #32 Mississippi (was #25)

Watch List: #26 Oklahoma State, #27 Connecticut

Other Positive B Ratings: #29 Air Force*, #31 Fresno State, #36 Temple, #37 Houston, #39 Northern Illinois (*=Newly Positive)

No Longer Positive: #32 Mississippi, #33 Oregon State, #47 South Carolina, #52 Central Michigan

Bottom 10: #111 San Jose State, #112 Memphis, #113 Miami (OH), #114 Washington State, #115 New Mexico State, #116 Eastern Michigan, #117 Tulane, #118 New Mexico, #119 Western Kentucky, #120 Rice

Conference Rating: #1 Big East (-.321), #2 SEC (-2.549), #3 Big 12 (-6.668), #4 ACC (-8.281), #5 Big 10 (-10.772), #6 Pac-10 (-12.770), #7 Mountain West (-25.080), #8 WAC (-29.315), #9 MAC (-36.678, leader #36 Temple), #10 C-USA (-41.840, leader #37 Houston), #11 Sun Belt (-41.850, leader #44 Troy)

Best game of week: Ohio State @ Penn State, 12:30pm PT, ABC/ESPN2

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This was a wild week for the C Ratings – and this was a week in which in many ways, the C Ratings were justified! Every so often I find myself wondering if the computer on which the calculations are done affect the resulting rankings. Just look at the turnover on the rankings this week – what are TCU and Boise State doing as the next-best teams behind the Big Four, in the year of one of the largest gaps between the BCS and non-BCS conferences I’ve ever seen? What are Pitt and Penn State doing in the Top 10? Did Oklahoma State really just zoom into the Top 20 after weeks of waiting on the outside of the Top 25 looking in? Tennessee at #29 despite being in negative B Points? Blame some of the surprising results we had in college football this week – especially Alabama needing a last-second blocked field goal to beat Tennessee, causing a flip-flop with Texas to put the Longhorns back into the top spot of the C Ratings. This week’s C Ratings do not include games already played.

How the C Ratings are tabulated: First, A Ratings are tabulated by multiplying the total score ratio, which is expressed by (points-opponents’ points)/points, by the winning percentage. Score ratio minimizes the effect of running up the score. Next, B Points for each game are tabulated by (margin of victory)/(opponent’s A rating)+/-1 for wins, and -(margin of loss)/(1-opponent’s A Rating)+/-1 for losses. The “+/-” is + for road games and – for home ones. The total number of B Points is multiplied by the A Rating to get the B Rating. Conference Ratings are tabulated by averaging the B Ratings of all teams in the conference. (Independents are counted separately, and Army and Navy are counted as one conference.) Finally, the C Rating is tabulated by taking the difference between the team’s B Rating and his conference’s rating, taking a fraction of that equal to the fraction of Division I-A the conference makes up, and taking the result off the B Rating. The three ratings go A, B, C across. Click here to see the complete ratings.

28 teams total with positive C Rating (none with negative B Rating)

Off Top 25: #26 Connecticut (was #22), #31 Kansas (was #18), #37 Virginia (was #21)

Watch List: #26 Connecticut, #27 Miami (FL), #28 South Carolina

Other Positive B Ratings: #30 Fresno State, #32 Oregon State, #34 Central Michigan*, #40 Northern Illinois, #41 Houston*, #43 Temple* (*=Newly Positive)

No Longer Positive: #29 Tennessee, #31 Kansas, #37 Virginia, #38 Florida State, #42 Michigan, #46 South Florida, #47 Arkansas, #53 Arizona State

Bottom 10: #111 UAB, #112 Illinois, #113 Eastern Michigan, #114 New Mexico State, #115 Washington State, #116 Miami (OH), #117 Tulane, #118 New Mexico, #119 Western Kentucky, #120 Rice

Conference Rating: #1 Big East (-.460), #2 SEC (-1.175), #3 Big 12 (-4.399), #4 ACC (-8.368), #5 Big 10 (-8.684), #6 Pac-10 (-10.537), #7 Mountain West (-23.363), #8 WAC (-25.415), #9 MAC (-31.941), #10 Conference USA (-37.528), #11 Sun Belt (-39.691)

Best game of week: Texas @ Oklahoma State, 5pm PT, ABC or ESPN2

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In the Battle of Techs, G is better than V, and no one knows how good T might really be.

There were five games this week between teams in the Top 25, but the identity of two of those games depended on which rankings you were using. Texas Tech (playing Nebraska) and Arkansas (playing Florida) were ranked in the C Ratings but not in the polls. Arkansas proved they belonged in the C Ratings by keeping it close against the Fighting Tebows, but they weren’t going to move into the polls with anything less than a win. On the other hand, Texas Tech, a team even I was skeptical about, thundered into the polls with a stunning upset of Nebraska that really could change the Big 12 North calculus.

In the polls, South Carolina and Georgia Tech were ranked when their body of work maybe didn’t quite justify it. The Fighting Spurriers didn’t even give an Arkansas-like effort against Alabama (yet inexplicably remain ranked in the polls and are back in positive B Points), but G-Tech stunned V-Tech and make their way into the Top 25 of the C Ratings. The ACC’s national title hopes may be dashed, but if the two Techs can maintain their effort for the remainder of the season, perhaps they’ll finally get some credit for their parity.

And at the top? In this, the first week of the BCS standings, V-Tech’s loss firmly creates a Big Four in the C Ratings, but that’s one more than people are normally giving credit for. Texas tumbles from the top spot – and behind Cincinnati – after letting an Oklahoma team that’s now Bradford-less for good get within three, letting the SEC’s Big Two take the top two spots… but just like in the AP poll, Alabama leapfrogs Florida to take the top spot between them. Florida’s history of letting too many teams get too close for comfort finally caught up with them this week.

How the C Ratings are tabulated: First, A Ratings are tabulated by multiplying the total score ratio, which is expressed by (points-opponents’ points)/points, by the winning percentage. Score ratio minimizes the effect of running up the score. Next, B Points for each game are tabulated by (margin of victory)/(opponent’s A rating)+/-1 for wins, and -(margin of loss)/(1-opponent’s A Rating)+/-1 for losses. The “+/-” is + for road games and – for home ones. The total number of B Points is multiplied by the A Rating to get the B Rating. Conference Ratings are tabulated by averaging the B Ratings of all teams in the conference. (Independents are counted separately, and Army and Navy are counted as one conference.) Finally, the C Rating is tabulated by taking the difference between the team’s B Rating and his conference’s rating, taking a fraction of that equal to the fraction of Division I-A the conference makes up, and taking the result off the B Rating. The three ratings go A, B, C across. Click here to see the complete ratings.

35 teams total with positive C Rating (none with negative B Rating)

Off Top 25: #28 Michigan (was #22), #29 South Florida (was #17), #30 Notre Dame (was #21), #31 Arkansas (was #20)

Watch List: #26 Mississippi, #27 Oklahoma State*, #28 Michigan, #29 South Florida, #30 Notre Dame, #31 Arkansas, #32 Miami (FL)*, #33 Oregon State, #34 Tennessee*, #35 South Carolina*

Other Positive B Ratings: #36 Arizona State*, #37 Florida State, #40 Fresno State, #43 Northern Illinois (*=Newly Positive)

No Longer Positive: #41 Auburn, #46 Stanford, #52 Duke, #77 Wake Forest

Bottom 10: #111 San Jose State, #112 Memphis, #113 Tulane, #114 New Mexico State, #115 Washington State, #116 Eastern Michigan, #117 Western Kentucky, #118 Miami (OH), #119 New Mexico, #120 Rice

Conference Rating: #1 SEC (-.502), #2 Big East (-.566), #3 Big 12 (-2.958), #4 ACC (-7.263), #5 Big 10 (-7.379), #6 Pac-10 (-7.429), #7 Mountain West (-20.819), #8 WAC (-22.130), #9 Sun Belt (-29.910, leader #63 Troy), #10 MAC (-30.122, leader #43 Northern Illinois), #11 C-USA (-31.702, leader #47 Houston)

Best game of week: Oklahoma @ Kansas, 12:30pm PT, ABC

All logos taken from Sportslogos.net, and are the trademarks of their respective schools, used without permission under fair-use clause of United States copyright law. Some logos may be out of date. Use of logos for commercial purposes without consent of the respective schools is prohibited.

This was a fairly weak week in college football with a ton of top 25 teams having byes, including the two national title favorites, and the best game of the week being #16 UCLA against Stanford, where the Bruins failed to prove they deserved to be ranked in the polls and the Cardinal earned themselves their first trip to my Top 25 in the time I’ve been tracking them. The bye was worse for Florida than Texas, as Texas’ strength of schedule held up enough that they could flip places with Florida. Iowa moved out of the #2 spot with a closer-than-it-should-have-been win over Arkansas State, but Cincinnati will not go away, and Alabama is finally looking like the team everyone thought they were.

There were games between teams ranked in the top 25 in the polls, but in every case at least one team was way overrated, at least according to the C Ratings. Cal’s ridiculously large tumble following the loss to Oregon was seemingly substantiated by the pedestrian performance against USC, while Oklahoma, now almost certainly out of the national title race (unless this is another 2007 in the sense that a two-loss team finds themselves in the title game) is in theory, hurt more by the loss to Miami than the Hurricanes can bounce back with it, given its closeness.

But we’re going to make up for lost time this week – especially with the return of the Gators against LSU, in what may be their biggest obstacle to a repeat national champion, an LSU team that looks rather weak with a close call against a Georgia team that the C Ratings aren’t as high on as the polls. There’s only one undefeated team – Wisconsin – that’s not on the top 25, and they’ve got a big test against Ohio State this week.

How the C Ratings are tabulated: First, A Ratings are tabulated by multiplying the total score ratio, which is expressed by (points-opponents’ points)/points, by the winning percentage. Score ratio minimizes the effect of running up the score. Next, B Points for each game are tabulated by (margin of victory)/(opponent’s A rating)+/-1 for wins, and -(margin of loss)/(1-opponent’s A Rating)+/-1 for losses. The “+/-” is + for road games and – for home ones. The total number of B Points is multiplied by the A Rating to get the B Rating. Conference Ratings are tabulated by averaging the B Ratings of all teams in the conference. (Independents are counted separately, and Army and Navy are counted as one conference.) Finally, the C Rating is tabulated by taking the difference between the team’s B Rating and his conference’s rating, taking a fraction of that equal to the fraction of Division I-A the conference makes up, and taking the result off the B Rating. The three ratings go A, B, C across. Click here to see the complete ratings.

34 teams total with positive C Rating (none with negative B Rating)

Off Top 25: #27 UCLA (was #16), #28 Michigan (was #19), #65 Houston (was #24)

Watch List: #26 Wisconsin (only unbeaten team not on top 25), #27 UCLA, #28 Michigan, #29 South Carolina, #30 Florida State, #31 West Virginia, #32 Notre Dame*

Other Positive B Ratings: #33 Wake Forest, #34 Arkansas*, #36 Utah, #45 Northern Illinois (*=Newly Positive)

No Longer Positive: #48 Iowa State, #51 Arizona State, #55 SMU, #57 Duke, #61 Indiana, #65 Houston, #70 Texas A&M, #78 Hawaii

Bottom 10: #111 Buffalo, #112 San Jose State, #113 Eastern Michigan, #114 New Mexico State, #115 Memphis, #116 Washington State, #117 Western Kentucky, #118 New Mexico, #119 Miami (OH), #120 Rice

Conference Rating: #1 Big 12 (1.510), #2 SEC (1.492), #3 Big East (.053), #4 Big 10 (-1.417), #5 ACC (-3.548), #6 Pac-10 (-4.761), #7 WAC (-14.119), #8 Mountain West (-14.178), #9 C-USA (-18.771, leader #55 SMU), #10 Sun Belt (-21.808, leader #75 Middle Tenn. St.), #11 MAC (-23.010, leader #45 Northern Illinois)

Best game of week: Florida @ LSU, 5pm PT, CBS

All logos taken from Sportslogos.net, and are the trademarks of their respective schools, used without permission under fair-use clause of United States copyright law. Some logos may be out of date. Use of logos for commercial purposes without consent of the respective schools is prohibited.

It’s still way too early to know what sort of college football season we’re going to have, although it is starting to take shape. The general consensus so far seems to be that, while not quite as wild as 2007, the 2009 college football season may well be very upset-ridden… but it’s hard to know whether any of these games should really be considered upsets.

People have complained about the preseason polls for a long time, and this year seems to have underscored it. Ole Miss was ranked very highly in the polls, rising to #4 after the first three weeks, only to fall to South Carolina. That sparked a discussion as to whether Ole Miss should have had that much hype thrust upon them without this year’s version of the team having done anything to deserve it. After all, we’re hit with surprise teams in both directions all the time in pro sports; why should college be any less of a crap shoot to predict?

But the rest of the weekend seems to have suggested that’s not the problem. Miami (FL) wasn’t ranked at all in the preseason poll and rose to the top ten in only three weeks, only to be demolished by Virginia Tech. Meanwhile, the two teams considered the undisputed top two in the country on the basis of the preseason polls, Florida and Texas, thanks to the volatility of the early rankings, have zoomed up to take two of the top three spots in the C Ratings – they are who we thought they were, despite the Gators losing Tim Tebow during the Kentucky game. That the C Ratings already reflect the national consensus in this area suggests people should pay close attention to the fact Iowa stands between the two in the 2 hole – they are the real deal, and should be considered a budding national championship contender.

I heard someone on ESPN (Kirk Herbstreit?) suggest that the preseason polls are too useful for focusing our attention on certain teams early in the season, so we should keep them but make them meaningless later. Individual conferences have media and coaches’ preseason polls and don’t even have polls during and after the season; to say the conferences should have preseason polls and the entire country shouldn’t seems absurd. Here’s my solution: Have a preseason poll, but hold off on putting out any other polls until week 4 or so, maybe even as late as the release of the first BCS standings. That way, instead of having pollsters make requisite “tweaks” from week to week, you force them to look at the entire body of work of the first four weeks and free them to make a fresh, unencumbered ranking.

How the C Ratings are tabulated: First, A Ratings are tabulated by multiplying the total score ratio, which is expressed by (points-opponents’ points)/points, by the winning percentage. Score ratio minimizes the effect of running up the score. Next, B Points for each game are tabulated by (margin of victory)/(opponent’s A rating)+/-1 for wins, and -(margin of loss)/(1-opponent’s A Rating)+/-1 for losses. The “+/-” is + for road games and – for home ones. The total number of B Points is multiplied by the A Rating to get the B Rating. Conference Ratings are tabulated by averaging the B Ratings of all teams in the conference. (Independents are counted separately, and Army and Navy are counted as one conference.) Finally, the C Rating is tabulated by taking the difference between the team’s B Rating and his conference’s rating, taking a fraction of that equal to the fraction of Division I-A the conference makes up, and taking the result off the B Rating. The three ratings go A, B, C across. Click here to see the complete ratings.

38 teams total with positive C Rating (none with negative B Rating)

Off Top 25: #29 Florida State (was #16), #30 Arizona State (was #23), #32 Indiana (was #24), #33 Mississippi (was #14), #51 Miami (FL) (was #15), #74 California (was #7)

Unbeaten teams not on top 25: #26 Texas A&M*, #28 TCU, #36 Wisconsin

Rest of Watch List: #27 Stanford*, #29 Florida State, #30 Arizona State, #31 South Carolina*, #32 Indiana, #33 Mississippi, #34 Iowa State*, #35 Utah*

Other Positive B Ratings: #37 West Virginia*, #38 Wake Forest*, #39 Hawaii, #40 Duke, #48 SMU* (*=Newly Positive)

No Longer Positive: #43 Minnesota, #51 Miami (FL), #52 Southern Miss, #56 North Carolina, #57 Washington, #58 Kentucky, #63 Northern Illinois, #71 Colorado State, #74 California, #76 Louisville

Bottom 10: #111 Akron, #112 Memphis, #113 Washington State, #114 Buffalo, #115 Tulane, #116 San Jose State, #117 New Mexico, #118 Western Kentucky, #119 Miami (OH), #120 Rice

Conference Rating: #1 Big 12 (2.795), #2 SEC (1.982), #3 Big East (.811), #4 Big 10 (-.189), #5 ACC (-2.429), #6 Pac-10 (-2.436), #7 MWC (-9.326, leader #28 TCU), #8 WAC (-12.590), #9 C-USA (-16.583), #10 MAC (-18.081, leader #60 Central Michigan), #11 Sun Belt (-19.835, leader #79 Middle Tenn. St.)

Best game of week: UCLA @ Stanford, 12:30pm PT, ABC

All logos taken from Sportslogos.net, and are the trademarks of their respective schools, used without permission under fair-use clause of United States copyright law. Some logos may be out of date. Use of logos for commercial purposes without consent of the respective schools is prohibited.

Finally, it’s time to unveil this year’s edition of the college football rankings! I explain the formula behind the C Ratings, designed to factor in both margin of victory and strength of schedule in a sane fashion, in more detail here; an abbreviated version is below. The basic principle is that margin of victory and strength of schedule are interrelated: who you beat and how you beat them are important, but the Morgan Wick Ratings are unique in that your margin of victory against a given team is associated with that team. Two innovations protect against running up the score: diminishing returns in the A Rating for RUTS, and because margin of victory is associated with the team the margin of victory came against in the B Point formula, you don’t get much benefit for beating a scrub team big. (Ignore the part in the post about the B and C Ratings being overly high; I fixed that problem last season.) If I’d change anything, I’ve considered making C Ratings dependent on all a team’s opponents’ B Ratings, not just the rest of their conference regardless of whether they’ve played everyone or not, and fixing my database so FCS games are counted as being against a team with an A Rating of 0, instead of just not counting for B Points.

It’s so early that we’re going to get some really wacky results in the ratings, and you’re probably going to have to take everything with a grain of salt. We are, however, far enough into the season to make some early judgments, and one of them is that the Big East just may be due for another season like 2006, when – in contrast to the conference’s usual mire of mediocrity – at least three different teams were in the national championship conversation very late into the season. The Big East has had a fantastic nonconference slate so far, and their reward is that the team that looks to be the biggest diamond in the conference, Cincinnati, takes the top spot in this first edition of the rankings.

How the C Ratings are tabulated: First, A Ratings are tabulated by multiplying the total score ratio, which is expressed by (points-opponents’ points)/points, by the winning percentage. Score ratio minimizes the effect of running up the score. Next, B Points for each game are tabulated by (margin of victory)/(opponent’s A rating)+/-1 for wins, and -(margin of loss)/(1-opponent’s A Rating)+/-1 for losses. The “+/-” is + for road games and – for home ones. The total number of B Points is multiplied by the A Rating to get the B Rating. Conference Ratings are tabulated by averaging the B Ratings of all teams in the conference. (Independents are counted separately, and Army and Navy are counted as one conference.) Finally, the C Rating is tabulated by taking the difference between the team’s B Rating and his conference’s rating, taking a fraction of that equal to the fraction of Division I-A the conference makes up, and taking the result off the B Rating. The three ratings go A, B, C across. Click here to see the complete ratings.

39 teams total with positive C Rating (1 with negative B Rating (South Carolina))

2006 Boise State Title: #41 Oregon (2-1), .299, .070, -.018

Unbeaten teams not on top 25: #26 North Carolina, #27 Michigan, #29 South Florida, #30 Wisconsin, #34 Kentucky, #40 TCU, #42 Colorado State, #44 Texas A&M, #54 Southern Miss (last four not in positive C points, and Texas A&M not in positive B points)

Rest of Watch List (both 2-1): #28 Washington, #31 Arizona

Other Positive B Ratings (all 2-1 unless otherwise noted): #32 Duke (1-2 but Richmond doesn’t count and Army win outweighs loss to good Kansas team), #33 Ohio State, #35 Louisville (1-1), #37 Hawaii, #38 USC, #39 Minnesota, #41 Oregon, #55 Northern Illinois

Bottom 10: #111 Washington State, #112 New Mexico State, #113 Toledo, #114 Florida Atlantic, #115 Miami (OH), #116 New Mexico, #117 Rice, #118 Tulane, #119 Western Kentucky, #120 San Jose State

Conference Rating: #1 Big East (2.005), #2 SEC (1.604), #3 Big 12 (.787), #4 Big Ten (.693), #5 ACC (.186), #6 Pac-10 (-.980), #7 Mountain West (-9.883), #8 MAC (-11.405), #9 C-USA (-13.158), #10 WAC (-14.413), #11 Sun Belt (-15.238)

Best game of week: Iowa @ Penn State, 5pm PT, ABC

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