Ray's Rankings

I hate that I don't get to watch all the games anymore. I know that in the end it's better for me, but still. Anyway, I did get to see some games and some parts of games and enough of others to form opinions. Here's one:

When the #1 team in the country struggles against sub-par opponents for 2 weeks straight, they aren't really the #1 team. They also probably aren't the #2 team, not this season. Yes, I'm looking at UGA.

Here's another:

If you beat a team that's only good on paper, you're only good on paper.

I watched the end of the UGA game. There were a couple of iffy calls, but nothing like the safety-that-wasn't-called that saved Bama's season. No, I blame poor, conservative play calling by Mizzou. Either way, the Dogs have struggled against bad teams (I have Missouri at #62) back to back and are undeserving of votes keeping them in the top 2. This is exactly why voting needs to be removed from the process.

I watched a lot of the OSU game. Is Stroud regressing? He hasn't looked sharp at all the past 2 weeks.

I want to say I'm surprised by UW's loss, but I'm not

Clemson seems to be winning ugly a lot, but winning none the less.

I clearly do not understand passer ratings:

Bryce Young 7/13 53.8% 173yd 13.3y/a 1TD 1INT 175.6 Passer Rating?

As we know, this early in the season makes for some wild swings. Remember: who you beat matters, and so does who they beat and who those guys beat! Anyway, I know I'm late, but here's Ray's Top 25:

Rank	Prev	∆	School	Record	Score
1	15	+14	Clemson	5-0	0.6606
2	7	+5	Alabama	5-0	0.5681
3	6	+3	Kansas	5-0	0.5674
4	10	+6	Ohio State	5-0	0.5427
5	/	New	Mississippi State	4-1	0.5200
6	18	+12	Wake Forest	4-1	0.5147
7	9	+2	Georgia	5-0	0.5129
8	21	+13	Ole Miss	5-0	0.4869
9	24	+15	LSU	4-1	0.4641
10	/	New	Kansas State	4-1	0.4411
11	1	-10	USC	5-0	0.4356
12	5	-7	James Madison	4-0	0.4335
13	14	+1	Oregon	4-1	0.4286
14	3	-11	Tennessee	4-0	0.4238
15	/	New	UCLA	5-0	0.4115
16	2	-14	Penn State	5-0	0.4023
17	8	-9	Florida State	4-1	0.3990
18	4	-14	Syracuse	5-0	0.3649
19	16	-3	Liberty	4-1	0.3478
20	12	-8	NC State	4-1	0.3524
21	17	-4	Texas Tech	3-2	0.3408
22	/	New	Tulane	4-1	0.3322
23	/	New	TCU	4-0	0.3295
24	/	New	Oklahoma State	4-0	0.3028
25	/	New	Texas	3-2	0.2941

JMU is really throwing me off here. We're approaching half-way and they're still showing up. It's weird.

What's really bothering me is the AP. What a joke. UGA and Bama could be 6-6 at the end of the season and these idiot voters would keep them at 1-2. Makes me ill.

	AP		RR	Diff
1	Alabama	SEC	2	1
2	Georgia	SEC	7	5
3	Ohio State	Big Ten	4	1
4	Michigan	Big Ten	31	27
5	Clemson	ACC	1	-4
6	Southern California	Pac-12	11	5
7	Oklahoma State	Big 12	24	17
8	Tennessee	SEC	14	6
9	Mississippi	SEC	8	-1
10	Penn State	Big Ten	16	6
11	Utah	Pac-12	37	26
12	Oregon	Pac-12	13	1
13	Kentucky	SEC	36	23
14	North Carolina State	ACC	20	6
15	Wake Forest	ACC	6	-9
16	Brigham Young	Independent	30	14
17	Texas Christian	Big 12	23	6
18	UCLA	Pac-12	15	-3
19	Kansas	Big 12	3	-16
20	Kansas State	Big 12	10	-10
21	Washington	Pac-12	29	8
22	Syracuse	ACC	18	-4
23	Mississippi State	SEC	5	-18
24	Cincinnati	American	43	19
25	Louisiana State	SEC	9	-16

I know we're early in the season, but that is what really makes the voters completely irrelevant. Look at Bama and UGA. Neither team has shown that they're better than OSU...at all. They've both shown themselves to be vulnerable to mediocre teams. How do the voters react? By flippy-flopping Bama-UGA at 1-2-1-2 so that they can influence the Invitational Committee at the end of the season, and then pat themselves on the back for being so smart.

So, hope you enjoyed the weekend!

Well folks (the 8 or 9 of you who may actually read this), my life has gotten quite interesting. I bought a small business in May, and this has basically absorbed every moment of my life, either working or recovering. We are open on Saturdays so I don't get to watch games prior to 6pm. I really do not have the time to examine each team and game in detail. I am sad about this part. Hopefully I'll have the business running properly next season and will be able to take Saturdays off!

Nerd time:

Anyway, I got the spreadsheet up and running again! We went from 130 to 131 teams this season, and while that seems like a small change, it really hammered my sheet. My formulas look at specific ranges of info, and if I have to add a team then the range changes literally all over the place, and I have to find each instance of row 132 and change it to 133, but only when it's a locked range! So when I make the changes, I cannot make them wholesale. Anything with a relative 132 needs to stay at 132. It took me a while to find everything lol!

Quick and Dirty

As you know, my system gets better with more data (see here). We have a few weeks' worth of data now, so it's happy fun time for the weirdness my system generates early in the season!

#25 Appalachian State 2-2 Not really sure how they ended up here after blowing a 3 score lead against 1st-year-in-FBS JMU, but this is what the system gives with only 4 or so weeks of activity.

#24 LSU 3-1 Gotta admit, I haven't seen them play. Signature win so far is Miss State.

#23 Indiana 3-1 Beat Illinois, get whupped by Cincinnati. OK?

#22 Illinois 3-1 See above...only substitute Virginia for the sigwin

#21 Ole Miss 4-0 Kinda wondering if Kiffin will get them up to speed again this season?

#20 Kentucky 4-0 They beat Florida. OK.

#19 Texas A&M 3-1 App State strikes again! And a squeaker vs a way too highly ranked Auburn

#18 Wake Forest 3-1 Almost vs Clemson and a win vs Liberty.

#17 Texas Tech 3-1 Beating UT for the first time in a while probably felt good. UT is ranked 31 in case you care.

#16 Liberty 3-1 Huh? Um, I'm a little lost on this one.

#15 Clemson 4-0 Very narrow escape vs Wake. Uiagalelei is looking better, more confident. I expect we'll see him for all 4 years. Not sure Dabo is a developer of QBs

#14 Oregon 3-1 Props to the Ducks for scheduling UGA early.

#13 BYU 3-1 No transitive property in football, folks.

#12 NC State 4-0 My son was wondering about this, and so am I. I guess it's the win over TT?

#11 Washington 4-0 I was born in Seattle so I have an affinity for my Dawgs. Nice to see them doing well for now.

#10 Ohio State 4-0 I am an alum, so I won't even pretend to be unbiased, but I do my absolute best to be objective as a ranker. OSU's offense is finding it's stride.

#9 Georgia 4-0 Stetson Bennett is the product of a system. There, I said it. Of course, all that means is that UGA is that damned good!

#8 Florida State 4-0 Yeah, I know. LSU and Louisville are good wins.

#7 Alabama 4-0 Looking pretty vulnerable vs UT and Young looked not so good under pressure. And yes, that was a safety.

#6 Kansas 4-0 Uh...I got nothing.

#5 James Madison 3-0 Correction: I have even more nothing.

#4 Syracuse 4-0 Corrected correction: I now have a negative value/

#3 Tennessee 4-0 I'm curious to see if Tenn can remain relevant this season.

#2 Penn State 4-0 The Auburn win was a good one. Still, this is a little weird.

#1 USC 4-0 Now this is not a total surprise. I've been looking backwards at previous seasons, and the Pac 10 generally has the strongest SoS (based on my system, not some "eye test" or "mah gut tells me" BS).