2009 Week 7 College Football Ratings/Rankings and Summary

Ratings through week 7 (games played thru 17-Oct).  These are also at http://sites.google.com/site/computerratings/ncaa-football/ncaa-ratings.

After several upsets, closer than expected games, and a few blowouts, there are a bunch of changes in this week rankings.

Boise State started things with a much closer than expected win (7 points) over then #65 Tulsa that dropped them over 3 ratings points and 2 spots to #4.  That left room for a new #2 and even before the weekend games Cincinnati made their case with a solid 17 point win on the road against formerly unbeaten and then #10 South Florida.  Florida had a golden opportunity to get to #2 by playing a second tough opponent after an easy schedule, but nearly lost and did not impress winning by only 3 at home and only moved to #3 while actually losing ratings points.

Texas also had a good opportunity to move up and coupled with some of the other surprises and and their 3 point win over OU did gain over 5 ratings points and move up to #5 but did luck out with Bradford getting hurt and missed out on moving up more due to such a narrow win over a now 3 loss team.  Helping Texas improve that many points was prior opponent Texas Tech taking it to Nebraska which jumped them an unbelievable 11 points and 36 spots.  They were helped by Texas winning and prior opponent Houston also winning big.

Iowa continues to win as underdogs and is up to #12 while fellow unbeaten and former #12 TCU moves up 3 to #9.  The aforementioned South Florida dropped over 4 points and 9 spots to #19 while another upset loss, this one by Ohio State, dropped them all the way to #24.  Ohio State's loss was also the big reason why USC did not improve and in fact dropped them 2 spots to #8.  Of course, USC didn't help themselves by letting Notre Dame come back from 20 down in the 4th to nearly take it to overtime.

With 7 undefeated teams left, it appears Florida and Alabama may be destined to face each other that way and Cincinnati, Texas, and Boise State are poised to make their case, but others vying to stay that way continues to include TCU and Iowa as Kansas, never really ranked highly by the computer, finally fell this week.  Check out the season projections to see how the teams should end up.

With all the upsets and strange games with teams not playing as expected, my computer did not have a good week predicting games.  The record against the spread was 26-27-2 and it went 40-15 picking winners.  Best picks were a disappointing 4-5 and even the locks missed a game for the first time going 2-2.  Full prediction performance here and if you are interested in a newsletter with additional details on picks against the spread, best picks, and locks, see this.

Rank	Team	Rating	Record	Schedule	Change
Rank	Team	Rating	Record	Schedule	Change
1	Alabama	95.193	7-0	73.413	+0, -1.095
2	Cincinnati	90.509	6-0	68.377	+5, +3.669
3	Florida	90.304	6-0	70.365	+1, -2.241
4	Boise St	89.476	6-0	70.245	-2, -3.365
5	Texas	89.463	6-0	71.034	+6, +5.200
6	Texas Tech	87.946	5-2	67.052	+35,+11.068
7	Virginia Tech	87.155	5-2	79.065	-2, -3.906
8	Southern Cal	86.448	5-1	73.770	-2, -0.764
9	TCU	85.959	6-0	69.379	+3, +2.130
10	Oregon	85.908	5-1	74.613	-2, -0.901
11	Oklahoma	84.862	3-3	70.091	-2, -0.460
12	Iowa	83.819	7-0	74.474	+3, +0.857
13	Nebraska	83.172	4-2	72.409	-10, -9.454
14	Miami FL	82.828	5-1	74.940	+0, -0.323
15	Georgia Tech	82.583	6-1	76.227	+4, +2.273
16	LSU	81.114	5-1	72.744	+0, +0.342
17	Arizona	80.820	4-2	76.177	+1, +0.478
18	Arkansas	80.678	3-3	77.076	+4, +1.491
19	South Florida	80.241	5-1	61.069	-9, -4.355
20	Clemson	80.184	3-3	72.945	+8, +2.057
21	California	80.041	4-2	73.825	+9, +2.142
22	Utah	79.624	5-1	69.503	-5, -0.856
23	Penn State	79.200	6-1	63.667	+9, +1.711
24	Ohio State	79.096	5-2	70.065	-11, -4.383
25	Oregon St	79.045	4-2	71.186	+8, +1.685
26	Fresno St	78.738	3-3	73.576	-2, -0.190
27	Stanford	78.301	4-3	72.742	-4, -0.739
28	Notre Dame	77.933	4-2	74.350	-1, -0.353
29	Tennessee	77.909	3-3	71.009	-4, -0.490
30	Mississippi	77.809	4-2	67.992	+9, +0.916
31	South Carolina	77.767	5-2	73.307	+12, +2.453
32	Kentucky	77.649	3-3	76.703	+19, +4.016
33	Brigham Young	77.583	6-1	68.211	-4, -0.379
34	Auburn	77.548	5-2	70.678	-8, -0.765
35	Pittsburgh	77.534	6-1	67.438	-4, -0.278
36	West Virginia	76.643	5-1	66.295	+11, +2.043
37	Florida St	76.636	2-4	76.635	+1, -0.267
38	Kansas	76.577	5-1	64.526	-18, -3.665
39	Houston	76.547	5-1	67.351	+24, +4.671
40	Oklahoma St	76.465	5-1	63.479	+12, +3.163
41	Michigan	76.419	5-2	65.470	-4, -0.498
42	Central Michigan	76.208	6-1	63.575	+2, +0.932
43	Connecticut	75.978	4-2	67.006	-3, -0.901
44	Washington	75.977	3-4	78.295	-8, -0.980
45	Boston College	75.338	5-2	67.766	+4, +1.251
46	Georgia	75.309	4-3	76.097	+9, +2.214
47	Arizona St	75.102	4-2	64.217	+17, +3.885
48	UCLA	74.988	3-3	75.267	-13, -2.131
49	Wisconsin	74.917	5-2	71.259	-15, -2.319
50	Michigan St	74.615	4-3	69.611	-8, -1.157
51	Virginia	74.226	3-3	71.405	+6, +1.633
52	Northern Illinois	73.283	3-3	67.024	-6, -1.337
53	Iowa St	73.207	4-3	66.691	+13, +2.272
54	Missouri	73.089	4-2	68.291	-33, -6.364
55	Navy	72.600	5-2	65.583	-5, -1.121
56	Minnesota	72.514	4-3	72.058	-2, -0.638
57	Air Force	72.443	4-3	63.471	-4, -0.764
58	Duke	71.900	3-3	66.288	-10, -2.620
59	Tulsa	71.892	4-2	63.677	+6, +0.942
60	Wake Forest	71.793	4-3	69.548	-15, -3.351
61	Ohio U.	71.454	5-2	65.798	-2, -1.055
62	Mississippi St	71.407	3-4	68.264	+15, +3.854
63	Idaho	71.350	6-1	66.635	-3, -1.004
64	North Carolina	71.148	4-2	65.523	+3, +0.351
65	Rutgers	70.945	4-2	58.661	-4, -1.373
66	Kansas St	70.777	4-3	68.755	+16, +4.956
67	Purdue	70.733	2-5	72.930	+9, +3.029
68	Colorado St	70.453	3-4	73.893	+0, -0.292
69	Troy	70.159	4-2	69.705	-13, -2.699
70	Baylor	69.301	3-3	68.057	-8, -2.912
71	Bowling Green	68.849	3-4	70.371	-2, -1.583
72	Marshall	68.439	4-3	69.776	-1, -0.912
73	Colorado	68.175	2-4	73.620	+19, +4.069
74	Nevada	67.911	3-3	68.178	-2, -1.189
75	Southern Miss	67.698	4-3	63.934	+4, +1.215
76	Temple	67.600	4-2	62.518	+2, +0.533
77	Arkansas St	67.272	1-4	67.192	-19, -5.295
78	Western Michigan	67.234	3-4	67.679	-3, -0.495
79	North Carolina St	66.842	3-4	65.479	-9, -2.870
80	Louisiana-Monroe	66.679	4-2	65.604	+21, +4.902
81	Indiana	66.395	4-3	66.424	+0, +0.358
82	SMU	66.347	3-3	68.359	+2, +0.834
83	Louisville	66.342	2-4	67.356	+0, +0.696
84	Texas A&M	66.165	3-3	65.271	-11, -2.833
85	Northwestern	65.680	4-3	62.058	+3, +0.640
86	East Carolina	65.619	4-3	64.946	+1, +0.493
87	Toledo	65.097	4-3	67.598	+12, +2.269
88	San Jose St	64.757	1-5	75.970	-8, -1.531
89	San Diego St	64.667	2-4	68.091	-4, -0.811
90	Syracuse	64.394	2-4	69.394	+0, +0.057
91	Middle Tennessee St	64.390	3-3	68.212	-17, -3.599
92	Central Florida	64.348	3-3	63.596	-3, -0.108
93	UTEP	64.052	2-4	69.326	-2, -0.075
94	Louisiana Tech	64.037	3-3	62.054	+3, +0.854
95	Maryland	63.607	2-5	70.785	-9, -1.644
96	Wyoming	63.489	4-3	66.021	+9, +2.557
97	Louisiana-Lafayette	62.824	4-2	64.560	-1, -0.466
98	Buffalo	62.521	3-4	64.830	+0, -0.646
99	Utah St	62.420	1-5	68.244	-6, -1.247
100	Alabama-Birmingham	62.174	2-4	66.059	-6, -1.468
101	Florida Atlantic	62.167	1-4	70.739	+9, +4.496
102	Hawaii	61.778	2-4	66.219	+0, +0.406
103	Kent St	61.563	3-4	62.562	+3, +1.219
104	UNLV	61.139	2-5	67.072	+0, +0.011
105	Vanderbilt	60.641	2-5	64.334	-2, -0.565
106	Illinois	60.267	1-5	69.937	-11, -3.226
107	North Texas	59.590	1-5	68.575	-7, -2.735
108	Florida Int'l	59.243	1-5	70.421	+6, +2.588
109	Washington St	58.816	1-5	75.147	+2, +1.167
110	Memphis	58.323	2-5	64.006	-3, -1.543
111	Army	58.322	3-4	61.931	-3, -1.330
112	Akron	57.836	1-5	66.394	+0, +0.615
113	Tulane	57.299	2-4	66.322	-4, -0.486
114	Miami OH	56.065	0-7	76.509	+1, +0.948
115	Ball St	55.421	0-7	66.127	-2, -1.284
116	New Mexico St	52.528	3-4	60.488	+0, -2.019
117	Eastern Michigan	50.451	0-6	67.632	+0, -3.157
118	Western Kentucky	48.451	0-6	67.842	+2, +4.239
119	Rice	48.174	0-7	71.477	-1, -1.983
120	New Mexico	48.110	0-6	69.077	-1, -1.251