Sunday, September 26, 2010

2010 Week 4 College Football Rankings and Review; Stanford #1, Ohio State #2, Alabama #3

Week 4 brought some surprises on the field and a bunch in the resulting rankings.  The full rankings are on the web-site, but the top-30 is below for quick reference.

Alabama's stay at #1 ends, replaced by a Stanford team that has looked impressive, and Ohio State passes them too at #2 dropping Alabama to #3.  Why is this?  It is a combination of several factors including:

  • Alabama won by less than expected against Arkansas (4 vs 10)
  • Alabama past opponent Duke lost to Army when the computer expected them to win
  • Alabama past opponent San Jose State was thumped by Utah 56-3
  • Alabama's pre-season rating (far and away #1) is less than 10% of their current rating, it was around 25% last week
  • Stanford thumped Notre Dame by more than expected
  • Stanford past opponent UCLA thumped Texas on the road when expected to lose
  • Stanford's pre-season rating (#23) is no longer holding them down as much
  • Ohio State prior opponent Miami won big at Pittsburgh
It can be useful to look at performance charts as well, here are the top-3:





You can see how important Stanford's win over UCLA and Ohio State's win over Miami are at this point of the season.  As more meaningful games are added and as those team rise or fall, things could change.  You can also see that Alabama is rated where they were after week 1, the other teams have just passed them by primarily due to their week 2 opponents improving.

Performance charts for all teams are available as part of a newsletter subscription.

Behind the top 3 is Nevada (helped by Cal losing by only 1) and Oregon was #2 last week but fell a few spots after a closer than expected win.

The BCS buster watch begins at #6 where TCU stays and Boise State actually falls from #9 to #12 after a less than stellar win.  BSU is helped by Nevada being highly rated at this point so a win over them (if they stay highly rated) will count nicely, but they have some ground to make up to just catch TCU.

Picking games, the computer stunk (as is often the case one of the first four weeks and this was that week) going 24-34 against the spread and 46-12 picking winners while Vegas went 51-7 picking winners.  The computer is still 103-90-1 against the spread for the year though.  Full prediction performance here.

Look for season projections and preview of the upcoming week here and on the web-site.

Rank
Team
Rating
Record
Schedule
Change
Rank
Team
Rating
Record
Schedule
Change
1Stanford95.2024-066.961+2, +7.848
2Ohio State88.0794-063.221+8, +5.241
3Alabama87.8164-067.184-2, -5.370
4Nevada85.8044-062.773+11, +5.356
5Oregon85.6164-058.432-3, -2.984
6TCU85.3304-065.782+0, +0.810
7Arizona84.4744-067.844+4, +1.856
8Florida83.9144-064.240-3, -1.900
9LSU83.7374-072.167-2, -0.183
10Iowa83.6403-161.839+3, +3.117
11Miami FL83.4992-167.545+15, +8.372
12Boise St82.6203-070.586-3, -0.309
13UCLA81.1762-280.542+28, +8.974
14North Carolina St80.9614-064.397+11, +5.747
15Nebraska80.6324-057.988-11, -5.827
16California80.5172-271.923+21, +7.198
17Auburn79.0504-069.656+3, +2.692
18Kansas St79.0484-069.427+15, +5.371
19Arkansas78.5763-164.552-3, -1.799
20Virginia Tech78.3932-272.276-2, -0.015
21Clemson77.5452-153.678+7, +2.770
22Oklahoma76.8714-066.453-10, -4.494
23South Carolina76.8113-166.697-6, -3.187
24Penn State76.4963-167.870-5, -1.533
25Michigan76.4724-064.472+17, +4.496
26Oklahoma St76.3813-060.022-5, +0.056
27Missouri75.9644-059.847+28, +5.607
28Air Force75.6303-158.969-14, -4.876
29Northwestern75.5464-065.533+7, +2.209
30Texas75.4153-167.378-22, -7.574

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