College Football Week 5 Ratings and Rankings - New #1 Alabama

This week's ratings and rankings are now posted.  With several important games between top teams, there are some changes and favorites to make it to the BCS bowls are starting to show themselves.

With the computer's #1, #2, #3, #5, #7, #8, and #9 teams all winning in easy fashion, you might not think there would be a lot of changes, but indeed there are.  This is mostly due to who those wins were over and some impressive wins by teams outside the computer's top-10.

Alabama is the new #1 in large part due to their 38-10 drubbing of Florida, but also due to prior opponent Arkansas pulling the upset over Texas A&M, and other of their and Florida's prior opponents playing well.  This was enough to move them ahead of LSU who not only had a weak opponent but had  prior opponent Mississippi State lose by more than expected keeping them at about the same rating.  But the huge move in the top-10 is Wisconsin also jumping ahead of LSU with an enormous +10.5 ratings points jump after they manhandled Nebraska.

Boise State moves up a spot at Oregon's expense, but they and the rest of the top-10 are well back of the top-3 which are very close.  Stanford got dinged a bit by playing a weak UCLA squad and Oklahoma did their best to impress against Ball State, but playing a weak opponent is not the way to make a big move in the computer's eyes.

Another big mover joining the top-10 is Clemson.  With wins in consecutive weeks over the now #23, #27, and #36 teams, they are easily the highest ranked ACC team.

The top-25 is below, the full rankings on the web-site.

Rank	Team	Rating	Record	Schedule	Change
Rank	Team	Rating	Record	Schedule	Change
1	Alabama	95.634	5-0	68.352	+1, +3.925
2	Wisconsin	94.927	5-0	62.192	+6,+10.543
3	LSU	94.097	5-0	69.599	-2, +0.980
4	Boise St	89.054	4-0	72.031	+1, +2.233
5	Oregon	87.244	3-1	70.966	-1, +0.381
6	Stanford	87.040	4-0	65.589	-3, -0.976
7	Oklahoma	86.786	4-0	70.010	+0, +1.987
8	Oklahoma St	85.494	4-0	71.114	-2, -1.281
9	Michigan	84.659	5-0	64.447	+0, +2.237
10	Clemson	82.045	5-0	68.549	+14, +6.010
11	Notre Dame	81.087	3-2	75.345	+4, +1.572
12	Texas A&M	80.788	2-2	71.627	-1, -1.328
13	Florida	80.662	4-1	66.937	-1, +0.157
14	Nebraska	80.425	4-1	70.998	-1, +0.366
15	Texas	79.134	4-0	64.566	+18, +5.593
16	Tennessee	78.640	3-1	65.764	+7, +2.276
17	Arkansas	78.417	4-1	66.461	+15, +4.857
18	Pittsburgh	77.951	3-2	69.684	+23, +6.754
19	Georgia Tech	77.928	5-0	61.482	-1, -0.461
20	Arizona St	77.665	4-1	64.622	-6, -2.355
21	West Virginia	77.358	4-1	65.808	+5, +2.552
22	Georgia	76.993	3-2	70.772	+7, +2.425
23	Florida St	76.930	2-2	63.062	+7, +2.832
24	South Florida	76.417	4-1	64.906	-14, -6.001
25	South Carolina	76.106	4-1	68.593	-8, -2.702