College Football Week 19 Preview Ratings and Rankings

I normally post updated college football ratings each Sunday to include all the games through the previous day, and I posted the week 18 ratings a few days ago, but with a bunch of key bowl games played yesterday I updated the rating through the Fiesta Bowl and the top-25 is below.

It is interesting to see some of the changes after the New Years Day, errr January 2nd, games.  There are no changes in position until #8, but then there is a fair amount.

Stanford moves up a spot despite losing, in large part because they were expected to lose so their rating was about where it was supposed to be.  They move up a spot because Wisconsin and the rest of the Big Ten had a bad day.  Wisconsin lost, but they were supposed to so that isn't why they dropped, instead it was the rest of the Big Ten teams except for Michigan State losing, and badly in a few cases, that pulled Wisconsin and the rest of the Big Ten down a bit with Michigan dropped 0.5 points and 3 spots despite not playing yet, Michigan State dropping 0.1 points and a spot despite winning, Nebraska dropping 1.4 points and 3 spots in a bad loss, and Penn State (not in the top-25) dropping 1.6 points and 6 spots after their bad loss.

The beneficiary in large part was the SEC, even the idle teams having their ratings improve 0.3+ points, but esepcially South Carolina, as well as Oregon and Houston, although Oregon's gap to #3 Oklahoma State was too large for it to change their ranking.

How close is Oklahoma State to #2 now?  Still not very close, their loss to Iowa State just a far worse result than Alabama's loss to LSU.

Rank	Team	Rating	Record	Schedule	Change
Rank	Team	Rating	Record	Schedule	Change
1	LSU	96.197	13-0	72.703	+0, +0.361
2	Alabama	92.432	11-1	71.615	+0, +0.298
3	Oklahoma St	87.900	12-1	73.629	+0, +0.124
4	Oregon	85.714	12-2	70.454	+0, +0.601
5	Arkansas	84.475	10-2	71.429	+0, +0.549
6	Boise St	83.927	12-1	65.714	+0, +0.012
7	Oklahoma	83.582	10-3	73.636	+0, +0.039
8	Stanford	82.317	11-2	69.974	+1, +0.074
9	Wisconsin	81.913	11-3	67.580	-1, -1.098
10	South Carolina	80.735	11-2	70.854	+3, +1.469
11	Southern Cal	79.664	10-2	70.207	+0, +0.100
12	Georgia	79.574	10-4	71.905	-2, -0.175
13	Baylor	79.140	10-3	72.039	+1, +0.053
14	Texas A&M	79.108	7-6	73.042	+1, +0.060
15	Michigan	79.043	10-2	68.063	-3, -0.505
16	Missouri	78.203	8-5	71.770	+0, +0.054
17	Houston	78.008	13-1	62.283	+4, +1.639
18	Michigan St	77.855	11-3	68.496	-1, -0.140
19	TCU	77.589	11-2	64.310	-1, +0.080
20	Kansas St	77.524	10-2	71.813	-1, +0.040
21	Florida St	76.485	9-4	65.798	+2, +0.176
22	Texas	76.484	8-5	73.335	-2, +0.061
23	Notre Dame	75.766	8-5	70.822	+1, -0.011
24	Southern Miss	74.962	12-2	62.857	+1, +0.433
25	Nebraska	74.887	9-4	70.317	-3, -1.429