NCAA Football Power Rankings, Week 4

Ohio State dropped 6 spots to #7, despite winning. Why? Well, all of their previous opponents lost, while all Northwestern's opponents who were active this week won. This early in the season, that can cause some wild swings.

That sort of thing gets less likely as the year goes on, for two reasons. First, since the system doesn't take future opponents into account, there are more previous opponents as the weeks go on. It's less likely to get a full slate of losses the more teams you take int account. Also, as we get into conference play, often times two previous opponents will be playing against each other, guaranteeing one opponent gets a boost while the other falls, which should be almost neutral toward the team in question.

Missouri lost to Kentucky, knocking them down to #45. I was admittedly incredulous that they were 2.5 to 3 point underdogs on Friday, but Kentucky even covered.

Once again, LSU would be #1 if their week 1 game had not been canceled and they won it. They'd be far ahead of Northwestern, too. Without going into too much detail on the guts of my system, just for brevity's sake, Northwestern has an aggregate score of 18464 (the scale of this changes each week), and Ohio State has 18240, so the difference from 1 to 7 is only 224 points. If LSU had won their game, their score would be 20600, over 2000 points higher than the current #1.

1	Northwestern	4-0
2	Utah	4-0
3	Indiana	4-0
4	Texas A&M	4-0
5	UCLA	4-0
6	Florida	4-0
7	Ohio State	4-0
8	NC State	4-0
9	Michigan State	4-0
10	TCU	4-0
11	California	4-0
12	Ole Miss	4-0
13	Georgia	4-0
14	Iowa	4-0
15	Notre Dame	4-0
16	Memphis	4-0
17	LSU	3-0
18	Oklahoma State	4-0
19	West Virginia	3-0
20	Oklahoma	3-0
21	Alabama	3-1
22	Miami (FL)	3-0
23	Michigan	3-1
24	Kentucky	3-1
25	Ohio	3-1
26	Minnesota	3-1
27	Temple	3-0
28	Navy	3-0
29	Stanford	3-1
30	Clemson	3-0
31	North Carolina	3-1
32	Penn State	3-1
33	Kansas State	3-0
34	Florida State	3-0
35	Wisconsin	3-1
36	USC	3-1
37	Baylor	3-0
38	Western Kentucky	3-1
39	Duke	3-1
40	Georgia Southern	3-1
41	Houston	3-0
42	Illinois	3-1
43	Toledo	3-0
44	Arizona	3-1
45	Missouri	3-1
46	Texas Tech	3-1
47	Mississippi State	3-1
48	Boise State	3-1
49	Syracuse	3-1
50	Marshall	3-1
51	Boston College	3-1
52	BYU	2-2
53	Colorado	3-1
54	Pittsburgh	2-1
55	Auburn	2-2
56	East Carolina	2-2
57	Oregon State	2-2
58	Georgia Tech	2-2
59	Tennessee	2-2
60	Nebraska	2-2
61	Air Force	2-1
62	Louisiana Tech	2-2
63	South Carolina	2-2
64	Oregon	2-2
65	Bowling Green	2-2
66	Tulsa	2-1
67	Hawaii	2-2
68	Wake Forest	2-2
69	Virginia Tech	2-2
70	Arizona State	2-2
71	Connecticut	2-2
72	Nevada	2-2
73	Maryland	2-2
74	Middle Tennessee	2-2
75	Buffalo	2-2
76	Washington	2-2
77	Cincinnati	2-2
78	Appalachian State	2-1
79	South Alabama	2-2
80	San Jose State	2-2
81	Ball State	2-2
82	Washington State	2-1
83	Northern Illinois	2-2
84	Old Dominion	2-2
85	Florida Intl	2-2
86	Akron	2-2
87	Rutgers	2-2
88	Southern Mississippi	2-2
89	Colorado State	2-2
90	UTEP	2-2
91	Troy	1-2
92	Charlotte	2-2
93	Iowa State	1-2
94	New Mexico	2-2
95	Virginia	1-3
96	Rice	2-2
97	Texas	1-3
98	Idaho	1-3
99	Arkansas	1-3
100	Utah State	1-2
101	Fresno State	1-3
102	San Diego State	1-3
103	Western Michigan	1-3
104	Louisville	1-3
105	Arkansas State	1-3
106	Louisiana Monroe	1-2
107	Central Michigan	1-3
108	Purdue	1-3
109	SMU	1-3
110	Tulane	1-2
111	Vanderbilt	1-3
112	Florida Atlantic	1-3
113	Texas State	1-3
114	UNLV	1-3
115	Miami (OH)	1-3
116	Kent State	1-3
117	South Florida	1-2
118	Louisiana Lafayette	1-2
119	Army	1-3
120	Georgia State	1-2
121	Massachusetts	0-3
122	Eastern Michigan	1-3
123	Kansas	0-3
124	Texas San Antonio	0-4
125	North Texas	0-3
126	UCF	0-4
127	New Mexico State	0-3
128	Wyoming	0-4

2015 History and #1s

Week 1 Everybody who was 1-0
Week 2 Texas A&M
Week 3 Ohio State