NCAA Football Power Rankings, Final

Alabama finished off with a win after taking over my #1 spot last week, and thus kept it by defeating #2 Clemson. There was only one other game since my last rankings, and that was the FCS title game, North Dakota State over Jacksonville State. That FCS game had the effect of dropping California from a tie for #34 to #35 alone, and bringing Middle Tennessee up one spot from #72 to #71, passing Kansas State. The Alabama win didn't change the #1 spot, but it did bring North Carolina ahead of Navy, up to #11.

What if LSU had won their canceled week 1 game against McNeese State?
North Carolina would gain another spot to pass TCU at #10. LSU would jump from #26 to #14. Mississippi State would gain one place to #29, and Auburn would pass Arkansas State to reach #49.

Like I've pointed out in years past, the playoff system virtually guarantees I'll rank the title game winner #1, and usually the loser #2, because their strength of schedule goes through the roof adding 2 extra games against top-4 teams. Alabama's raw score was over 18,400, while Clemson was around 16,800, and Stanford, who didn't get a playoff game, was third best at about 14,700. The very lowest raw score for an FBS team is UCF at about -3000, so clearly every position doesn't lose 1000+ points through the middle.

Through the season, I think the top of my rankings were relatively in agreement with the real people this year, with a little bit of variation as I would expect. I consider that a success, because it means that my system is at least reasonable. I have a few tweaks in mind I may implement next year, if I remember it before August. One is to consider strength of schedule even before games are played, inputting the full schedule at the beginning of the season, and filling in scores as we go. The result at the end of the season would be the same, since there would be no more "future games" at that point. This could give drastically different rankings early in the season, especially when bad teams in tough conferences start off 3-0 against FCS teams, but perhaps offer a little bit of a predictor of who has potential to move up as the season goes on.

The 2016 kickoff is less than 8 months away.

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

2015 History and #1s

Week 1 Everybody who was 1-0
Week 2 Texas A&M
Week 3 Ohio State
Week 4 Northwestern
Week 5 Northwestern
Week 6 Florida
Week 7 Iowa
Week 8 Michigan State
Week 9 Clemson
Week 10 Clemson
Week 11 Clemson
Week 12 Clemson
Week 13 Clemson
Week 14 Clemson
Week 15 Clemson
Week 16 Clemson
Week 17 Clemson
Week 18 Alabama