NCAA Football Power Rankings, Week 8

Alabama was a very close #2 last week, and easily overtook Clemson during their bye week with a win over Texas A&M, who you'll recall have been #1 a few weeks this year, and were #4 last week. The other notable loss near the top was 6-0 #6 Ohio State, losing to #32 Penn State. There are now 9 undefeated teams. Notice the lowest 2 are both Big 12 teams, and that's because they have only played 6 games instead of 7 or 8 like many other schools. I guess that's because without a title game, the Big 12 can afford an extra bye week in their season. This raises an interesting question to me, which is whether my system has an unintentional anti-Big 12 bias. Also bias against any conference without a title game. I'm not really sure how I'd objectively audit such a thing, but maybe I could compare my final week rankings against the polls in the years since the Big 12 dropped to 10 teams.

All the local media I heard said that Missouri's win this weekend for homecoming was pretty much a given, and they had a decent shot at 4 wins in a row to get bowl eligible before their last two games that would be likely losses. Well, they lost to Middle Tennessee, who is all the way up to #46 in the rankings, no thanks to Missouri, who is now a terrible opponent to have in your schedule, all the way down at #103

Only slightly further down the tableau, Rice got their first win and escaped the bottom spot. It was an FCS game, but everyone's got at least one of those (I think so at least, I didn't verify that fact). Last week I actually spoke to a high schooler who coincidentally mentioned he was looking at Rice, and I told him (jokingly, of course), that the team was 0-6 so he shouldn't go there. Or maybe he should if he wanted to play football. Anyway, Florida Atlantic is now #128, and there are no more winless teams in the FBS.

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

2016 History and #1s

Week 1 Everybody who was 1-0, Except Michigan and California
Week 2 Texas
Week 3 Texas A&M
Week 4 Texas A&M
Week 5 Tennessee
Week 6 Texas A&M
Week 7 Alabama