Season 2024, Week 5 Rankings Setup
Two top five teams match up with each other, another ranked opponent for a top ten team, and diving into South Carolina's current ranking setup as a case study.
A potential all time matchup is going down in Tuscaloosa this weekend. There have only been seven times since 2010 where two teams have faced off both ranked in the top five within the first five weeks of the season. It also marks the first significant Alabama game in forever without Nick Saban leading them out of the tunnel. We’ll explore where each of those teams are most likely to end up after the scoreboard shows zeros on the clock.
Current Predicted Rankings
Here are the current predictions for the Week 6 rankings after this slate of games is finished. As a reminder, we take the Vegas line scores as our projection of how each game will finish.
Top Storylines
#2 Georgia vs #4 Alabama. Usually we have to all wait until a SEC championship game, but not anymore. Current Vegas lines show UGA winning 25-23, however ESPN FPI shows Alabama with a 64% chance of winning the game. More on this in the Simulations section of the newsletter.
#19 Illinois vs #9 Penn State. Penn State has been handed a gift of an opportunity from a rankings perspective. Nebraska blew a few shots at the end zone to beat Illinois, and now they’re out of the rankings and Illinois has crept up higher. Penn State is given a 86% chance of winning this game according to ESPN FPI. If PSU can win this game, it will be a nice boost to their resume beating a top 20 team that could have very easily not been ranked.
#15 Louisville vs #16 Notre Dame. Both teams have a lot to prove here. Notre Dame is trying to re-solidify themselves as a legit contender after the Northern Illinois fiasco, and Louisville hasn’t had major competition on their schedule yet. From the predictions above, Notre Dame is not only predicted to win, but Louisville is predicted to be out of the top 25 with a loss.
Simulations
After running 10,000 simulations using the machine learning algorithm trained on the AP poll, here are the percentages of time each team ended up ranked within the top 15 spots.
According to the simulation, the #1 spot is going to be most likely Alabama and Georgia. The current #1 holder, Texas, will have to put on a hell of a show against Mississippi State (on a three game losing streak against not overly-impressive opponents), and Alabama and Georgia would have to be a dud for them to keep the #1 ranking. From there, rankings 2-7 are almost all locked in with teams having a 65%+ chance of holding onto those spots.
Alabama Is The Statistical Favorite
Las Vegas might like Georgia to sneak out a win on the road, but Alabama is predicted to win according to the smart folks in the statistics department over at ESPN. They are giving Alabama a 65% chance of winning the game, which is why the simulation picks them as the winner approximately 65% of the time.
Notre Dame and Louisville
This middle of the rankings pack matchup has big implications for both teams, but still not enough room to move up due to a lot of the teams ahead favorited to win, but also situations like Alabama and Georgia means one will win, but the other will almost certainly stay with in the top 15.
Dark Knight
Rutgers did not get any love in the latest AP poll, not even a single top 25 vote. That might change after this weekend. If they can win against Washington, which would look like a more impressive win if UW had won the Apple Cup against WSU, Rutgers will be 4-0 with nice wins against UW and Virginia Tech. They don’t have another currently ranked opponent on their schedule until late October against USC. If I had to make my bold prediction on who I thought would be entering into the ranked scene here soon, the Scarlet Knights would be my top pick.
The simulation is REALLY confident they will be ranked in the top 25 with a win. I’m not so sure they’re on people’s radar yet, but we’ll see.
What If South Carolina Won That Game?
For those of you who remember a few weeks back, South Carolina and LSU had a great matchup in Week 3 where South Carolina, to put it mildly, had some disagreements with the refs in the last five minutes of the game. Specifically, a practically 100 yard pick six that was brought back due to an unnecessary roughness penalty on the QB. The “unnecessary” is the part people had issues with. It was mostly because a defensive linemen appropriately shoved the QB, and since a 275 pound linemen shoving anything will result in something flying across the field, it was all taken back.
No pick six, no points, LSU ends up scoring a touchdown in the final minute, South Carolina misses the field goal at the buzzer. Due to this game, LSU stayed at the #16 ranking and South Carolina, unranked going into the game, was now further away from breaking the top 25 in the AP poll.
However, lets go back in history and change the result of the game. Let’s say the pick six does not get taken away from South Carolina. LSU still scores their last minute TD, try and onside kick to get the ball back with no luck, South Carolina goes into victory formation. Game over. South Carolina with the big upset winning 40-16. What do the rankings look like now?
South Carolina now moves up to the #19 ranked team in the AP poll, and LSU is now just on the outside looking in, sitting at #31,
One of the best parts of the What If simulation tool is that it keeps the changes you made moving forward in time. A game altered in Week 3 will still have an impact in that same simulation for the predicted rankings in Week 6. Using the same simulation going into this week (which they have a bye), how would they be looking?
As you can see, it still fits the mold of the current prediction we have for the Week 6 AP poll rankings, but with a slight twist.
South Carolina is predicted to be the #17 ranked team in the AP poll had they won the game against LSU, and LSU, who is now sitting at #16, would have been currently predicted to be ranked #23 and finally making their way back into the top 25.
The power of the What If tool. Be careful, you’ll go down a rabbit hole real quick.
What’s Next?
We watch football all day Saturday
Newsletter Sunday morning with the final Rankings Right Now prediction based on the results of all the games
Newsletter Monday morning with the comparison between the Rankings Right Now final prediction and the official release of the AP poll for Week 6
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