Week 8 College Football Rankings Setup
This is the last week we are paying attention to the AP poll before switching over machine learning models to predict the CFP Selection Committee rankings! What are the potential rankings going to be?
We are about a week and a half from the big unveiling of the College Football Selection Committee’s first poll; however, while the big TVs in everyone’s living rooms are still showing the AP poll rankings for top matchups, we will still focus on the outputs from the AP poll machine learning model.
Regardless of which algorithm is being used, there are a few big games to highlight that have the potential to shake up the rankings. Let’s dive on in.
Week 9 AP Poll Current Predictions
Here are the current predictions for the Week 9 AP poll release. As a reminder to everyone, even though we are about to go into Week 8 of the college football season, the algorithm uses the predicted outcomes of games (based on Las Vegas betting lines), current scores of games, and finished game outcomes to make its predictions.
Not a ton of big forecasted movements from top current top 25, but this typically means we’re in for a lot of surprises.
Texas With Another Big Matchup
It seems like each week #1 Texas doesn’t have two minutes to catch their breath from the last game. After their explosive win against Oklahoma in the Red River Rivalry last weekend, they go up against previous #1 ranked Georgia in Austin. The current projected score for this game is 30-26 Texas, which keeps Texas in the #1 spot and dropping UGA to #8.
However, UGA has shown to be back on track after their loss against Alabama earlier in the year. It almost is a distant memory at this point. Using the What If simulation tool, we can flip the outcome of this game to be 30-26 Bulldogs and see how the rankings would change.
This would create a REALLY interesting change within the top eight.
Texas dropps to #4
Oregon becomes new #1
Georgia moves up to #2
Even with a win, Ohio State would drop a spot in the rankings
The Slurpee Bowl
#7 Alabama is heading on over to Rocky Top to face off with #11 Tennessee. The loser of this game is going to be in real trouble. Both teams have have been down bad the last two weeks. Both lost to unranked opponents while being ranked in the top 10, then both had underwhelming games against another round of unranked teams. With a loss, the model expects Tennessee will be sent to the bottom of the rankings.
Remember, throughout this season we’ve seen the AP poll model be overly aggressive with drops for teams in the #11-#15 range. This will be a main focus point on re-tuning the model in the offseason.
Now, let’s say Coach Heupel can get the Vols back on track and come out with an impressive win against the Crimson Tide. This outcome flip-flops both teams in the rankings. This is a huge opportunity for Tennessee to re-position themself for a college football playoff run going into the last third of the season.
Upset Alert?
As mentioned earlier in the newsletter, there aren’t a lot of significant changes in the rankings this week, but #2 Oregon might need to be careful. There are two top-of-mind references in the past few weeks to point to where after a big win, the clear favorite slipped up.
Alabama beats Georgia in Week 4, slips up next week at unranked Vanderbilt
Tennessee beats Oklahoma in Week 4, bye in Week 5, loses on the road to unranked Arkansas
Fast forward to this week’s matchups and you have another perfect hangover concoction setting up for Oregon. #2 Oregon goes into Boilermaker country to take on unranked Purdue. Why is this relevant? If we look at data from 2010 on, and check out teams who have wins against top five opponents while being unranked, Purdue and USC are tied for the most with three.
Unranked Purdue beat #2 Iowa in Week 7 of the 2021 season
Unranked Purdue beat #3 MSU in Week 10 of the 2021 season
This was also a hangover game against MSU, where MSU beat Michigan in a thriller where Kenneth Walker III ran for 5 TDs.
Unranked Purdue beat #2 Ohio State in Week 8 of the 2021 season
As for Oregon, even a loss to Purdue doesn’t put them out of the top 10. From the 10,000 simulations of Week 8, 4.8% of the time Oregon lost to Purdue and the most likely drop landed them to #6 in the rankings. With it being on the road, there is a small chance that even a loss against a team who’s struggling as much as Purdue would put them at #4.
USA, USA, USA
FINALLY. Navy and Army are both ranked for the first time since 1960, but now the question is how far can they move up in the rankings, and even more wacky, could there be a scenario where they’re both undefeated going into an American Athletic conference championship AND have to play again in the annual Armed Forces Bowl?
Both teams are strong favorites going into this weekend, strutting a 80%+ chance of winning against their opponents. Running through all the 10,000 simulations, there is a 8.38% chance both teams are ranked in the top 20 in the next AP rankings poll.
More Simulation Results
Here is a more detailed view of the top teams who have a chance of being ranked within the top 10.
The top three rankings seem to be confidently set based on expected results with Texas at #1, Oregon at #2, and #3 Penn State. All those conditioned on Texas beating Georgia
Alabama and Miami have wide ranges of outcomes, with simulation results ranging each possible ranking from #3 to #20
Could Arkansas pull off another big upset? They face #8 LSU this weekend, at home, which puts LSU at a 12.3% chance of being sent into the 20’s
Once again, be careful about those models sending teams to the moon after a loss in that #10 range
College Rank Em Challenge
Reminder for everyone to get their picks in for the College Rank Em Challenge! Deadline closes at noon ET kickoff.
Never heard of this before? Check out this video that walks through the fun competition!
What’s Next?
Watch football all day Saturday
Newsletter Sunday morning going through everything we watched over the weekend and the final Rankings Right Now predictions for the Week 9 AP Poll
Newsletter Monday morning evaluating the Rankings Right Now final predictions with the true Week 9 AP poll rankings
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