Week 8 College Football Recap and Final AP Poll Week 9 Predictions
Week 8 College Football Recap and Final AP Poll Week 9 Predictions
Another awesome week of college football, with two big upsets within the top 10. What does the AP algorithm predict the top 25 will look like?
This is the first time that I’ve been ultra curious about what the top 12 teams will look like. Each week we typically see some obvious ones, but you could make an argument for any top 12 combination you can think of at this point.
Final AP Poll Week 9 Predictions
Here is the current forecast for the AP poll’s Week 9 rankings. As a reminder, the AP poll model is trained on historical AP poll voting data to try and determine the voting habits of the AP poll and how teams might shift around in the rankings based on their performance each week.
Top Headlines
Dawgs > Longhorns
Georgia wanted that #1 ranking back. The Bulldogs beat the Longhorns, and although there were some very interesting and memorable plays throughout the game, it felt like Georgia was in control of the game after they scored their first points. Will Georgia retain that #1 ranking? According to the model, not yet. They’ll have to wait a little longer. There is a lot of movement up top now:
Oregon is anticipating the #1 ranking
Georgia moves up to #2
Penn State stays at #3
Texas down to #4
Oregon Doesn’t Fear Trap Games
Oregon destroyed Purdue. They looked flawless. In Friday’s newsletter, I discussed how Purdue has a reputation of pulling off big upsets this time of year, but the Ducks showed past results do not indicate future performance.
Vols Win The Slurpee Bowl
I guess it’s considered an upset when the #7 ranked team loses to the #11 ranked team, but Coach DeBoer got the full Rocky Top experience. Tennessee’s win puts them back into the top 10 after a quick stint outside of it.
Now comes the bigger question - does Alabama stay within the top 12? According to the algorithm, the answer is yes, but definitely a tough sell to put them ahead of an undefeated BYU team, and one loss teams Notre Dame, Texas A&M, and Kansas State.
The U Survives The Ville
After back to back shaky games, Miami was able to win a shootout on the road against Louisville. Besides the TEX vs UGA and ALA vs TENN games, this was by far the most entertaining game of the day. Louisville had a chance at the end with an onside kick that was…not good…but, for fun, what would have happened if Louisville grabs the onside kick, scores a miraculous touchdown, and ignites a storming of the field by the fans with a successful two point conversion? What would the rankings look like?
There are two main points of focus this would cause:
Miami drops all the way down to #12. This gives more room for teams like LSU, Tennessee, Clemson, and Indiana to move up a spot they wouldn’t have.
Louisville comes back into the discussion of being in the AP Top 25 by climbing back up into #21. It would be their most season defining win by far.
Hoosier Daddy
Ok, I’m sold - Indiana is for real. If you remember Friday’s newsletter, with all the expected outcomes of the games Indiana was predicted to move up to #13 in the rankings. That included Tennessee moving out from #11 too, meaning there was a free slot to move up that wasn’t related to the performance of how well they beat Nebraska.
Well, it was blowout. Nebraska was #27 in the latest AP poll, so although this was an unranked win for Indiana, but the margin of victory was SO large the AP model expects the Hoosiers to move up to #11. The biggest jump up for any team that was already in the top 25, which is saying something for a middle of the pack ranked team against an unranked opponent.
Bad Bye Week
As if Ohio State didn’t have enough of a tough trip back home, they might have even lost more ground in the AP poll while taking a break. According to the algorithm, Georgia’s win against Texas puts BOTH TEAMS ahead of the Buckeyes. So there goes one spot. Then, you have Miami’s big win on the road being impressive enough for the algorithm to put them ahead of Ohio State.
Is dropping two spots on a bye week normal? Not really. Excluding the week of conference championships since almost every team has a bye, since 2010 (and excluding that dreadful 2020 season) there have been 439 times where a team has had a bye week while being ranked.
Of those 439 times, only five times has a team dropped two spots in the rankings (1.1%)
Of those 439 times, there have been 45 times where a team has dropped at least 1 spot (10.2%)
How about the other way around, how much has a team moved up in the rankings after a bye? Check out UT San Antonio moving up SEVEN spots in the rankings after a bye week in 2021.
A Very Interesting Dilemma
We’re getting closer and closer to the November 5th release of the College Football Selection Committee’s playoff rankings, but it’s still fun to take a look at how the rankings would look right now according to the algorithm. Observing the current setup of this algorithm, there is one glaring enigma. Can you spot it?
Texas still #1?! At first I thought the predictions hadn’t updated, but then seeing all of the finalized scores, I had to really sit there and figure out what could be wrong.
“It’s not that the algorithm forgot to give Texas their loss, but Texas was SO FAR ahead of the rest of the pack that even with a loss they are still considered the best team in the country”
- The AP algorithm, if it could speak
With Georgia sitting at #3 and now holding a W over Texas, those top three rankings become very interesting. Should it be Oregon, Georgia, Texas? Do Georgia and Texas flip? Does the AP poll give better guidance of what the results will actually be?
Other than that, the AP poll doesn’t seem all that different than the CFB
What’s Next?
Newsletter Monday morning evaluating the Rankings Right Now final predictions with the true Week 9 AP poll rankings
New predictions and simulation results for Week 9, predicting Week 10, will start to roll out on the website and social media late Monday night
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