Top 25

1.LSU
2. Alabama
3. Oklahoma State
4. Oregon
5. Stanford
6. Boise State
7. Arkansas
8. Wisconsin
9. South Carolina
10. Kansas State
11. Michigan
12. Virginia Tech
13. Michigan State
14. TCU
15. Baylor
16. Georgia
17. Clemson
18. Nebraska
19. Oklahoma
20. Penn State
21. Southern Mississippi
22. Houston
23. West Virginia
24. Florida State
25. Cincinnati

For those curious, Mark Dantonio has Michigan State No. 12 and Michigan No. 13. And Virginia Tech coach Frank Beamer had the Wolverines at No. 14.

Also interesting, LSU coach Les Miles was one of three coaches to have Michigan at No. 8 in his final poll -- joining Air Force's Troy Calhoun and Fresno State's Pat Hill. Wake Forest's Jim Grobe and San Diego State's Rocky Long had Michigan at its lowest position, No. 18. 

Very weird/bitter Long would put Hoke at 18 after losing to the Wolverines and working for/with Coach Hoke and Borges.

I think this is a fun exercise this week what with all the madness:

1)LSU 2)Bama...huge gap...3)Arkansas 4)Stanford 5)VT

6)Houston 7)Oregon 8)OK St 9)Sparty 10)Boise

11)USC 12)OU 13)UGA 14)USC 15)Wiscy

16)K St 17)Mich 18)Baylor 19)TCU 20)Penn St

21)Clemson 22)Neb 23)ND 24)UVA 25)Tulsa

and the difference between 3 and 24 is not so great

Wouldn't it just be right for UVA to knock off VT next weekend? AND NW to knock off Sparty? Along with SEC drama? But alas, this isn't 2007. I feel like this was the weekend for all the craziness, and from here on out things will remain somewhat sensible. But then again, I thought the offense would have to carry us this season. So what do I know?

This is a continuation of my post after week 1. Since week 1 the rankings have shaken out much more and unsurprisingly Sacramento State dropped out of the top 25 college football resumes. Points are determined by a combination of opponent ranking, winning, and margin of victory. I am still using Sagarin's rankings but I will begin to use my resume rankings in the next few weeks as more data points are accumulated. The decimal number in the right column represents the percentage of the first place team's points that each team has. Because a few teams have had byes, I have taken the average points accumulated per game to rank the teams. Here are the rankings for week 2:

Michigan is in the top 15. This is more a product of the weak schedules of other teams than an endorsement of Michigan's resume. This numbers do not include last night's game, LSU will certainly move up next week. We should be big fans of ND and Western this weekend as their success improves our resume.

I'm still tinkering with my model, but up to this point is seems reasonable. 

For this college football season I set out on a little project to determine what college football rankings would look like based solely on how teams performed on the field. I admit there are inherent weaknesses in this model as I have to use someone else's rankings which are not completely based on on-field results.

However here is the gist of my model: teams get awarded points for a victory, with more points being awarded for beating a higher ranked team. Rankings were from Sagarin as his were the only rankings I could find that went past the top 25 teams. Points were also given/taken away based on the point differential up to a cap of 21 points. I decided that wins/losses of 21+ were all the same, but I am considering increasing the cap. Additional points were given for away wins and taken away for home losses.

Keep in mind that I am still tinkering with the model and it is far from complete. The usual caveat of small sample sizes applies. Here is the top 15 as my model stands now:

That's right, Sacramento State is the fifth best team in the country after beating Oregon State week one. The top three isn't much of a surprise and the rest of the list seems to make sense. For the record Michigan was one of a group of teams that had slightly fewer points than Mississippi State.

I plan to continue updating this model throughout the season so any and all feedback would be appreciated. I'm also considering applying this to college basketball, I think it may even be more relevant for that.

Because they have a long stretch of minimal college football activity ahead of them, ESPN has naturally released an early preseason poll.  I don't have a problem with too many of the rankings, but Notre Dame at 14? Really? I know it's unofficial but ND's preseason rankings surprise me without actually surprising me every year. Some are head scratchers.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/columns/story?columnist=schlabach_mark&id=6087284

1. Oklahoma Sooners

2. Alabama Crimson Tide

3. Florida State Seminoles

4. LSU Tigers

5. Oregon Ducks

6. Ohio State Buckeyes

7. Stanford Cardinal

8. Boise State Broncos

9. TCU Horned Frogs

10. Oklahoma State Cowboys

11. Arkansas Razorbacks

12. Texas A&M Aggies

13. Wisconsin Badgers

14. Notre Dame Fighting Irish

15. South Carolina Gamecocks

16. Michigan State Spartans

17. Auburn Tigers

18. Georgia Bulldogs

19. Texas Longhorns

20. Florida Gators

21. Missouri Tigers

22. Virginia Tech Hokies

23. Arizona State Sun Devils

.24. Nebraska Cornhuskers

25. Mississippi State Bulldogs

Per Pat forde's tweets:

Phil's Top 10: 1. Oklahoma; 2. Ohio State; 3. Alabama; 4. TCU; 5. Nebraska; 6. Boise State; 7. Florida; 8. USC; 9. Miami; 10. Oregon.  11. Texas 12. UNC 13. VT 14. Iowa 15. Aub16. ND 17. Ark 18. Penn St. 19. UGA 20. FSU 21. S. Car. 22. WVU 23. Wisc 24. Hou.  25. Arizona