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My Ranking (11/16/09)

I like to take as objective a look for rankings such as these and am often surprised by the results of my approach.  I've taken a look at the accomplishments (or lack thereof, as the case may be) of every single team with three losses or less so far this season.  I assigned numerical values to wins (one point fora  victory over a three-loss team, two points for a two-loss team and three points for a one-loss team), losses (+4 for losing to an undefeated team, +3 for every one-loss team, +2 for every two-loss team and +1 for every three-loss team) and record (being undefeated means you "start" with nothing in the loss column, if you have one loss you start at -5, two losses at -10 and three loss at -15).  Ties, which are fairly common, are broken by quality of wins first and then quality of average opponent second.  I sometimes allow for some subjective distinctions, such as making sure the winner of a head-to-head match-up is ranked above the loser if their scores are within one point of each.  I do this all by hand, so this is about as close as I can get to what I believe is fair and there's also the possibility of human error during tabulation.  That's about it for methodology, so if you're still curious about the results, please follow me below the fold!

  1. TCU
  2. Alabama
  3. Cincinnati
  4. Florida
  5. Texas
  6. Boise State
  7. Georgia Tech
  8. Pittsburgh
  9. Ohio State
  10. Oregon
  11. LSU
  12. Iowa
  13. Rutgers
  14. Penn State
  15. Oklahoma State
  16. Utah
  17. Virginia Tech
  18. Wisconsin
  19. Brigham Young
  20. Clemson
  21. Temple
  22. Oregon State
  23. Houston
  24. Central Michigan
  25. USC
  • Others Considered (in order): Arizona, Navy, Miami, Stanford, UNC, Cal, Troy, Boston College, Ole Miss, West Virginia, Northern Illinois, Middle Tennessee State, Nebraska, Nevada and Ohio.

I wanted to add a few notes as for my first impression of this list: don't fret about UF being #4, because the SEC Championship Game gives them enough potential to earn the #2 spot... the SEC is having a woefully down year, what with LSU receiving a reprieve only because it's two losses are to unbeaten teams and Ole Miss barely on the radar now... 35% of the teams mentioned above do not have a single victory over a team with three losses or fewer... the three teams with the most impressive win quality totals are Ohio State, Iowa and TCU... the five teams with the most impressive loss quality totals are Virginia Tech, LSU, Rutgers, Clemson and Navy...

Well, that's it for me.  I hope you find these interesting and informative.  I'd be happy to field any questions and/or comments below, so feel free to chime in.  I just ask that you keep an open mind and remain civil.  Oh, and one more thing: go Gators!

A FanPost gives the opinion of the fan who writes it and that fan only. That doesn't give the opinion more or less weight than any other opinion on this blog, but the post does not necessarily reflect the view of TSK's writers.

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