College Football Rankings Discussion

First of all, you may have noticed that Arizona State somehow made the top 10 in my rankings. I am not advocating that they should be ranked that high in the polls, but if you look at the quality of their losses, you will see that 5 of their 6 losses came to teams ranked in the top 11 of these rankings, and that 4 of those 5 losses came by a combined 17 points.

You may also notice that BCS #2 Auburn is clear down at #7, the lowest of the unbeatens. There is good reason for this. They have played only 3 teams ranked in my current top 25, and 3 teams ranked in the bottom 30. Overall strength of schedule will be discussed more later, but that is the culprit behind Auburn's ranking.

Oklahoma State and Nebraska have very low rankings for 1-loss teams from a power conference. Oklahoma State's problem is the one win over a ranked opponent, and Nebraska has the loss to Texas dragging it down. Michigan State, meanwhile, doesn't even appear in my top 25. Once again, they only have one win over a ranked opponent, and one huge loss to Iowa. Scheduling Northern Colorado, Florida Atlantic, and Western Michigan as nonconference foes doesn't help either.

Ranked teams by conference:
Pac-10: 6
SEC: 5
Big 12: 5
Big 10: 3
ACC: 3
WAC: 2
MWC: 1
Big East: 0

Overall conference rankings:
Pac-10: -24.06
SEC: -18.68
Big 10: -13.41
ACC: -13.03
Big 12: -12.95
Big East: -12.61
WAC: -7.38
MWC: -4.79
CUSA: 0.94
MAC: 2.55
Sun Belt: 5.43

These rankings show that there are really 2 power conferences, with 4 good conferences, 2 above average, and 3 below average currently.