CFB · RANKINGS · AP-TOP-25 · QUADS · BYU · GEORGIA
BYU Earned No. 2. Georgia Didn't Earn No. 5. Grading the AP Top 25, Week 8
By MVPeav · @MVPeav ·
Georgia lost at home to a 4-2 Auburn team and the AP docked them 4 spots. That's the week in one sentence.
The rest of the poll is mostly fine. Some of it is better than fine: BYU at No. 2 is right, Ohio State at No. 3 is right, and Tennessee and Alabama trading places is exactly how a poll is supposed to work (even if one of those stung).
But there's a pattern in the parts that are wrong, and it's the same pattern every October. The voters know what a Georgia helmet looks like. They know what a Notre Dame helmet looks like. They are not entirely sure where Lexington, Kentucky is.
So let's grade it.
Credit Where It's Due: BYU, Ohio State and the Tennessee Flip
BYU went from No. 8 to No. 2 with 20 first-place votes, and I don't have a word of complaint. My Quads have them No. 1.
Quick word on what that means, because it comes up all article. My Quads are a résumé ranking: every win and every loss gets graded by how good the opponent is and where the game was played, same idea as basketball's NET quads. It measures what a team has done, not how good the team is. Keep that in your pocket, because that gap is the whole story this week.
On what they've done, BYU is the best team in the country. They're 6-0 with a 28-24 win over Notre Dame (SP+ #4) and a 28-17 win over Arizona (SP+ #15), which is two wins over top-15 teams before most contenders have played one. The Notre Dame game ended the way you'd want a résumé win to end: Bear Bachmeier's 6-yard TD to Walker Lyons with 1:47 left, then a goal-line stand to hold it (although there is understandably alot of different opinions about the no call and the game clock).
Ohio State at No. 3 is clean too. They went to Bloomington and beat Indiana (SP+ #5) 19-15, which makes them 2-1 against Q1 opponents, and they're my No. 3 as well. Ugly score, great win. That's the kind of game that should move a team and did.
Then the swap. Tennessee went from No. 14 to No. 11 after beating Alabama 26-10; I have them No. 10. Bama fell from No. 6 to No. 13; I have them No. 12. Unfortunately that's about right for my guys. The Tide are 0-2 against Q1 competition, and a résumé that can't win its biggest games doesn't get to sit in the top 10 on reputation. The voters saw it that way. Good. Now hold that thought.
Georgia Lost at Home to a 4-2 Team and Fell... Four Spots
Because here's where the voters stopped seeing it that way.
Georgia was No. 1. Auburn (SP+ #42) walked into Athens as a double-digit underdog, trailed 14-0 early, and won 27-24 on Alex McPherson's 34-yard field goal as time expired. Auburn is 4-2. Auburn lost to Florida 44-39 and lost at Tennessee 24-14. That's the team that beat the No. 1 team in the country, in its own stadium, on the last snap.
And the AP's response was to move Georgia to No. 5. My Quads have Georgia at No. 15, down from No. 1 a week ago, which is what happens when the worst loss on your résumé is also the only loss on your résumé.
The defense of the ranking writes itself, and I'll give it a fair hearing. Georgia out-gained Auburn 440-366. Stockton threw 2 interceptions and fumbled at the Auburn 46 with 58 seconds left, and if you flip any one of those three plays Georgia probably wins. SP+ still has them #2. Good team, bad night.
I don't disagree with any of that. I just don't think "we were the better team and lost anyway" is a résumé argument. It's a power-rating argument, and the poll already had Georgia's power baked in at No. 1. What changed Saturday is the résumé, and the résumé now has a home loss to a 4-2 team on it.
The loss hurts, obviously, but what the voters are really clinging to with Georgia is the win over Bama. And Bama took a hit of its own this week in Knoxville. The crown jewel on Georgia's résumé got a little duller the same weekend the résumé itself cracked, and the AP priced in neither.
Meanwhile Auburn, the team that did the deed, got 61 votes and no ranking. My Quads have them No. 23, and I'm not going to pretend a 4-2 team with a loss to Florida is a top-15 outfit. But if beating the No. 1 team on the road isn't enough to get you into the 25, I'd like to know what is.
The Brand-Name Discount: Notre Dame at 4, Miami at 1
Notre Dame is the Georgia problem with an Irish accent.
The Irish lost at BYU. That was their only Q1 game, so they're 0-1 in the games that actually grade a résumé. Their best wins are Wisconsin (SP+ #43) on a neutral field, 41-13, and at North Carolina (SP+ #54), 37-26. Both Q2. Perfectly nice wins. Not top-5 wins.
The AP dropped them 2 spots to No. 4. My Quads have them No. 13.
What makes it worse is who they're sitting ahead of. Indiana lost 19-15 at home to Ohio State, a team the AP itself has at No. 3, and fell to No. 6. So the team that lost by 4 to the No. 3 team is behind the team that lost to the No. 2 team on a last-play incompletion, except Indiana has actually beaten somebody along the way. I have Indiana No. 7 and Notre Dame No. 13, and I'd argue that order harder than almost any other on the sheet.
Then Miami. The Hurricanes are No. 1 with 40 first-place votes, and I get it: they're 6-0 and SP+ has them #3. There's a real case for them, and it's a power case, and on power they belong near the top.
But on résumé they're my No. 9, and here's why. Miami's only Q1 win is 33-20 at Wake Forest. That's it. Saturday they beat Florida State 43-35, and Florida State is SP+ #55, which makes that a Q3 game. The No. 1 team in America spent its weekend in a shootout with a Q3 opponent and got rewarded for it because the two teams above it lost.
That's not a knock on Miami. Unbeaten is unbeaten, and they didn't schedule FSU to be #55. It's a knock on the idea that No. 1 is a trophy for still standing rather than a grade for what you've beaten (tho I'll admit the "still standing" part is not nothing in this sport).
Climbing on Vibes: LSU and Utah
LSU went up 4 spots to No. 18 for beating Mississippi State 31-0. A shutout looks great on the ticker. Mississippi State is SP+ #48. That's a Q3 win.
LSU has 2 losses, 24-32 at Ole Miss and 34-35 at Kentucky, and its best win all year is 35-6 over Texas A&M (SP+ #33), a Q2 game. Put it together and you get a team that is 0-1 in Q1 games, has zero Q1 wins, and is my No. 31. The AP has them at 18 because SP+ has them #6 and because 31-0 is a fun number to look at.
Utah is the gentler version of the same thing. The Utes are 6-0 and moved up to No. 10 after a 27-24 win at Colorado (SP+ #80), a Q3 game they nearly dropped. Their best wins are Kansas (SP+ #58) and at Iowa State (SP+ #68). No Q1 wins, no Q2 wins. Not one.
My Quads have Utah No. 18, and honestly that feels generous. I'm not saying Utah isn't good; SP+ has them #10 and a 6-0 team has earned some patience. I'm saying nobody can tell you who they've beaten, and "nobody can tell you who they've beaten" shouldn't come with a top-10 ranking attached.
Where My Quads Go Rogue: Kentucky, Houston and the Teams the AP Left Out
Now the part where I sound like a crazy person, so let me set it up right.
My Quads have Kentucky at No. 2. The AP has them 12th, up from 15th. SP+ has them #45. I am not telling you Kentucky is the second-best team in the country, and anyone who reads my rank that way is reading it wrong.
What I'm telling you is what Kentucky has done. They beat LSU 35-34. They won at South Carolina 35-34. They went to Norman on Saturday and beat Oklahoma 21-13. One loss, a Q1 win, and three road-or-near-road wins over real programs. Georgia and Notre Dame both lost the game they played this weekend; Kentucky kept winning theirs. On the "what have you actually done" test there's no comparison, which is exactly why the test exists.
Houston is the same argument. They're my No. 5, the AP has them 14th. They beat Oklahoma State (SP+ #27) 35-32 and won 35-16 at Kansas State (SP+ #29), and the only loss is 26-28 at Texas Tech. That's a 6-1 team whose one loss is a 2-point road loss, and it took until Week 8 for the voters to put them in the top 15.
Then the three teams in my 25 who aren't in the AP's at all. Auburn I covered: my No. 23, 61 votes, beat the No. 1 team on the road. James Madison is 7-0 and my No. 19 with 52 votes, and I'll be fair here, because the wins are all Q3 and Q4: Liberty (SP+ #46), at Georgia Southern (SP+ #85). That's a real résumé for a Group of 5 team and a thin one for a top-25 argument. I'd rank them; I understand why a voter wouldn't.
Oregon is the strange one. They're 4-2 with losses to Oklahoma State and UCLA, which is a rough pair of losses. But they beat USC 41-27 on the road, a Q1 win, and beat Nebraska 17-14. My Quads have them No. 24 on that USC result, and the AP has them at 79 votes and out. That's the right debate to be having, tho: a Q1 road win against two bad losses. The Georgia-at-5 debate is not a real debate.
The One Ranking That Has to Change Next Week
Georgia at No. 5 can't survive another week. Not because they'll lose again, necessarily, but because the ranking makes no sense next to what the voters did everywhere else.
The AP dropped Alabama 7 spots for losing a Q1 road game to a team ranked 11th. It dropped Missouri 9 spots to No. 22 for losing 31-3 at an Ole Miss team it has at No. 7 (and I have at No. 6). Those are résumé moves. Then it dropped Georgia 4 spots for losing at home to an unranked 4-2 team. That's a brand move. You can't run both systems in the same poll and expect anyone to take the numbers seriously.
So here's the fix. One-loss teams with real wins go ahead of one-loss teams whose only real game was a loss. Kentucky is 6-1 with a Q1 win over LSU and a road win at Oklahoma. Georgia is 6-1 with a home loss to Auburn. One of those résumés is a top-5 résumé this week and it isn't the one in red and black.
Georgia will get its chances to climb back, and if the Dawgs win out they'll deserve every spot. They just have to earn them the way everybody else does. The AP spent Saturday afternoon proving it knows how to grade a loss. It just forgot to grade this one.