Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Week 11: Top 25 -- TFG

With four weeks left in the season before conference championships start, we're down to four undefeated teams. One top team passed a challenge with flying colors, while another hopeful dropped a must-win game.

Rank +/- Team WinPct SoS Off Pts Def Pts Pace
001-- TCU 0.9653 0.4606 28.9 7.0 80.4
002-- Boise St. 0.9327 0.4010 30.4 10.0 82.0
003+1 Ohio St. 0.9173 0.4644 26.6 9.6 80.1
004-1 Alabama 0.9112 0.6274 27.0 10.0 78.1
005-- Iowa 0.8715 0.5576 22.6 10.0 80.6
006+1 Oregon 0.8695 0.5433 26.0 11.7 93.1
007-1 Virginia Tech 0.8597 0.5489 27.5 12.8 79.2
008+1 Florida 0.8576 0.6234 26.0 12.3 81.2
009+3 LSU 0.8442 0.6733 23.7 11.6 79.1
010-2 Oklahoma 0.8277 0.5987 21.2 11.0 91.8
011-1 Utah 0.8173 0.4095 25.7 13.8 81.5
012-1 Nebraska 0.8035 0.5111 24.9 13.8 80.6
013-- Auburn 0.7912 0.6098 26.7 15.3 84.0
014+2 Stanford 0.7886 0.5580 28.1 16.1 81.5
015+4 Arkansas 0.7746 0.6313 26.8 15.9 82.5
016-2 Arizona 0.7456 0.5814 19.6 12.5 84.9
017+1 Miami-FL 0.7439 0.6175 20.4 13.0 85.1
018+7 Georgia 0.7410 0.5922 25.8 16.6 77.1
019-2 USC 0.7406 0.5704 23.5 15.1 84.6
020-5 Missouri 0.7387 0.5650 20.6 13.1 85.6
021+2 Pittsburgh 0.7330 0.5595 23.0 15.1 80.1
022+2 Penn State 0.7306 0.5992 19.1 12.5 80.5
023NA Oklahoma St. 0.7239 0.5198 23.8 15.9 89.4
024NA Wisconsin 0.7198 0.5403 25.2 16.9 80.2
025NA Clemson 0.7176 0.5937 18.4 12.3 81.8

New entries: Oklahoma State, Wisconsin, Clemson.

Dropped out: Oregon State, South Carolina, Texas.

For the fourth time in five weeks, Clemson makes an appearance in our "New entries"/"Dropped out" list. The Tigers continue to hover around the (25) spot and vault Florida State as the third-best team in a continually crazy ACC.

At the top, however, TCU continues to do everything they can to impress both the computers and the humans of the BCS. In this case they visited the (11) Utah Utes and stomped their hosts by 40. TCU's defensive efficiency continues to plummet to simply unreal levels, this time hitting 7.0 PPH. (3) Ohio State posts the second-best defense in I-A, but is a full 2.6 PPH behind TCU. To put TCU's defensive effort into perspective, the last time a Utah team was held to single digits was a 27-0 loss to UNLV in September of 2007.

(2) Boise State solidifies its hold on the second spot, as (3) Ohio State's off week allowed them to leapfrog a (4) Alabama team that lost a close game to (9) LSU. (5) Iowa held on for a close win, thanks once again to defense.

(6) Oregon is still moving in the right direction in the rankings, but is still held back by the new feature introduced into the rankings this year: adjusted yardage efficiency. The Ducks score in spades -- they have the 8th most-efficient offense this year -- but don't get many yards per play. In fact, Oregon ranks 37th in adjusted yardage efficiency, with just 363 yards per 100 plays (YPH). Compare this to Auburn (415 YPH), Boise State (429 YPH) or TCU (438 YPH). Oregon's style on offense includes a lot of quick, short hits, and the occasional long strike that gets opened by having worn down the defense. Taking out the yardage efficiency wouldn't move Oregon above 6th, but it would put the Ducks much closer to the top tier.

Later this week we'll take one last look at the four remaining undefeated teams, as well as a handful of the one-loss teams that could shake things up.