College Football Non-Conference Power Rankings: Week 3

We're making progress! Last week we saw some huge upsets in the realm of college football despite continued scheduling of cupcakes, which is an encouraging sign. I had read something earlier this week on Grantland that suggested the gap between major conferences and mid-major conferences is closing. It may also be impacted by the upcoming playoff (which, in the author's view, is still going to be a broken and biased system). Whatever the case, schedules may be bound to change and if it renders this series of posts unnecessary, it's for the betterment of college football... and that's all that matters, yo.

As for this season, Week 3 started Thursday with a Big East battle. I apologize for this coming out late, but technical issues and a possibly dead laptop battery didn't help my scheduling.

After 3 weeks, the conference rankings are below. Click here for last week's rankings.

1. Mid-American Conference (17; 50): After a week out of the top spot, schools like UMass and Western and Eastern Michigan hit the road against tough opponents to put the MAC back on top. There were some in-conference games and bye weeks to temper the move, and Akron hosted a cupcake, but overall a strong showing once again.
2. Conference-USA (13; 46): Only Houston and UAB played tough road games and became sacrificial lambs, though Rice lost a tough road game and SMU hosted Texas A&M, so a pretty tough slate again this week. Tulsa lost points for beating up on Nicholls State.
3. Big 10 (10; 44): Northwestern and Ohio State were the only schools that played a major conference team, and everyone else was home to smaller schools. Shame is put especially on Illinois and Iowa, who hosted cupcakes and helped the Big Ten fall to 3rd this week.
4. Sun Belt (27; 40): These guys saw a huge jump as only Troy played at home this week, and that was against the SEC's Mississippi State. Everyone else hit the road, with 7 teams facing big conference opponents. Western Kentucky (another big SEC upset!) and Middle Tennessee were the only winners, but some credit does need to go to these athletic directors for not laying down.
5. Pac-12 (11; 36): Cal and ASU hit the road for tough games, and that was partially offset by Arizona and Washington giving away money for a beatdown. The USC-Stanford game didn't help or hurt the ranking here, but it will make USC an interesting case study for the upcoming Death to the BCS playoffs.
6. Mountain West Conference (6; 33): Not a good overall showing for these guys this week. Only New Mexico went to the slaughter while Hawaii, Nevada, SDSU and Wyoming hosted D-IAA schools. Wyoming paid its price with a loss, but it still doesn't make up any points.
7. SEC (12; 30): Bye weeks and conference matchups didn't help the cause any, but the damage this week was minimal as only Vanderbilt hosted a cupcake. There were no big conference road games, but Texas A&M and Mississippi State were on the road this week, while Missouri and Ole Miss hosted big time opponents. After an opening week with 4 cupcakes scheduled, the SEC has been good about avoiding its stereotype, with a combined 2 cupcakes the last 2 weekends.
8. WAC (11; 22): It's a small conference, but they score fairly well for that level as Utah State and Idaho got money for their troubles, and no cupcakes were in sight.
9. ACC (9; 20): Finally these guys earned some respect with a few tough road games (Boston College, North Carolina and Virginia Tech left the comforts of home). However, the cupcake problem still isn't solved as Clemson, Duke and Miami all hosted FCS squads.
10. Big East (5; 16): UConn went to Maryland and got a win, Pitt scored a home upset and Louisville knocked off a tough ACC foe. Cincy and Syracuse took penalties for cupcakes to offset this. Having conference games every Thursday doesn't help the score either.
11. Big XII (3; 15): Kansas played TCU, which didn't help the score, but with only Texas facing a major conference team on the road (blowing out Ole Miss), there wasn't much room for growth with Baylor, ISU and West Virginia knocking off cupcakes.

I will again freely admit, this scoring system is not perfect. I think the theory behind scoring for teams is good, but I will have an adjustment at the end of the season regarding conference scores. Looking at the standings, most of the bigger conferences rest on top, except the 14 team SEC which has stayed more in the middle. The bottom 3 conferences (all major ones interestingly) are the smaller 3 of the big conferences. It does hold somewhat of a candle to the theory of cupcake scheduling, but with some adjustments near the end of the season we'll see how well the theory holds up. Enjoy your NFL Sunday everyone! I know I enjoyed Thursday.