College Football Non-Conference Power Rankings: Week 4

It's Week 4 in the NCAA football season, and I think it's time for the power rankings to change. Conference play is really starting to pick up at this point; while some schools have played a game or 2 in conference, the Pac-12 has all in-conference games this week. This makes my formula not work anymore, as the Pac-12 would unfairly fall in the rankings. I felt that it worked okay for the first few weeks, but really looking at this week's slate and talking to my dad who came up with an improved way to use the formula to evaluate conferences' outside tilts, I decided it's time for the overhaul.

The scoring system for each school will not change. For the first 3 weeks of the season I added up the scores of each school in a given conference and took that as the conference's score. The obvious issue here is that, while the rankings did give a fairly accurate rating of where each conference stood, it neglected the factor of conference size. The top 3 conferences in last week's rankings were all 12 or 13-team conferences, while near the bottom we saw conferences like the Big XII (down to 10 teams) and the 8-team Big East in the bottom 2 slots. The SEC is the largest conference at 14 teams, so size isn't the end-all, be-all factor, but it's enough to impact the rankings. The easy solution my dad came up with? Take the average score of each school in a conference, instead of the sum. So that's what we will do from here on out. The scores posted weekly will still be cumulative over the course of the season.

As a result, the rankings will probably look a lot different than they have the first couple weeks, but it was a change I needed to make. A link to last week's rankings is above and as follows are the new rankings.

1. Conference-USA (5.25): While the aggregate score would have only been good enough for 2nd in the previous format,when you average it all out, these teams have scheduled strong teams.As for this week, some conference play has started but the non-conference games are all against FBS foes with East Carolina, Memphis, UAB and UTEP all undertaking tough road tests.
2. Sun Belt (5): This was a tough call in a tie with #3, broken based on the highest weekly score, which the Sun Belt got last week for 7 teams facing major conference opponents. They took a step down this week with Arkansas State hosting a cupcake, but Florida Atlantic and South Alabama both hit the road against major conference schools.
3. MAC (5): Some of the tiebreakers I came up with were size-biased (for example, a ratio of games at big conference opponents to game hosting D-IAA schools) so I opted for the tiebreaker above. It's still a respectable slate this week, with Akron, Bowling Green, and Central and Eastern Michigan off to big schools. Ohio is hosting a cupcake to bring down the slate this week however.
4. Big Ten (4.33): The top scheduling major conference wasn't as strong this week as in previous ones, as Nebraska and Northwestern host cupcakes. This is offset a little by decent games for Michigan and Minnesota. Overall though the B1G has scheduled very well.
5. Mountain West (4.1): The Mountain West does take a bit of a step up with the new formula, but nothing too special about this week's slate. Fresno State and Wyoming have decent games scheduled, but their aggregate score this week was a little lower with conference play underway.
6. Big East (3.75): A strong showing by a conference many fear is dying, the Big East had its best week with only Pitt hosting an FCS squad. Tough road games for Syracuse, Temple and Rutgers give them a good week to put the conference in the middle of the pack.
7. WAC (3.71): Karl Malone's alma mater (LA Tech) is off to be a sacrificial lamb (Karl Malone just don't want to blood squirtin' Karl Malone in the eye), and that is enough to offset a pair of cupcake games by Texas State and UTSA. For Texas-San Antonio, it's a contest against D-II's Northwestern Oklahoma State University, their second D-II contest of the season, and for the purposes of the Death to the BCS playoffs, UTSA is disqualified. I don't care that this is a WAC team, their out of conference schedule has been ludicrous.
8. Pac-12 (3): Everyone in conference is either off this week or playing each other, so to continue with aggregate scores would have been unfair solely because of these guys. A drop from 5th to 8th is a sign that there probably was some inflation due to conference size. The average score of 3 indicates that the average Pac-12 school scheduled 3 home games against mid majors, though there are a few tough road games and some cupcake scheduling.
9. SEC (2.57): Having 14 teams got them to the middle of the pack in the aggregate rankings, but the average is clearly a problem overall. The SEC has played a grand total of 2 road games against major conference opponents, though there have been some neutral site games involved. There have also been some conference games going on since Week 2, and the conference reputation isn't helped by 7 cupcake games, 1 this week by Texas A&M. To be fair, the SEC has paid the price a little bit thus far for its weak scheduling with some supposed sacrificial lambs losing to these FCS teams.
10. ACC (2.42): The score here is a little out of whack as Georgia Tech has only played one game out of conference (but it was against an FCS team). This week Maryland and Virginia hit the road for tough games and NC State hosts a cupcake. Florida State is also on serious watch after having played a pair of FCS schools. They definitely aren't deserving of their AP rank.
11. Big XII (2.3): Much of conference play will begin this week, but it's easy to see how this conference ranks last when of the 10 schools, all but Texas have played a cupcake. This week however, Baylor and Kansas hit the road while TCU and West Virginia host big conference teams.

The move to average scores does highlight the cupcake problem in college football, but it's not just the big schools that do it. The hope continues to be that everyone will schedule tougher when the playoffs begin. As for our Death to the BCS playoffs coming in December, these scores will be taken into account when picking the at large teams and seeding everyone.