College Football Non-Conference Power Rankings: Week 5

It's Week 5- you can start to see the cream of the crop rise to the top of the rankings. It's not as convoluted as we near the end of September to start ranking these college football teams for what matters for 2 more years.

I think the new non-conference ranking worked out pretty well this past week in that taking the conference's scheduling outside of itself on a team average basis instead of a cumulative basis really worked well in figuring out which teams schedule better than others. These rankings start to take less meaning now that conference play is really starting to kick in all over this week, but there will still be the occasional out of conference game that will be played that needs to be taken into account when the Death to the BCS Playoffs begin. So without further ado, here's where we stand after 5 weeks of schedule analysis.

1. Conference-USA (6.08): Marshall has its second big school road test of the year (Purdue), with Southern Miss, UCF and SMU all getting one more big game in (Louisville, Missiouri and TCU, respectively) before they start conference play. They've also managed as a conference just 5 games against FCS competition in 5 weeks of the season. Impressive.
2. Sun Belt (5.5): Middle Tennessee gets to be a sacrificial lamb for Georgia Tech while Louisiana-Monroe gets a decent road test in Tulane. Other than that it's all byes or conference games. The Sun Belt had 7 FCS opponents through 5 weeks with all but one coming in the first 2.
3. MAC (5.15): This week Bowling Green hosts a cupcake while Buffalo is off to UConn. Bowling Green brings the MAC's total of cupcakes to 11 for the year, with only UMass and Ball State having the dignity to not face an FCS team yet this season.
4. WAC (5.14): No rounding was needed to determine the MAC/WAC placement. The WAC has a really tough schedule this week though, with Idaho (UNC) and Louisiana Tech (Virginia) off to ACC country. UTSA and New Mexico State open conference play, finally putting an end to the Roadrunners' sham of a schedule so far. Tech, as the only school without a cupcake so far helps offset the average and keeping the WAC toward the upper end of the rankings.
5. Mountain West (4.7): Hawaii, Nevada and UNLV are all on the road this week against non-conference FBS opponents. Nobody in big conferences, but still a good showing. Continuing with a trend of these conferences not having many schools without a cupcake to their name continues, as only Boise State has this distinction here.
6. Big East (4.63): I didn't realize until I started writing this that this is the first of the "major" 6 conferences to appear in this week's rankings... which kind of proves my original hypothesis, though not completely. The mid major conferences seem to have more out of conference tilts right now, which I do think skews the rankings a tad (not to mention half the conference being off this week), but Louisville is on the road, and South Florida and Cincy are facing big conference teams. That being said, UConn is the only team without a cupcake so far.
7. Big Ten (4.42): Another one that seems a little unfair with only Purdue facing a team out of conference, which helps explain the drop into the lower half. However a third of the conference hasn't had an FCS team on slate yet (both Michigan schools, as well as OSU and PSU). And even with those cupcakes, there have been some decent schedules (I look at Northwestern in particular).
8. ACC (3.08): Amazing what happens when FSU finally decides to get off its butt and hit the road while Virginia Tech is off to a neutral site against Cincy. Took the ACC long enough. Every team there has a cupcake on its resume (and remember, FSU has 2).
9. Pac-12 (3): No change from last week, as again, everyone is either off or facing other Pac-12 teams. Just over half the conference has a cupcake already faced with both Oregon schools, Stanford, USC and UCLA all avoiding that scarlet letter. Yet looking at their cumulative score they have one fewer point than the next conference down, a big reason why using averages is important.
10. SEC (2.64): Missouri is at UCF this weekend, but that's offset by LSU needing a recovery from barely getting by Auburn in Towson. This Tigers game puts them at over half of the conference hosting an FCS team this year. To give the polls some credibility, #1 Alabama is one of the schools that hasn't yet.
11. Big XII (2.5): These rankings have not been kind here. But when only Texas has held its head high without an FCS team in sight, there are some problems in house. This week, TCU's trip to SMU is the only game bringing points to an otherwise dismal non-conference slate this season.

Obviously with some non conference tilts left here and there, we may see more cupcakes scheduled. We have a couple months left though before these rankings really take on importance. Meanwhile in the NFL, at some point this morning Nathaniel will have our Week 4 picks on Someone Still Loves You, Alberto Riveron.