College Football Non-Conference Power Rankings: Week 10

What a weekend for college football. My North Central Cardinals killed Illinois Wesleyan to solidify homecoming and move up the polls, and a handful of unbeatens fell on Saturday to really murk up the B(C)S rankings. It also makes trying to figure out the playoffs a lot harder since there will be a number of 1-loss teams to sort through and figure out who belongs and who doesn't. Again, I am open to commentary on who you think should be in as at-large teams or where teams are seeded. But before we get into that, here's the new scheduling rankings for the upcoming week of football.

1. WAC (6.86)- New Mexico State visits Auburn. (Yes, Auburn isn't very good this year, but it's still a trip to an SEC school).
2. Conference-USA (6.75)- Tulsa visits Arkansas.
3. MAC (6.62)- No change.
4. Sun Belt (6.6)- Florida Atlantic visits Navy, Troy visits Tennessee.
5. Mountain West (5.5)- Air Force visits Army.
6. Big East (5.38)- Pitt visits Notre Dame.
7. Big Ten (4.58)- No change.
8. ACC (3.5)- No change.
9. Pac-12 (3.33)- No change.
10. SEC (3.14)- Auburn hosts New Mexico State, Arkansas hosts Tulsa, Tennessee hosts Troy.
11. Big XII (2.6)- No change.

For those of you unfamiliar with how my playoff system works, it's based off of Dan Wetzel's system in Death to the BCS. The champions of the 11 conferences all get in automatically, plus 5 at large teams. For the purposes of COAS, I am something of a one-man selection committee, which is why I would love to hear a little feedback on who's in and where I'm seeding everybody, since I'm sure I could improve the system a little bit. But if the season had ended on Sunday morning, here's how the playoffs would have looked according to me. Again, teams labeled as "conference champions" have the best record in their respective conferences at the time, so a team with a better overall record might get left out due to this fact. So without further ado, here's who would get in. Last week's rankings can be found here.
1. Alabama (8-0, SEC Champion, NCSS: 4, LW: 6): With a convincing win over Mississippi State, who else would be here? They've got a couple tough games coming up against LSU and Texas A&M before hosting a cupcake, then ending the regular season against rival Auburn. I wouldn't exactly call their schedule thus far a gauntlet, but it's stronger than other teams' schedules and they've been more convincing in their 8 wins. 
2. Kansas State (8-0, Big 12 Champion, NCSS: 2, LW: 4): This was a tough call again for #2 in terms of trying to determine who had the hardest schedule and took care of business the best. I'm still not too impressed with KSU's schedule so far based on their early games but they've been romping through their competition. It was a tough call though between these guys and the #3 team.
3. Notre Dame (8-0, At Large, NCSS: 16, LW: 3): A lot of their wins haven't been quite as convincing as K-State's so far, not to take away from what the Irish have done this year. I don't have a favorite team at the D-I level, but it's nice to see a relatively local team up so high in the rankings when there's so much hate of these guys just because the media is all over them all the time. They've earned their place this year.
4. Oregon (8-0, Pac-12 Champion, NCSS: 3, LW: 2): I went with the style points last week from scoring so many points, but in merely taking care of a bad team like they did they didn't really prove anything. Their non-conference slate hasn't been much to brag about either. This matchup with USC may have lost some of its luster with the Trojans dropping a 2nd game on Saturday, but Oregon is still a dangerous team with a scary offense. In the new proposed 4 team playoff to take shape in 2014, these 4 teams would be the clear-cut participants as of right now. But with some unbeatens left over, why leave anything to chance? What happens when there's a 5th unbeaten at the end of a season like in 2009?
5. Louisville (8-0, At Large, NCSS: 7, LW: NR): They got left out last week as something of the "weakest" of the unbeatens, but they get in this week. Remember: they are an "at large" this week because Rutgers still has a better record in conference (4 wins to the Cardinals' 3) despite Rutgers being 7-1 overall. Quirk of the system that will end up resolved once conference play is over and these two teams play each other in the final week.
6. Florida (7-1, At Large, NCSS: 1, LW: 1): Last week Florida's SEC record gave them the unofficial title for the purposes of this playoff preview, but their loss yesterday to Georgia relegated them to Alabama's spot from last week. Their defense is a big reason why they've gotten this far.
7. LSU (7-1, At Large, NCSS: 3, LW: NR): I was not sold on this team for the longest time, but they've overcome a couple of struggles early on in the year and their lone loss is to Florida (hence why they're one spot behind them. Head to head is important). Their upcoming game with Alabama could really throw a monkey wrench into the entire system though. Fingers crossed everyone.
8. Georgia (7-1, AT Large, NCSS: 2, LW: NR): I immediately broke my "Head to head matters" rule by putting Georgia below a Florida team they beat, but I do so because Florida and LSU both beat South Carolina, and that's Georgia's one loss. Common opponents also matter. That rounds out the at large teams... and 3 are from the SEC. I really hope I'm not becoming the thing I hate in a hype machine.
9. Florida State (8-1, ACC Champion, NCSS: 1, LW: 11): It took me forever to try and figure out which 1-loss conference leader should take this spot because I'm not really impressed with any of their schedules to date. FSU's pair of FCS teams to open the season still leave me with some skepticism about this squad, which is also part of why I took the SEC at-larges over this conference champ.
10. Toledo (8-1, MAC Champion, NCSS: 6, LW: NR): They are currently tied with NIU for the MAC West lead (and best MAC record) with a matchup coming up on November 14th. I give Toledo the edge in these playoffs due to a higher NCSS (NIU's is 5) and the Toledo win over then-unbeaten Cincinnati (NIU hasn't faced a ranked team).
11. Boise State (7-1, MWC Champion, NCSS: 7, LW: 13): Aside from an opening loss to a probably overrated Michigan State team, the Broncos have looked pretty good. They've got a couple reasonably tough Mountain West games left on the schedule but are in good shape again.
12. Nebraska (6-2, Big 10 Champion, NCSS: 4, LW: NR): After serious consideration, decided that I didn't like the resumes of the remaining 1-loss champions as much compared to Nebraska's. They lost to an okay UCLA team and got killed by the best team in the Big 10 in Ohio State (who remains ineligible according to the NCAA.I cooperate with their rules.) I'm not crazy about the UCLA loss, but I consider it "better" than the single losses by some of these other teams when combined with their overall schedules to date.
13. Tulsa (7-1, Conference USA Champion, NCSS: 3, LW: 12): You can understand their opening loss to Iowa State (even though they aren't that great either). They really haven't played anyone aside from that, but they've run the table in conference to this point, so that has to count for something.
14. Rutgers (7-1, Big East Champion, NCSS: 5, LW: 5): Amazing what a loss to Kent State can do. Obviously Kent State is not a terrible team, but you've got to take care of business. That upcoming date with Louisville will probably decide the conference champion, and if Rutgers wins, you can bet they'll move up this chart.
15. Utah State (7-2, WAC Champion, NCSS: 9, LW: 14): Their 2 losses weren't terrible by any stretch (Wisconsin by 2 and BYU by 3), and their win over Utah doesn't seem as huge now, but they are currently unbeaten in WAC play, and for this, that's all that matters.
16. Louisiana-Monroe (6-2, Sun Belt Champion, NCSS: 9, LW: 16): They got beat by Auburn (granted, in overtime) and by Baylor, who isn't as good this year without RG3. They have played some decent competition, though those 2 losses put them at the bottom as presumed fodder for Alabama. We'll see if that holds up.
Teams dropped out of playoffs from last week: Mississippi State, Oregon State, Ohio, Northern Illinois, Michigan.

A fair amount of change from last week other than at the top, where the cream seems to be settled. Having 5 unbeatens fall this week was huge for a lot of these one-loss teams (especially teams like LSU and Georgia to sneak in). Again, if you think I could reseed this better or think other one-loss teams like Clemson or Mississippi State deserved to be in over the LSU's and Georgia's of the world, you can let me know either in the comments below or on Twitter. I don't want to be immune from criticism if you think I could do something a little better and have good reasons for why this is the case. Hopefully next week we can see a little more chaos!