2014 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 3

We've got one week of NFL football in the books, and now the college season is starting Week 3 on Thursday. I love this time of year.

I've been able to start measuring Playoff Points to a greater degree with a couple weeks worth of data in the books, and you can see the analysis here. Even though the Playoff Point metric is better, I still think the NCSS metric is an important one, as it faces the reality that a lot of teams suck at scheduling out of conference tests.

We're starting to get into more of a conference play time of year, but there are still plenty of non-conference tilts left, including a bunch this week. If you want to refer back to last week's rankings, you can view them here. Let's take a look at this week.

1. Conference USA (1.08, 4.00; LW: 1). The only rough spot that hurts the top spot holder all season is UAB getting its cupcake on. Otherwise, Rice, Southern Mississippi and UTSA all face either an SEC or Big XII opponent. Florida International, meanwhile, hosts Pittsburgh to help boost the score.
2. MAC (1.85, 3.69; LW: 2). Kent State, Massachusetts, and Miami-Ohio all hit the road to face members of the "Big Five". Buffalo, Central Michigan, and Bowling Green all host members of those conferences this week, too. Much of the rest of the conference is on the road this week too, but Ball State plays its second game against a lower level foe. While they're 1-1 so far, this will be a black mark should they make the Death to the BCS Playoffs.
3. American Athletic (1.18, 3.00; LW: 3). Tulane faces an FCS opponent, though most of the rest of the conference makes up for it. East Carolina and Central Florida are off to see Virginia Tech and Missouri, respectively. Houston and Tulsa are also on the road, while South Florida hosts NC State.
4. Mountain West (1.08, 2.83; LW: 4). Most of the points come from Nevada hosting Minnesota, though Air Force and Boise State are on the road against other mid-majors this week. Fresno State hosts Nebraska, but this is offset by DI-AA opponents for Colorado State and Hawaii.
5. Sun Belt (1.64, 2.64; LW: T-7). Troy has its dessert this week, but the rest of the conference did great. Arkansas State, Georgia Southern, Louisiana-Lafayette and Louisiana-Monroe all hit the road to face "Power" conference opponents. South Alabama hosts Mississippi State, which is a big deal.
6. Big 10 (1.21, 2.57; LW: 6). Illinois and Minnesota are off to play Washington and TCU, respectively. Indiana and Nebraska are also on the road this week, while Maryland and Iowa host Big XII opposition.
7. Pac 12 (0.75, 2.42; LW: 5). Washington State hosts an FCS foe. This is offset by USC visiting Boston College. Meanwhile, Washington hosts Illinois and UCLA faces Texas at a neutral site.
8. Big XII (2.00, 2.40; LW: 10). Now that everyone except Oklahoma has faced an FCS opponent, they can get the meat of their schedule underway. Iowa State, Kansas, and West Virginia all hit the road to face other "Power Conference" teams. Baylor visits Buffalo, while Oklahoma, Texas Tech, and TCU host teams from those aforementioned conferences. Texas has that neutral site UCLA game to boost the score as well.
9. SEC (1.00, 2.00; LW: T-7). A couple conference tilts bring the score down a bit, but there's no pigging out this week. Tennessee and Arkansas travel to face Oklahoma and Texas Tech, respectively, while Mississippi State plays a Sun Belt team at their place.
10. ACC (1.14, 1.79; LW: 9). This was a good week, but almost every other conference was better. NC State, Pitt, Syracuse and Wake Forest are all on the road out of conference. Meanwhile, Duke hosts Kansas and Boston College gets a visit from USC.

This has to be, overall, one of the best weeks of non conference scheduling I've seen in the last three seasons. The Pac 12 had the worst weekly score, and even that wasn't terrible. A lot of the big conferences did well too. This is the sort of scheduling I want to see out of conference on a regular basis if you're going to claim that your schedule is so "tough". As a reference, the independents matched their performance from last week. If they were their own conference, they'd have an NCSS through three weeks of 5.25, which would easily be the best in football (though again, every week they play they get NCSS points, so it's skewed).

A pair of games kick off Week 3 on Thursday night, but most of the action takes place on Saturday, as usual. On Monday I'll go over the results and see how the conferences stack up. On Thursday I'll go back to the NFL and have Week Two of the COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em.