2015 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 3

I'm a day late due to a massive amount of rain taking up my focus yesterday. We're on to another week of College football schedules after last week saw no cancellations and thus no changes needing to be made.

A few conferences also kicked off conference play last week, with more to come this week. We also saw our first schedule-based disqualification in Boston College, who opened with two straight FCS opponents. From what I hear, it was forced because an FBS opponent cancelled some time before the season began and they couldn't find anyone else, but I'm not backing down. We'll see if this comes into play at the end of the season.

Without further ado, here's a look at the Week 3 Non Conference Schedule Strength, by conference.

1. Conference USA: 1.17; 4.00 (LW: 1). The team at the top remains at the top thanks to Louisiana Tech, UTSA and Western Kentucky all hitting the road to face Power conference competition. Meanwhile, Florida International and Marshall have dessert.
2. MAC: 1.00; 3.62 (LW: 3). Akron, Ohio and Western Michigan all face FCS foes this week, but they still move up a spot overall with Kent State and NIU facing tough road games.
3. Mountain West: 2.00; 3.58 (LW: 7). The conference has rebounded quite nicely from its poor Week 1 schedule, with a majority of the conference hitting the road against major conference opposition. Boise State and Hawaii get their cupcakes over with this week, leaving UNLV as the only school in the conference without one so far this season.
4. Big Ten: 1.43; 3.50 (LW: 5). No point losses this week, with Illinois, Nebraska and Northwestern all making an effort to play tough road games by traveling to ACC schools. The ACC returns the favor with Iowa and Purdue.
5. Sun Belt: 0.64; 3.27 (LW: 2). Georgia State and Troy get maximum points for their away games against elite competition, which helps offset Arkansas State, Georgia Southern and Idaho playing down a level.
6. American Athletic: 1.33; 3.25 (LW: 6). Central Florida and Tulane sabotage the AAC from avoiding needing the tiebreaker with the Pac-12 thanks to FCS opponents. Connecticut, South Florida, SMU and Tulsa all face Power 5 competition at their places this weekend.
7. Pac-12: 1.00; 3.25 (LW: 4). The Pac-12 drops a few places due largely to forces beyond their control. Arizona gets its dessert on, though Cal faces another Power conference opponent on the road. Most of the conference has one point games on their plates though.
8. Big XII: 1.10; 2.40 (LW: 9). Three teams are off this week, and still the Big 12 did all right. Texas Tech has a foe from a Power conference on its schedule. It also helps that there are no FCS games this week, with every school but Oklahoma having played one.
9. ACC: 1.29; 2.00 (LW: 10).The aforementioned sets of games with the Big Ten really bolster the score, as do a couple other road trips. This more than helps overcome Virginia getting its DI-AA opponent out of the way.
10. SEC: 0.07; 1.64 (LW: 8). Most of the reason for this score is the four in-conference games on the slate. What doesn't help matters is Mississippi State, Tennessee and Vanderbilt playing cupcake teams.

If you want to see the updated rankings, you can view them here. These rankings also include the independent schools, who have an NCSS average of 5.67, but this will always be way higher than the other conferences because they don't have a conference to call home for football. Also, you may note that some of the zeroes on the NCSS sheet are blue. These indicate conference games, while the black zeroes stand for bye weeks. It probably would have been easier to do that for bye weeks, but the system is in place already, and I don't want to change it now. It will probably get easier as the season goes on and almost all the games are in-conference.

I'll check back next week with results from the weekend and follow that up with a Week 4 schedule look. Tomorrow, check back for Week 2 NFL picks against the spread!