2015 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 13

It's time to right last week's wrongs.

Last week was the week I hate in every college football season where we see a handful of cowards in power programs who schedule cupcakes for the second to last game of the regular season. Starting today, many teams are playing their twelfth and final game between now and Saturday, though a few still have one more week to go beyond this one. Either way, there are non-conference games that need to be looked at.

One note of a correction from last week: I didn't realize that Notre Dame and Boston College were playing at Fenway Park. Notre Dame still gets two points for playing a team from a "Power Five" conference, but Boston College only gets one point for the matchup because it is not a road game. That correction is reflected on my NCSS spreadsheet and will be reflected in this week's rankings.

I will have to consider adding Notre Dame to that list of "Power Five" schools and make scheduling them worth an extra point in the future, especially given how good they've been this year. That is a discussion for another day, however. For now, I have to look at the non-conference games for the upcoming week. As a bonus, with conference title games the following week, I'm going to add in notes about any games that could impact automatic bids to the Death to the BCS Playoffs. Let's take a look.

1. Conference USA: 0.00; 6.62 (LW: 1). No change. Western Kentucky hosts Marshall; winner wins the C-USA East and plays in the C-USA title game. Louisiana Tech hosts Southern Mississippi; winner wins the C-USA West and plays in the C-USA title game.  
2. Sun Belt: 0.18; 6.36 (LW: 3). Louisiana Monroe visits Hawaii. Arkansas State wins the Sun Belt with a win AND an Appalachian State loss AND a Georgia Southern loss.
3. MAC: 0.00; 6.15 (LW: 2). No change. NIU wins the MAC West and plays Bowling Green in the MAC title game with a win OR a Toledo loss. Toledo wins the MAC West and plays Bowling Green in the MAC title game with a win AND an NIU loss.
4. Mountain West: 0.17; 5.75 (LW: 4). Utah State hosts BYU and Hawaii hosts Louisiana Monroe. 
5. American Athletic: 0.00; 5.58 (LW: 5). No change. Houston hosts Navy; winner wins the AAC West and plays in the AAC title game. Temple wins the AAC East and plays in the AAC title game with a win OR a South Florida loss; South Florida wins the AAC East and plays in the AAC title game with a win AND a Temple loss. 
6. Big Ten: 0.00; 5.07 (LW: 6). No change. Michigan State wins the Big Ten East and plays Iowa in the Big Ten title game with a win. Michigan hosts Ohio State; winner wins the Big Ten East and plays Iowa in the Big Ten title game IF Michigan State loses.
7. ACC: 0.79; 4.07 (LW: 7). Georgia Tech hosts Georgia, Louisville visits Kentucky, Clemson visits South Carolina, and Florida State visits Florida.
8. SEC: 0.64; 3.50 (LW: 10). Georgia visits Georgia Tech, Kentucky hosts Louisville, South Carolina hosts Clemson, and Florida hosts Florida State. Alabama wins the SEC West and plays Florida in the SEC title game with a win OR an Ole Miss loss. Ole Miss wins the SEC West and plays Florida in the SEC title game with a win AND an Alabama loss. 
9. Pac-12: 0.08; 3.42 (LW: 8). Stanford hosts Notre Dame. USC hosts UCLA; winner wins the Pac-12 South and plays Stanford in the Pac-12 title game.
10. Big XII: 0.00; 3.00 (LW: 9). No change. Oklahoma State hosts Oklahoma; Oklahoma wins the Big XII with a win; Oklahoma State wins the Big XII with a win AND a Baylor loss.

If you want to see the updated rankings, you can view them here. All the blue zeroes indicate conference games, while black zeroes are bye weeks.

For full disclosure: the independents have raised their collective NCSS rankings to 20.67. I've said this every week, but I do want to keep track of their numbers, even though they are clearly inflated.

Photo by Getty Images (Photographer uncredited)

Meanwhile, congratulations SEC! You aren't in last place anymore! They finally catch up thanks to the interconference rivalry games with the ACC and jump... all the way up to eight place ahead of the two conferences that only play three non-conference games. The lesson here: the SEC's non conference schedule on the whole is pretty bad. There are good games on here (Wisconsin-Alabama in Week 1, to name the biggest example outside of this week), and for some reason the media fawns over those while overlooking the pathetic remainder of the out of conference schedule. You have to look at the whole picture... and the whole picture isn't pretty.

Stock image (Photographer uncredited)

Looking at the playoff picture here, there are only two conference championship games set in stone, though one of them doesn't apply to the playoff picture as North Carolina is already ineligible for the Death to the BCS Playoffs due to their playing two FCS teams this season. The Mountain West title game is also set. Four other conference title games have one participant already set. That leaves several games with playoff implications, which just shows you that the old argument about ruining the regular season is a load of crap.

This will be my second to last post on this topic for the season... unless Navy wins their next two games, then the Army-Navy game will have seeding implacations for the Midshipmen as they enter the Death to the BCS Playoffs as an automatic bid. I'll be back on Monday however with Playoff Points updates as well as one final mock bracket before I get to the official one.