2016 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 4

We're onto Week 4 of the college football season already. Conference play is starting to pick up a little bit, but we're still a week or two away from the express posts about NCSS rankings.

In the meantime, non-conference games are still a bulk of the docket for this week, so I'm following up on the first three weeks of games with a continued look at how well teams are scheduling their non-conference games.

In the event you need a refresher on how the scoring works for this, you can refer back to my season introductory post. Let's take a look at the updated NCSS rankings.

1. Mountain West (1.33, 4.67; LW: 4). The Mountain West gets the tiebreaker this week over the MAC thanks to Boise State, Colorado State, Nevada, and San Jose State all playing on the road against Power Five schools, while Wyoming is also on the road.
2. MAC (1.17, 4.67; LW: 3). The MAC could have been higher had it not been for Ohio and Northern Illinois, who get D-IAA opponents this week. This is offset by Power Five road games for Kent State and Central Michigan.
3. Conference USA (0.62, 4.46; LW: 1). C-USA drops from the top spot largely due to conference games. Western Kentucky does host Vanderbilt and Marshall hosts Louisville to grab a couple points apiece to at least keep the conference within striking distance.
4. Sun Belt (0.64, 4.45; LW: 2). Arkansas State and South Alabama get their dessert on, but road games for Appalachian State, Georgia Southern, Idaho, and Louisiana Lafayette help offset this, though it doesn't stop the conference from slipping a couple spots.
5. American Athletic (1.58, 3.83; LW: 9). The high score of the week leapfrogs the AAC five spots with conference play yet to begin here. East Carolina is off to play Virginia Tech, while SMU, South Florida and UConn host Power Five teams and Houston and UCF play on the road.
6. Big Ten (0.29, 3.07; LW: 6). Conference play and a few byes kill a lot of the B1G's momentum, with the biggest game on the docket out of conference coming in the form of Indiana hosting Wake Forest.
7. Pac 12 (0.08, 3.00; LW: 5). The only non-conference game is Oregon State hosting Boise State. Washington State is off, and everyone else is playing a conference opponent this week. Expect a ton of this the rest of the way, with a few scattered non-conference games here and there.
8. Big 12 (0.30, 2.90; LW: 7). Four byes hurt the weekly score, but so does an FCS game for Kansas State. TCU helps offset this with a trip to SMU.
9. ACC (0.86, 2.86; LW: 10). Wake Forest's trip to Bloomington, Indiana gives the ACC the bulk of its points for the week, though road games for Louisville, Florida State, Syracuse, and Duke also help get the conference out of the basement.
10. SEC (0.29, 2.64; LW: 8). Missouri gets its FCS game in, but the main reason for the low score this week is a bevy of conference games. Vanderbilt and Mississippi State hit the road for non-conference games though to help boost the score a little bit.

To see the updated spreadsheet, click here.

Photo by Jeff Miller (University of Wisconsin-Madison)

We have the usual phenomenon we see as the season gets into the bulk of conference play: the Group of Five conferences reside in the top half of the ranking, while the Power Five conference take up the bottom. Much of this is due to the extra points given for playing Power Five opponents, fair or not. To no real surprise though, the SEC is in last and will remain there for most of the rest of the season, especially after their despicable penultimate week scheduling that I will rant against in all its cowardice at that time.

I'll be back next week with a look at the results from the weekend, and then a week from today I'll check out the Week 5 schedule.