2016 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 13

We move on from my taking potshots at Nick Saban to Rivalry Week in college football! How fitting, then, that the fate of the universe will be decided in a second round playoff game in Naperville on Saturday. Beat Wheaton.

In the meantime, conference championship games will get decided this weekend. A few matchups are already set, but others require action to determine those matchups, which will help determine our Death to the BCS Playoffs field.

But there are also a number of non-conference games, but unlike last week, the cowardice is complete. Or at least, it should be. My season introduction post contains an explanation for how the NCSS metric works. Let's get to it!

1. Sun Belt (0.00, 5.91; LW: 1). No change.
2. Conference USA (0.23, 5.77; LW: 2). Rice visits Stanford.
3. Mountain West (0.25, 5.50; LW: 3). Utah State visits BYU and Hawaii hosts Massachusetts.
4. MAC (0.00, 5.08; LW: 4). No change.
5. American Athletic (0.00, 5.00; LW: 5). No change.
6. ACC (0.64, 4.43; LW: 6). Georgia Tech visits Georgia, Louisville hosts Kentucky, Clemson hosts South Carolina, and Florida State hosts Florida.
7. SEC (0.79, 3.64; LW: 10). Georgia hosts Georgia Tech, Kentucky visits Louisville, South Carolina visits Clemson, and Florida visits Florida State.
8. Pac 12 (0.17, 3.33; LW: 7). USC hosts Notre Dame and Stanford hosts Rice.
9. Big Ten (0.00, 3.14; LW: 8). No change.
10. Big 12 (0.00, 2.90; LW: 9). No change.

To see the updated spreadsheet, click here.

This is what usually ends up happening. The SEC stays at or near the bottom all season until Rivalry Week, when they get a jump from the handful of ACC-SEC games. The ACC was far ahead of all the other Power Five conferences, but they got a big boost from this this week as well. Meanwhile, if the independents were their own conference, they would have an average NCSS of 19.75.

This is the last major NCSS post for the 2016 season. Next week we'll have several championship games, and a handful of conference games for leagues without a title game. The only other game of any impact after that might be Army-Navy, which hasn't had any impact on the Death to the BCS Playoffs yet, but if Navy is in the conversation, that may change. We'll have to see.

I'll be back early next week with a look at the carnage to see what remains and begin set up for what will likely be a final mock bracket before the real one drops.