2017 NCAA Playoff Points Rankings: Week 4

I'm running a couple hours behind this week, but this time it's because we had a game get pushed back to Sunday. But now we are all caught up and ready to take a look at what happened over the weekend in college football.

Last week we started to see a little separation in terms of Playoff Points, and that separation will only grow more profound as we continue to add data points to the spreadsheet, which you can view here, and I'll link to again after going through the conference rankings. If you need a refresher on how these scores work, you can view those in my season introductory post.



American Athletic
Wins: 2.17 (7th)
PP1: 2.42 (5th)
PP2: 0.58 (6th)
aPP: 1.58 (5th)

ACC
Wins: 2.43 (4th)
PP1: 2.93 (4th)
PP2: 0.83 (4th)
aPP: 2.07 (4th)

Big Ten
Wins: 2.50 (3rd)
PP1: 3.50 (T-2nd)
PP2: 1.12 (1st)
aPP: 2.93 (2nd)

Big XII
Wins: 2.30 (5th)
PP1: 2.30 (6th)
PP2: 0.66 (5th)
aPP: 1.40 (6th)

Conference USA
Wins: 1.64 (10th)
PP1: 1.07 (10th)
PP2: 0.36 (9th)
aPP: -1.36 (9th)

Independents
Wins: 1.50 (11th)
PP1: 1.25 (T-8th)
PP2: 0.46 (8th)
aPP: -2.00 (10th)

MAC
Wins: 1.83 (8th)
PP1: 1.25 (T-8th)
PP2: 0.26 (10th)
aPP: -1.00 (8th)

Mountain West
Wins: 1.67 (9th)
PP1: 1.42 (7th)
PP2: 0.46 (7th)
aPP: -0.83 (7th)

Pac-12
Wins: 2.83 (1st)
PP1: 3.58 (1st)
PP2: 1.12 (2nd)
aPP: 3.00 (1st)

SEC
Wins: 2.71 (2nd)
PP1: 3.50 (T-2nd)
PP2: 1.04 (3rd)
aPP: 2.64 (3rd)

Sun Belt
Wins: 2.25 (6th)
PP1: 0.67 (11th)
PP2: 0.10 (11th)
aPP: -2.17 (11th)

To see the updated spreadsheet, click here.

Photo by Jason O. Watson (Getty Images)

We're continuing to see a pattern: the Pac 12 has the best metrics pretty much across the board, and were just thousandths of a point behind the Big Ten in Second Degree Playoff Points to sweep first place in every category. Meanwhile, the stat that kind of boggles my mind is how the Sun Belt is sixth in average wins by team, but is dead last in every Playoff Point category.

Looking at individual teams, Georgia, USC, and Clemson are tied with eight PP1 points through four weeks, with Michigan and TCU just one point behind them. Those teams have identical aPP's, given they haven't lost any games yet. We'll see how long that lasts.

It's still plenty early in the season, so a lot of this can change yet. Tomorrow I'll have a look at the Week 5 schedules, and next Monday will contain a look at the Week 5 results.