2015 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 5

It's Week 5 of the college football season, and this week, we're starting to see conference play begin in earnest. It's already been heavy in some conferences, but leagues like the Big Ten have yet to begin. It has helped boost them towards the top of the rankings so far.

At this point, other than some small shuffling here and there the rankings will likely stay around the same from here until the second to last week of the season, when the coward Nick Saban and a few other SEC schools show how weak they are only to see the conference's score get boosted the following week with the handful of interconference intrastate rivalry games.

Below are the rankings with Week 5 scores, cumulative averages for the season, and last week's placings. I also take a look at the out of conference games that made changes to the scores.

2015 NCAA Playoff Points: Week 4

I didn't get to watch any of the college football action over the weekend, as I spent the day out in DeKalb and the evening at the United Center in fantastic seats to see the Hawks beat the Blues. I spent part of my early Sunday though catching up on the goings-on from Saturday and updating some numbers.

Only a handful of undefeated teams suffered their first loss this past weekend, as we went from 34 down to 29. However, with more numbers in the system, we're starting to see a larger growth in Playoff Points from last week.

If you need a refresher on how this system works, you can view my Week 1 post on Playoff Points for the basics. Let's take a look at the week.

2015 NBA Tournament of Champions: Semifinals

We're well into the football season, but today, I'm taking another break from football posting to bring you a basketball update.

Back in July, I started this major project in a redo of 2013's Tournament of Champions. 64 NBA teams entered a contest to find the best team of all time. We have narrowed the field down to four teams after two and a half months. Today, we see the results of the semifinals and find out who will play for all the marbles.

Still standing are our top two seeds, the 2015 Golden State Warriors and the 1986 Boston Celtics, who each went 13-1 in Group Play. They each have home court in this round, but have stiff competition to face: the 1996 and 1991 Chicago Bulls, respectively, stand in their way to a chalk-based championship round.

As with the previous three rounds, both of these series are a best-of-seven that will be played in a 2-2-1-1-1 format. Home court advantage goes to the higher seeded team based on place finish in Group Play, and our first tiebreaker comes into play today in the form of record in Group Play. All simulations are provided by WhatIfSports.com. Let's set the championship stage.

2015 COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em: Week 3

The coalition is back to it as we approach the start of Week 3 in the NFL!

Last week was not a good week for a lot of people, but myself especially, as my "hero" picks wound up being way off the mark. On the whole, Adam and I actually didn't end up separated by much, with him taking five of the eight disputed games. Even so, I'm now sitting in last place amongst the group, while Adam is in first.

One thing to note though, because it happens every year and I always find some way to screw something up is that on ESPN, I picked Houston over Carolina, but my blog post had Carolina winning. I therefore have one more win than ESPN says I do, which may balance out at some point, or we'll see Adam goof somewhere along the line. I don't know. It always happens at least a couple times a season.

Anyway, looking ahead, Adam and I disagree on an astounding 10 games in Week 3. I think that's a record. Let's get to the picks.

2015 NCAA NCSS Rankings: Week 4

It's kind of crazy to think that we're already entering our fourth week of the college football season, but here we are.

Conference play has begun in most leagues, though it has been sporadic. We're going to start to see a little bit more in the next couple weeks, but for now, there's still a pretty large chunk of scheduling being played outside of conference boundaries.

Here's a look at last week's rankings. I will touch back on the placings from last week in the rankings below for Week 4.

2015 NCAA Playoff Points: Week 3

We've gone from 51 down to 34 in just one week's time.

Three weeks of college football action are in the books, and as the regular season chugs along, resumes are being built and destroyed all at the same time. At this stage of the season, anything can still happen. That's why every week I'm adjusting the numbers to account for what happened.

Week 2's rankings saw the first gaining of any playoff points by teams, and those numbers are only going to go up as the season progresses. Now, we'll start to see more teams with points, and the ones that do are going to have a ton of them.

You can go back to Week 1's post to see specifically how the Playoff Points system works. Below are the average win totals as well as First and Second Degree Playoff Point averages by conference.

2015 COAS Pigskin Pick 'Em: Week 2

The coalition didn't get scared off after one week, so we are back for Week 2 action.

Everyone got off to a 1-0 start last Thursday with the Patriots beating the Steelers 28-21 and then we had varying levels of success on Sunday before generally bombing the Monday night picks.

As for our picks in this post, Adam took four of the seven disputed games between us, good to put him in a tie for first place with my dad while I am one game back and defending champion Geoffrey Clark is three back. You can view the official standings here, or click on the Pigskin Pick 'Em link on the right side of the page.

This week, Adam and I differ on half of the games. Let's take a look at the picks for Week 2.