Week 3 Rankings

Editorial note: Changes in rank may appear wonky this week after moving to a program that downloads stats and performs the calculations for me, removing transcription errors that affected previous rankings. Shout out to my brother-in-law for doing most of the programming on this. Without further ado,

Your Top 25:

Rk	Δ	Team	Pts
1	+0	Auburn	63.3

Auburn stays put at #1 following a bye week.

2

+1

Baylor

55.4

The Bears mauled Buffalo, winning 63-21 at Buffalo. (Side note: What's with all these Power 5 schools playing away games against non-Power 5 squads? The week before, Mizzou played at Toledo, Arizona at UTSA, Oklahoma at Tulsa, Texas Tech at UTEP...I don't get it.)

3

+4

Pittsburgh

54.8

Pitt rebounded from a 16-point deficit at the end of the first quarter to come up with the road win (again the away games) against FIU.

4

+2

Oregon

53.7

QB Marcus Mariota looked impressive both through the air and on the ground, leading the Ducks to a 48-14 victory over Wyoming.

5

-1

BYU

53.7

The Cougars (BYU) avoided the upset against the Cougars (Houston), winning 33-25, but it's not enough to keep BYU from sliding down a spot.

6	-4	Texas A&M	53.7
7	+1	Oklahoma	51.4
8	+2	Alabama	51.3
9	+4	LSU	50.2
10	+4	Ole Miss	46.6
11	+9	Mississippi State	46.3
12	+3	Northern Illinois	46.1
13	-4	Arizona	45.8
14	+7	Missouri	45.4
15	+4	UCLA	44.5
16	+9	Georgia Tech	43.5
17	+9	Arkansas	42.2
18	-7	Notre Dame	42.1
19	-2	Arizona State	42.0
20	+10	Nebraska	42.0
21	+3	Florida State	40.5
22	-4	Utah	39.6
23	+13	Ohio State	39.1
24	+10	Navy	39.0
25	-20	Georgia	38.7

See full rankings here.

Teams falling out of the Top 25:

• (#28) Louisville (lost at Virginia, 23-21)
• (#37) Virginia Tech (lost vs. East Carolina, 28-21)
• (#43) USC (lost at Boston College, 37-31)
• (#44) Tennessee (lost at Oklahoma, 34-10)

Teams worse than the average FCS team:

• (#127) Idaho (lost vs. Western Michigan, 45-33)
• (#128) Eastern Michigan (lost at Old Dominion, 17-3)
• (#129) Kent State (lost at Ohio State, 66-0)

Largest improvement in rank: +37 Syracuse

The Orange crushed Central Michigan, winning 40-3 in Mount Pleasant. (See previous griping.)

Largest drop in rank: -35 South Alabama

Mississippi State was too much for the Jaguars, who lost 35-3 and were limited to 57 yards rushing, despite hosting the Bulldogs at home. 

Conference Rankings

Conference	Average
SEC	40.53
ACC	34.22
Pac-12	33.99
Big 12	28.93
Big Ten	25.32
Mountain West	17.60
Conference USA	17.25
American	15.91
Sun Belt	12.63
MAC	12.08

Games to watch this week:

#11 Mississippi State at #9 LSU (7 PM ET, ESPN) Both teams are 3-0, but have played mostly cupcakes so far. (LSU did play Wisconsin tho.) This week, we'll see which team deserves their Top 25 ranking.

Line: LSU by 9.5

#16 Georgia Tech at #37 Virginia Tech (Noon ET, ESPN) Like last season, Georgia Tech is ranked highly, largely on their 13th-ranked rushing offense. (Lord knows it's not their strength of schedule.) On the other side of the football, Virginia Tech was laid low by East Carolina last week. Expect the Hokies to bounce back with a close win this week.

Line: Virginia Tech by 1.5

#12 Northern Illinois at #17 Arkansas (7 PM ET, ESPN U) Northern Illinois has already pulled off one win over a Power 5 school, though I wouldn't go so far as to call their 23-15 win over Northwestern an upset. The Huskies hope to repeat, but it will be tougher against one of them esseecee teams.

Line: Arkansas by 13.5