2011 - 2012: Final Full Rankings -- TFG

Biggest jumps: SMU (0.096); Northern Ill. (0.048); Temple (0.039); FIU (0.035); LA-Monroe (0.028)

Biggest drops: Pittsburgh (-0.064); Clemson (-0.054); Wake Forest (-0.031); Maryland (-0.031); Boston College (-0.029)

Full rankings after the jump.

2011 - 2012: Final Top 25 -- TFG

Eddie and I got distracted by life after the end of the championship game, but over a month later here is your final TFG top 25 for the 2011 - 2012 season.

Rank	+/-	Team	WinPct	SoS		Adjusted
						Off.		Def.		Pace
1	--	Alabama	0.973	0.661	5	37.2	2	8.9	1	149.2	120
2	--	LSU	0.937	0.710	1	33.3	5	11.4	2	153.2	113
3	--	Boise St.	0.899	0.431	84	33.8	4	14.1	5	160.7	80
4	--	Wisconsin	0.869	0.554	50	39.2	1	18.4	36	152.4	116
5	--	Stanford	0.861	0.559	46	34.5	3	16.7	21	157.6	100
6	--	Oregon	0.855	0.608	17	29.9	10	14.7	6	179.8	5
7	--	Oklahoma	0.852	0.598	25	25.8	22	12.8	3	178.3	7
8	--	TCU	0.850	0.421	86	31.8	6	15.9	18	158.9	91
9	--	Oklahoma St.	0.836	0.597	26	30.1	9	15.7	17	180.1	3
10	+1	Arkansas	0.812	0.637	8	31.7	7	17.6	29	167.2	35
11	+1	South Carolina	0.801	0.628	11	27.3	15	15.6	15	155.9	103
12	-2	Florida St.	0.795	0.549	52	26.3	20	15.3	12	154.7	109
13	+2	Michigan St.	0.782	0.603	20	25.4	23	15.2	10	161.6	71
14	-1	Michigan	0.779	0.573	34	30.6	8	18.5	37	156.0	102
15	-1	USC	0.776	0.566	41	27.5	14	16.8	23	163.4	52
16	+1	Florida	0.762	0.668	4	24.9	27	15.7	16	156.6	101
17	-1	Virginia Tech	0.759	0.518	61	24.4	30	15.4	13	155.6	105
18	--	Notre Dame	0.756	0.618	12	23.7	31	15.1	9	164.2	48
19	--	Georgia	0.751	0.617	13	26.8	18	17.2	25	162.3	61
20	--	Texas A&M	0.750	0.595	29	23.3	35	15.0	7	183.3	1
21	+1	Houston	0.741	0.396	95	28.2	11	18.5	38	180.1	4
22	-1	Ohio St.	0.726	0.566	40	25.1	25	17.0	24	153.2	112
23	--	Missouri	0.720	0.568	38	22.4	45	15.3	11	169.4	22
24	NA	Temple	0.706	0.309	119	24.6	29	17.3	28	150.3	119
25	NA	West Virginia	0.705	0.541	55	27.3	16	19.2	48	166.7	37

Rankings through games of 2012-01-15

New entries: Temple, West Virginia.

Dropped out: Nebraska, Texas.

In a surprise to effectively no one, the Alabama Crimson Tide end the season atop the rankings. Certainly some say that Oklahoma State deserved a shot at the title in place of Alabama. I'm not going to re-hash those arguments here, but I will make this observation: based on nearly twelve years of data, the Crimson Tide had the highest end-of-season rankings we've seen here. If they played the 2003 USC Trojans, they would be 73% likely to win. They'd be two-to-one favorites against the 2008 Tebow Gators, as well as Vince Young and the 2005 Texas Longhorns. The 2011 Oklahoma State Cowboys would have had a one-in-four shot of winning a title game against LSU.

Their odds against Alabama?

One in eight.

That's not to say that they absolutely, positively would have lost; there's a reason we play the games. But that is to say to call the Cowboys "underdogs" in this context would be a polite understatement of the highest order.

Let me also take a moment to address some expected criticism.
Wisconsin and Oregon effectively played to a tie. As a friend of mine from LSU said, "Wisconsin obviously took a page from the 'Les Miles School of Clock Management', but forgot to take the more advanced 'Pulling Wins Out of Your Ass'." We were one second and a Hail Mary away from OT.
Stanford was the better team. If it weren't for some poor FG kicking, they would have won. If it hadn't been for two uncharacteristic turnovers and two uncharacteristic lapses on defense, it wouldn't have been close. If this game gets played ten times, Stanford wins six of them.
Boise State is still third because of how they played all season, despite their game against TCU. They gave Georgia their second-worst loss of the year (behind LSU), barely lost to an 11-2 TCU team, and beat Arizona State more soundly than Oregon.

In the end, though, this was Alabama's season. The 2011 Crimson Tide will go down as the most dominant team in the Tempo-Free Gridiron era, despite their one loss. Let's just hope they can get a better kicking game next year.

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