| Rank | +/- | Team | WinPct | SoS | Adjusted | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Off. | Def. | Pace | |||||||||
| 1 | -- | Alabama | 0.980 | 0.592 | 26 | 39.6 | 1 | 8.3 | 1 | 148.9 | 123 |
| 2 | -- | LSU | 0.908 | 0.628 | 13 | 28.7 | 10 | 11.5 | 2 | 156.7 | 108 |
| 3 | +4 | Oklahoma | 0.883 | 0.655 | 9 | 26.4 | 22 | 11.8 | 4 | 175.0 | 14 |
| 4 | -- | Notre Dame | 0.871 | 0.621 | 16 | 25.2 | 26 | 11.7 | 3 | 159.2 | 95 |
| 5 | +3 | Florida St. | 0.870 | 0.523 | 51 | 30.1 | 6 | 14.1 | 10 | 156.9 | 105 |
| 6 | -3 | South Carolina | 0.865 | 0.563 | 36 | 29.5 | 8 | 14.0 | 9 | 155.6 | 112 |
| 7 | -2 | Oregon | 0.857 | 0.523 | 50 | 31.1 | 5 | 15.2 | 14 | 181.2 | 7 |
| 8 | -2 | Florida | 0.835 | 0.628 | 14 | 25.4 | 25 | 13.3 | 5 | 156.8 | 106 |
| 9 | +7 | Michigan | 0.827 | 0.560 | 37 | 31.6 | 4 | 16.9 | 23 | 153.3 | 119 |
| 10 | +1 | Boise St. | 0.826 | 0.433 | 87 | 27.7 | 16 | 14.8 | 12 | 158.3 | 99 |
| 11 | -1 | Stanford | 0.815 | 0.582 | 29 | 29.8 | 7 | 16.5 | 19 | 162.7 | 71 |
| 12 | -3 | Texas A&M | 0.815 | 0.617 | 18 | 24.8 | 28 | 13.7 | 6 | 186.1 | 3 |
| 13 | +4 | TCU | 0.795 | 0.428 | 89 | 27.8 | 15 | 16.2 | 17 | 157.3 | 102 |
| 14 | +1 | Wisconsin | 0.793 | 0.530 | 47 | 31.8 | 3 | 18.6 | 37 | 153.9 | 118 |
| 15 | -2 | Oklahoma St. | 0.765 | 0.595 | 24 | 27.4 | 17 | 17.1 | 25 | 181.8 | 6 |
| 16 | +2 | USC | 0.763 | 0.532 | 46 | 28.0 | 14 | 17.5 | 29 | 161.1 | 84 |
| 17 | -5 | Texas | 0.761 | 0.602 | 22 | 28.7 | 9 | 18.0 | 33 | 162.1 | 79 |
| 18 | +2 | Kansas St. | 0.757 | 0.567 | 34 | 32.2 | 2 | 20.4 | 53 | 154.3 | 116 |
| 19 | -5 | Ohio St. | 0.753 | 0.504 | 57 | 28.6 | 11 | 18.3 | 35 | 160.9 | 85 |
| 20 | -1 | Michigan St. | 0.741 | 0.566 | 35 | 20.8 | 61 | 13.7 | 7 | 162.6 | 72 |
| 21 | +1 | Nebraska | 0.729 | 0.621 | 17 | 27.3 | 18 | 18.4 | 36 | 167.0 | 46 |
| 22 | -1 | Cincinnati | 0.728 | 0.478 | 69 | 24.7 | 29 | 16.7 | 21 | 167.6 | 39 |
| 23 | +1 | Georgia | 0.718 | 0.526 | 49 | 28.3 | 12 | 19.5 | 43 | 165.9 | 54 |
| 24 | NA | Texas Tech | 0.713 | 0.572 | 33 | 24.6 | 31 | 17.1 | 24 | 173.6 | 20 |
| 25 | NA | Virginia Tech | 0.711 | 0.516 | 53 | 23.9 | 36 | 16.7 | 20 | 160.6 | 87 |
Rankings through games of 2012-10-14
New entries: Texas Tech, Virginia Tech.
Dropped out: BYU, West Virginia.
With the season halfway over the picture is both clear and murky. Alabama has coasted to a dominant performance and is the clear favorite to go undefeated. Beyond that, though, things get murky. LSU is clearly a team that is a shadow of last year's team, thanks to a severe drop-off on offense. Oklahoma rates well thanks to defense, but the Sooners tend to be consistently overrated by TFG. Notre Dame appears to be a legitimately good team this year, but continues to struggle on offense; when you're not even in the top 25 for offensive efficiency, you're going to have a long road to the title game. FSU is ... well ... in the ACC. South Carolina has definitely improved from last year but couldn't even handle LSU; they'd have an even longer shot against the Crimson Tide.
You'll see more in tomorrow's undefeated post, but the upshot is that after Alabama -- who currently have nearly a 2-in-3 shot of finishing the regular season undefeated -- the next most likely teams to escape unscathed are Notre Dame (~15% chance of going undefeated), Oregon (12%), Florida (11%), Ohio (10%), Ohio State (6.3%), and Cincinnati (5%).
In fact the odds that none of the above teams get to early December without a loss is better than 50-50. This is yet another sign of increased parity in college football, and a reminder that what Alabama is doing right now is nothing less than swimming upstream in an ever-stronger current towards a level playing field.
Then again, there's still better than a 1-in-6 shot that none of the top teams gets to early December with a zero in the 'L' column, at which point all of these discussions heaping praise on the Crimson Tide will look rather silly.
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