Minimal changes this week, and the top 4 remain the same. Ole Miss is punished a little for losing to Arkansas, but not enough to matter. Why? Because the teams that Arkansas has lost to predominantly overlap with those that LSU and Auburn lost to, who are already in Ole Miss's loss network, so we're not getting much new information about the severity of Ole Miss's losses (and their wins continue to look good). Indeed, this is generally true of most teams this week: win or lose, the ties are redundant given the extent of conference play information available to us (that or they played irrelevant cupcakes, ala Alabama). Arkansas, however, gains hugely, rising to number 15. Next week, however, with many teams playing out of conference rivals (Florida State and Georgia in particular), we should expect more movement. It also means as we approach the end, if Bama wins the Iron Bowl and State wins the Egg Bowl, there really isn't much of an argument to keep either one out of the playoff. Obviously, Marshall will be the deserving team on the sideline, likely to be replaced by the playoff committee by the PAC 12 champion.
Top 25 (Explanation; Full Ranking)
- Florida State (nc)
- Marshall (nc)
- Mississippi State (+1)
- Alabama (-1)
- Ole Miss (nc)
- Oregon (nc)
- UCLA (nc)
- TCU (nc)
- LSU (+2)
- Georgia (nc)
- Auburn (-2)
- Oklahoma (nc)
- Michigan State (+2)
- Colorado State (-1)
- Arkansas (+10)
- Ohio State (-2)
- Baylor (nc)
- Arizona (+1)
- Kansas State (+2)
- Arizona State (-2)
- Nebraska (-5)
- Texas A&M (-2)
- Boise State (-1)
- Georgia Tech (nc)
- Wisconsin (+4)