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WhiteBaseCoat Ballot for 2017 Week 5

Ballot Type: Computer

Submitted: Sept. 25, 2017, 12:44 p.m.

Overall Rationale: In the second week of the PLRCOAT rankings, things seem to be stabilizing and getting weirder at the same time. As a reminder, the PLRCOAT Index is a simple recursive calculation where score = (scores of FBS wins)/2 + (number of FBS wins). It's completely resume based - my own subjectivity only creeps in if there's a tie, and there were only two of those this week. Nothing else factors in. At all. Not preseason projections, not MOV, not stats, not losses, just wins. It makes for some wonky rankings, but I also think they're logical in their organization, and from the looks of it they should settle down throughout the season. I also like that I've seen a lot of movement from the poll, because I don't want to be entrenched in preseason expectations. I should note that we still don't have any win loops as of this week - I have a plan for when I do encounter those, but it may do strange things to the numbers and I'm not looking forward to it.

Rank Team Reason
1 Michigan Wolverines PLRCOAT: 9.645. This is not the #1 team that I expected, but I don't think it's crazy to believe that Michigan has the best resume in the country right now - especially since my rankings don't consider MOV. Michigan is one of 6 teams in the country with 4 FBS wins, for one, and their wins are: 6.039 Florida (#12), 1.75 Cincinnati, 0-pointer Air Force, and 3.5 Purdue. It's that Florida win that's really paying dividends right now, as Florida tightropes their way through their conference schedule, and the Purdue win was an immediate boost as well.
2 USC Trojans PLRCOAT: 9. This is another team that benefits from my rankings because I don't consider MOV. They also have 4 FBS wins: 1.5 Western Michigan, 4.25 Stanford (who is not far off from making the top 25), 1-pointer Texas, and 3.25 Cal. Nothing spectacular, but nothing awful, and having solid wins all around will get you far with my formula.
3 Clemson Tigers PLRCOAT: 8.75. Yet another team with 4 FBS wins; to somebody who was considering MOV and other stats they'd probably appear to have the best resume in the nation right now. 0-pointer Kent State is still not doing them any favors, but Auburn is a 2-pointer, Louisville (#16) has a score of 5.5, and BC is another 2-pointer. That Louisville win is really helping them out right now, and 2 other solid wins and a cupcake are enough to get them in the top 3 when the majority of teams in the country haven't picked up any statement wins yet.
4 Georgia Bulldogs PLRCOAT: 8.609. Georgia keeps creeping up in my rankings and I don't like it one bit. I promise I'm not a homer, guys. Well, I mean, I am, but not because of this. Georgia only has 3 FBS wins, jumping the 3 other teams with 4 FBS wins, and App. State is only a 1-pointer; however, 5.875 Notre Dame (#13) and 4.34375 Mississippi State (who is sitting just a couple spots outside the top 25) are about as good a pair of wins as anybody in the country has right now, at least in the PLRCOAT's eyes.
5 Oklahoma Sooners PLRCOAT: 8.152. Back to teams with 4 FBS wins, Oklahoma actually has two 0-point wins in UTEP and Baylor, and Tulane's score is only 1.75; however, their thumping of 6.555 Ohio State (#8) is easily the best win of the season so far (again, at least in the PLRCOAT's eyes). Combine that with 3 other wins of any quality and you'll get a pretty high ranking.
6 San Diego State Aztecs PLRCOAT: 7.75. Ah yes, early season weirdness. Not only is SDSU a G5 team, they also only have 3 FBS wins... but two are darn good ones. 5.25 Arizona State (#19) improved their stock quite a bit by beating Oregon, while 4.25 Stanford did the same by beating UCLA. The Aztecs also beat 0-pointer Air Force for an extra boost. I doubt that SDSU will be able to hang around anywhere near this level as they get into the meat of their G5 schedule, but NIU is a 2-pointer and Boise State, who they'll be facing in a few weeks, is currently the first one out in these rankings; the Aztecs have a shot to build a great resume by mid-October and coast on it through the rest of the season, though they may not see the top 10 again.
7 Penn State Nittany Lions PLRCOAT: 6.063. This is the 5th team to have four FBS wins under their belt, which is good for them, because they just earned pretty much their only good win. 5.125 Iowa (#21) could just as easily be up here if that game went differently in the final seconds; Penn State's other wins are 0-pointers Akron and Pitt and 1-pointer Georgia State. Their stock should rise as they enter conference play and as Pitt (theoretically) starts winning some FBS games.
8 Ohio State Buckeyes PLRCOAT: 6.555. Ohio State also has only 3 FBS wins, but they're solid if unimpressive. 4.109 Indiana is down at #32 - not too shabby - while Army and UNLV both have a score of 1.5.
9 Alabama Crimson Tide PLRCOAT: 6.438. Bama was at 9 last week, and they have... not moved at all. Oh boy. Well. Look, Bama has 4 FBS wins, which gets them in the top 10 this week, but beyond that they just don't have a lot going for them. Both FSUs are 0-pointers while CSU is a 1-pointer; their win over Vandy helps, as the Commodores are at 3.875, but it's still just not a very strong resume. Considering the SEC looks to be somewhat down this year, I'm honestly not sure when, if ever, Alabama is going to get a boost up; looking ahead to next week, Ole Miss is only a 1-pointer right now. You'd think the Seminoles will start to click again, and maybe Vandy will go on a good run, but I'm afraid that the Tide may be stuck outside of the playoff in this ranking for quite a while yet.
10 TCU Horned Frogs PLRCOAT: 6.188. Interestingly, TCU may be the only team so far (and the only team for a while) who is ranked about where I would put them if I was doing a subjective power ranking. They could serve to be higher, I think, but they're at least top 10 and they're probably only a spot or two off from where I'd put them. Anyway, somehow Arkansas has yet to get an FBS win, so they're worth 0 points, but 2.875 SMU and 3.5 Oklahoma State are solid wins.
11 Texas Tech Red Raiders PLRCOAT: 6.125. Ah, right, back to weirdness. Texas Tech has somehow managed to shimmy up this rankings with only 2 FBS wins, but they're good ones: 5.25 Arizona State (#19) and 3-pointer Houston are both very respectable, enough so that they've almost caught 3-win TCU. The Red Raiders are pretty much masters of their own fate; if they can somehow pull the upset on Oklahoma State, they'll easily jump into the top 10, and maybe higher.
12 Florida Gators PLRCOAT: 6.039. Florida's down-to-the-wire wins over 2.5 Tennessee and 5.578 Kentucky (#15) are keeping them pretty high up in the rankings, over quite a few teams with 3 FBS wins; we'll have to see whether this tendency to play last-second games back to chomp them, or if they'll keep getting away with it long enough to build a top-10 resume.
13 Notre Dame Fighting Irish PLRCOAT: 5.875. ND is also probably a little too high for most people's tastes, but they've got a fine resume. 1-pointer Temple, 2.75 Michigan State, and 2-pointer BC is nice and consistent and enough for a top-15 spot.
14 South Carolina Gamecocks PLRCOAT: 5.656. Stick with me here, because stuff is about to get real weird. South Carolina is benefiting heavily from that season opener, as NC State is currently at 3.375, and while SCar struggled with Louisiana Tech - something my calculations don't care about - it's not like Louisiana Tech is a bad team, or at least, they're not a team with a bad resume - they're at 1.938. Throw in a win over 0-pointer Missouri and that'll stick you in the top 15. Here's where things get really interesting, though, because...
15 Kentucky Wildcats PLRCOAT: 5.578. That's right, curveball, Kentucky ranked below the team they beat, read all about it. To most people, having either of these teams ranked probably seems ridiculous, much less in this order, but I'm actually really happy with this result - the reason there's a /2 in the formula for the PLRCOAT is because I want to create an overall sketch of how good a win is and how strong a team's resume is, not just have a slowly growing arms race of win piles where a team that lost to another team can never really catch up because it all trickles back up. Kentucky did beat South Carolina, but they only get half of their 5.656 points, and considering their only other FBS win is 1.5 Southern Miss, it's just not enough to give them the edge.
16 Louisville Cardinals PLRCOAT: 5.5. In my continually zany rankings, rival Kentucky, with their ugly loss to Florida, is a spot above the Cardinals. There's not a lot to explain here; 3.5 Purdue, 1.5 North Carolina, and 0-pointer Kent State doesn't rate for a ton of points and sticks them in the extremely close blob that is #14-#17.
17 USF Bulls PLRCOAT: 5.406. USF has wins over 0-pointer San Jose State, 3.812 Illinois, and 1-pointer Temple. Unlike their fellow G5 squad SDSU, I have a hard time seeing their resume be anywhere near strong enough to keep them in these rankings for long.
18 Virginia Tech Hokies PLRCOAT: 5.25. We've actually got a tie here between Tech and... Arizona State?? so naturally I went with the undefeated team. 2.5 WVU and 1-pointers ECU and Old Dominion isn't the worst resume in the world, but it's not great. As the Hokies and Mountaineers enter conference play we'll probably see both get boosted up over time; the question is whether it'll be enough to keep Tech in the competition with everybody else. A win over Clemson this weekend would be a massive boost in that regard, and almost certainly would catapult them into the top 10.
19 Arizona State Sun Devils PLRCOAT: 5.25. Nobody is benefiting from my willful ignorance of losses more than the Sun Devils right now. The truth is they have two very solid wins in 2.75 New Mexico State and 3.75 Oregon (NMSU, incidentally, being another team that is getting a strong boost from me not paying attention to losses). It'll be interesting to see how this plays out over the season - the reason I'm ignoring losses is because they're the equivalent of not getting wins, which is already accounted for. If ASU is as bad as the narrative is leaning at the moment, they're not going to be able to keep up for long.
20 Washington State Cougars PLRCOAT: 5.219. Washington State is basically just getting a huge boost from 4.438 Boise State right now, as their other two FBS wins are 0-pointers; they've got a shot to jump up a ton this Friday against USC, however.
21 Iowa Hawkeyes PLRCOAT: 5.125. Iowa's much more balanced resume is nonetheless not quite enough to put them over Washington State; 1.5 Wyoming, 1-pointer Iowa State, and 1.75 North Texas is a solid start, however, and if they'd knocked off Penn State they'd be top 10. As it stands, their OOC slate doesn't look too bad, and over time they might see that pay off as the season really gets underway.
22 Wake Forest Demon Deacons PLRCOAT: 5. Wake Forest's resume is also balanced but not great, with 2-pointer Boston College, 1-pointer App State, and 1-pointer Utah State. Not sucky by any means, and Wake could definitely stay in these rankings if they continue to be a solid team.
23 Minnesota Golden Gophers PLRCOAT: 4.875. Minnesota had a bye this last week which caused them to fall quite a bit, and currently their wins over 1-pointer Buffalo, 0-pointer Oregon State, and 2.75 MTSU don't look all that impressive. They've got some catching up to do for sure.
24 Duke Blue Devils PLRCOAT: 4.75. Here we've got our second tie of the day, which like last week fits snugly into the top 25; I just went with Duke over Navy because they're a P5 team (sorry, Mike Aresco). At one point I felt like Duke was building the foundation of a very good resume, but nobody's panning out so far; 2-pointer Northwestern, 0-pointer Baylor, and 1.5 North Carolina just isn't doing it for the Blue Devils quite yet.
25 Navy Midshipmen PLRCOAT: 4.75. Navy's resume is very similar to Duke's; Cincinnati and Tulane both have a score of 1.75, while FAU is a 0-pointer. If Navy has a good season and knocks off Notre Dame towards the end of the year then they ought to end up in my final rankings when all is said and done, but I have a feeling they might drop out sometime in the middle of the schedule due to their G5 resume.

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