Week 9 was not kind to many undefeated teams. Previous top-15 teams Nebraska, Baylor, West Virginia, and Boise State all caught their first Ls of the season.
2016 college football rankings, Week 10: Collecting new top 25s after 4 unbeatens lose
The chart below includes the AP Poll, Coaches Poll, and a couple other interesting rankings.
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While that’s unfortunate, shoutout to the undefeateds who kept their noses clean on the first relatively chaotic Saturday of the season.
Alabama didn’t play this weekend. Western Michigan didn’t either, but it’s because they’re front and center with Tuesday night #MACTION this week.
Clemson won a great game over Florida State, and Jimbo Fisher was reasonably upset in his postgame press conference. Washington used a controversial punt return to stay clean against Utah. Michigan beat rival Michigan State as well, and a Wolverines player said the score should have been much worse.
Also, hooray! We’ve made it to the year’s first official Playoff rankings, so hold on tight, because Tuesday night at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN, some teams are gonna get some relatively meaningless (in the grand scheme of the season) numbers next to their names. We’ll post those Tuesday night, but for now, here are some polls and computers.
| AP (prev) | Coaches | S&P+ | Massey | |
| 1 | Alabama | Alabama | Michigan | Alabama |
| 2 | Michigan | Michigan | Alabama | Michigan |
| 3 | Clemson | Clemson | Louisville | Clemson |
| 4 | Washington | Washington | Clemson | Washington |
| 5 | Louisville | Louisville | Washington | Ohio State |
| 6 | Ohio State | Ohio State (8) | Ohio State | Texas A&M |
| 7 | Texas A&M (9) | Texas A&M (10) | LSU | Louisville |
| 8 | Wisconsin (11) | Wisconsin (11) | Auburn | Auburn |
| 9 | Nebraska (7) | Florida (12) | Florida | Wisconsin |
| 10 | Florida (14) | Nebraska (6) | Wisconsin | WMU |
| 11 | Auburn (15) | Oklahoma (15) | Oklahoma | WVU |
| 12 | Oklahoma (16) | Auburn (17) | Colorado | Boise State |
| 13 | Baylor (8) | Baylor (6) | Virginia Tech | Nebraska |
| 14 | WVU (10) | LSU (19) | FSU | Florida |
| 15 | LSU (19) | WVU (9) | Penn State | Colorado |
| 16 | Utah (17) | Utah (16) | Texas A&M | Tennessee |
| 17 | WMU (20) | UNC (20) | USC | FSU |
| 18 | UNC (21) | WMU (21) | Baylor | LSU |
| 19 | FSU (12) | FSU (14) | Ole Miss | Virginia Tech |
| 20 | Penn State (24) | Colorado (23) | Boise State | Penn State |
| 21 | Colorado (23) | Virginia Tech (25) | WMU | WSU |
| 22 | Okla. State (NR) | Okla State (28) | Nebraska | Oklahoma |
| 23 | Virginia Tech (25) | Penn State (27) | App State | USC |
| 24 | Boise State (13) | Boise State (13) | WKU | Utah |
| 25 | Wash. State (NR) | Wash. State (26) | WVU | UNC |
The four rankings used here
The Associated Press Top 25: The longest-running and best-respected human poll. Didn't have any official bearing on the latter years of the BCS, and doesn't have any official bearing on the Playoff. You can expect these rankings to drop early Sunday afternoon.
The USA Today Coaches Poll: Formerly part of the BCS, and now just a poll. It tends to react more cautiously than the AP’s. Though polling athletic departments in order to rank other athletic departments is dubious, we still want multiple human polls in here, and this is the other big one. These rankings typically come in Sundays around noon.
The Massey computer composite: A collection of dozens of ratings, all combined into one. We include the latest version as of publication. (It does also include the two human polls, but they can’t sway it all that much.)
Bill Connelly’s S&P+ ratings: SB Nation’s favored advanced stat, which arrives a bit later than the others. An important thing to keep in mind: for the first few weeks, it also factors in preseason projections. It’ll look pretty weird early on, but it’s proved to be a very strong predictor against the Vegas spread over the long term.
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