2021 Week 3 CFP Resume Rankings!

Welcome to the 2021 Week 3 College Football Playoff Resume Rankings!

Week 3 featured 4 AP upsets, several wild finishes, referee blunders and a challenge to the reigning champs.  The two biggest games delivered with Alabama holding off an inspired comeback from Florida and Penn State making a goal line stand against Auburn.  Both Oklahoma and Clemson also needed late stops to secure wins over Nebraska and Georgia Tech respectively.  We had 3 unexpected and 1 expected AP upset.  Our projections captured the BYU upset over Arizona State, and we tagged WVU over Virginia Tech and Michigan State over Miami as likely upsets.  Fresno State picked up the upset of the day in a very late game against UCLA in which Fresno drove the length of the field with less than a minute on the clock to score the game winning TD.

The two games most impacted by referee miscues were both games that yielded unexpected results in favor of the ref assisted team.  In one of the craziest plays of the day, Mississippi State attempted to down a punt without ever securing the ball allowing Memphis to pick it up and return it for a game winning touchdown.  SEC officials would later admit to an inadvertent whistle that should have ended the play but that was not caught as well as missing a reviewable penalty on Memphis for having two players of the same number on the field for the play.  Maybe Memphis still wins the game, but they would have needed to drive the length of the field to do so.  Oklahoma State was the beneficiary of the second referee blunder on the road against Boise State.  The Broncos needing a stop to give themselves a chance late forced a fumble and returned it for the go ahead score.  An inadvertent whistle blew the play dead so that upon review and confirming the fumble Boise was not afforded the score.  Boise would drive the field and miss a field goal to ultimately lose the game.  Maybe Oklahoma State wins the game anyways, but the Cowboys would have needed to score a touchdown on demand to take home a W.  Both games were represented in our 4 closest games of the week to follow and both games yielded unprojected results.  We will never know if the results would have changed without officiating interference, but in games that tight often the smallest mistakes make the difference between a win and loss and in both of these games the refs may have made that difference.

Let’s take a look at the Week 3 CFP-Nielsen rankings (note: these ranking should mirror the CFP committee):

9/19/21

Notes on the Year-to-Date Rankings:

• Georgia remains at #1 in our year-to-date rankings with Alabama jumping up to #2 following a big win over Florida.  The Alabama resume suffers a little more with each poor Miami performance which for now keeps them at bay.
• Penn State now boasts the #1 raw resume with strong wins over Wisconsin and Auburn.  Penn State is the first of 4 Big Ten teams in the top 10 followed by Iowa, an underrated Michigan squad and Ohio State.
• 6 of our top 7 are in the top 6 of the AP poll.  The lone team in our top 7 not as high in the AP is Michigan with a reasonable raw resume and blossoming team strength rating.  No team has improved more from week 1 to week 3 in our composite team strength rating.
• BYU might not move much higher than they are right now without other top teams losing.  BYU is currently bolstered by a collection of Pac 12 wins, but Utah just lost to San Diego State and Arizona is well on their way to another winless season.  The raw resume may not grow much relative to other power 5 teams but there is some room for growth in team strength rating.  Dominant play over the next few weeks will help, but the Cougars may be near their season ceiling without help.

Year-to-date Rankings vs AP Poll

• Maryland, 3-0, beat West Virginia 30-24.  West Virginia, 2-1, beat Virginia Tech 27-21.  Virginia Tech, 2-1, beat North Carolina 17-10.  North Carolina is ranked 21^st ahead of all 3 other teams.  Given that we are only 3 weeks into the season you would think on field results would carry a ton of weight.  Instead, North Carolina is given the benefit of the doubt because they were in the Top 10 preseason and all other 3 were unranked.  Preseason rankings that create bias suck.
• Small Note: Stanford received 3 points in the AP poll.  USC received 16.  We are only 1 week removed from USC firing a coach after getting blown out by Stanford.  All biases for big brands influencing rankings suck.

Now let’s look at the updated End-of-Year Projected CFP-Wheeler rankings (note: these rankings should project the end of year CFP committee rankings):

9/19/21

Notes on the Year-End Projected Rankings:

• Ohio State is one of the beneficiaries of Michigan’s huge rise and would be in the playoffs if not for the head-to-head loss with Oregon.  The resume is certainly strong enough for Ohio State to get in if the SEC championship loser has more than 1 loss, but if Oregon stumbles in conference play Ohio State will be in a world of hurt.
• Texas is fresh off of an embarrassing week 2 loss to Arkansas, but the Longhorns may still push their way to the top 10.  Texas rates as a stronger team than all of their remaining non-OU opponents, but that certainly didn’t stop Arkansas.  Texas is a team that can move way up the rankings as the season moves on should they continue winning.
• Ole Miss has played their way into a projected win over Texas A&M.  The loop between Ole Miss beating A&M, A&M projecting to beat Auburn, and Auburn projecting to beat Ole Miss frees Texas A&M up to be ranked higher by virtue of rating as the strongest team of the 3, but the Aggie drop from 8 to 12 is a result of the additional projected loss.
• The Big 12 is a very deep conference that could go any number of ways as the season progresses.  9 of the 10 programs rate as top 47 teams.  The difference between the 2^nd strongest, Texas, and 9^th, Texas Tech is the same as the difference between #1 and #6.  Any game within 10 rating points we consider a close game that could go either way.  We also give a 3-point margin to the home team.  That means any matchup within 13 points could be considered a virtual tossup.  As of now there would be 26 such games in Big 12 play meaning that almost any team can beat any other team on any given weekend.

Unexpected results from Week 3 after adjusting for our updated Composite Team Strength Rating

• Fresno State over UCLA
• West Virginia over Virginia Tech
• Louisville over UCF
• San Diego State over Utah
• Utah State over Air Force
• Western Michigan over Pitt
• Duke over Northwestern
• East Carolina over Marshall
• Colorado State over Toledo

Top 5 risers and fallers in Composite Team Strength Rating

Risers

• Stanford (-16.2)
• Western Michigan (-14.6)
• Michigan (-14.4)
• San Diego State (-14.1)
• Wyoming (-13.9)

Fallers

• Arizona (+14.1)
• Rice (+12.2)
• Florida State (+11.2)
• Ohio (+8.7)
• Arkansas State (+8.1)

Now let’s highlight a few Week 4 games worth watching (CTSR Ranking: CTSR Rating):

• #9 Clemson (5: 16.0) vs NC State (31: 34.7)
• #4 Oklahoma (4: 15.4) vs West Virginia (38: 37.9)
• #7 Texas A&M (12: 21.8) vs #16 Arkansas (27: 34.0)
• #18 Wisconsin (20: 29.5) vs #12 Notre Dame (19: 28.5)
• #14 Iowa State (16: 27.3) vs Baylor (28: 34.0)
• Texas (14: 23.2) vs Texas Tech (47: 40.2)
• Oklahoma State (32: 35.3) vs #25 Kanas State (26: 33.6)
• LSU (18: 27.5) vs Mississippi State (42: 38.7)
• #20 Michigan State (22: 32.0) vs Nebraska (46: 40.1)
• #24 UCLA (25: 33.2) vs Stanford (44: 39.2)
• Virginia (35: 36.7) vs Wake Forest (40: 38.1)
• TCU (29: 34.1) vs SMU (49: 40.4)

That’s all we have for the Week 3.  If you have any questions about either the CFP-Wheeler or CFP-Nielsen Rankings or just want to follow along come find us @CFPResumeRanks on Twitter or Facebook.  If you would like to officially reference our rankings the DMs are always open.  Have a great week everyone!

(Note: For tables instead of pictures of the rankings, see the resume ranking pages)