2021 Week 4 CFP Resume Rankings!

Welcome to the 2021 Week 4 College Football Playoff Resume Rankings!

Week 4 featured 5 AP ranked upsets and another 5 close calls for AP ranked teams.  We got started on Friday with a close call for Week 3 hero Fresno State against hapless UNLV.  The early Saturday window produced an unexpected result for SMU knocking off rival TCU on the road to stay unbeaten.  In the afternoon Arkansas produced the first major upset controlling the whole game in a double digit win over Texas A&M.  In a much closer game, Baylor secured their top 15 upset over Iowa State with a late interception on a two-point conversion that would have tied the game.  Michigan dominated early but was forced to hold off a resurgent Rutgers team and Auburn was a single play from taking a loss against Georgia State.  Both would hold on to win and avoid shocking upsets.  In the evening we had Oklahoma State dismantling Kansas State in what was an AP upset but not an unexpected result.  Both Michigan State and Oklahoma escaped with wins in two evening games that could easily have gone the other way.  Michigan State returned a Nebraska punt for the tying touchdown and went on to win in Overtime.  Oklahoma secured victory on a last second field goal.  Clemson could not produce the same escape against North Carolina State, who missed a field goal at the end of regulation that would have won the game but went on to win in OT.  Of the major upsets North Carolina was the only team who was never really in the game as they were dismantled by Georgia Tech.  Also, a shoutout to Bowling Green who produced the upset of the season so far coming in as 30-point underdogs against Minnesota on the road and walking out the door with a win.  There were more fun Week 4 games and interesting results than we can cover here.  Hopefully every week is as fun as Week 4!

Let’s take a look at the Week 4 CFP-Nielsen rankings (note: these ranking should mirror the CFP committee):

Notes on the Year-to-Date Rankings:

• This week the big winners were Michigan, Notre Dame, and Arkansas.  All 3 picked up quality wins and moved up in the composite team strength metric.  Wisconsin, Notre Dame’s Week 4 opponent, rates as the 36^th strongest team.  Rutgers, Michigan’s opponent, rates as the 38^th strongest.  Even though Wisconsin was ranked in the top 20 and Rutgers was unranked the wins had very similar resume value.  As Arkansas continues to progress beyond preseason projections for team strength they will continue to move up in the year-to-date rankings.
• Penn State was a big loser this week after both of their big wins were downgraded due to poor performance by Wisconsin and Auburn.  Both Wisconsin and Auburn regressed in the composite team strength rating by at least 8 rating points (good for the 10^th and 12^th worst regression respectively) which devalues the wins Penn State produced.  The drop in raw resume value accompanied by other big wins dropped Penn State from 3^rd to 9^th in the year-to-date rankings.
• This week we welcomed 6 new teams to the rankings. (Composite team strength ratings)
  • #23 SMU with wins over #53, #86 and #116
  • #24 Baylor with wins over #26, #119 and #120
  • #35 Kentucky with wins over #65, #71, and #111
  • #21 Wake Forest with wins over #67, #90 and #123
  • #48 UTSA with wins over #63, #92 and #99
  • #55 Western Michigan with wins over #31 and #91
• Auburn is our lowest ranked AP team coming in at #52 in our year-to-date rankings.  Auburn’s current resume is a win over Akron, a win over an FCS team, a loss to Penn State, and a near disaster against Georgia State.  With a raw resume barely cracking the top 100 and a regressing team strength rating Auburn does not have anything close to a top 25 year-to-date resume.

Year-to-date Rankings vs AP Poll

• Today’s curious AP ranking worth discussing is the position of the largest two schools from Texas.  Let’s lay out the resumes side by side and see who probably should be ranked higher.  Don’t scroll down to see the answer if you want to play along and guess for yourself.
• Team A
  • 10^th strongest team
  • Wins over #59, #66, #124
  • Loss to #15
• Team B
  • 18^th strongest team
  • Wins over #96, #100, #125
  • Loss to #15
• You might think that team A is stronger relative to opponent and performance adjusted computer metrics, and that team A has stronger wins than team B.  You might want to rank team A higher than team B.  Let me tempt you with a narrative to surround the two teams.  When team A lost to Arkansas, they were unranked and rated as the 55^th strongest team.  When team B lost to Arkansas, they were ranked 16^th and rated as the 27^th strongest team.  Would that make you want to rate team B ahead of team A?  If so, you are probably an AP voter placing Texas A&M at #15 and leaving Texas unranked.  The reality is not that Texas took a surprising loss to a bad team and Texas A&M took a respectable loss to a strong team.  They lost to the same team.  We just collectively didn’t know as much about Arkansas’s strength when Texas played them on the road.  If the CFP Committee were releasing a ranking this week there is virtually 0 chance Texas would be ranked behind Texas A&M.

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):

Notes on the Year-End Projected Rankings:

• The list of projected unbeaten teams entering conference championship weekend now includes the following: Alabama, Georgia, Michigan, Iowa, Oklahoma, Oregon, Notre Dame and UTSA.  The playoff spots would project to go to the following teams:  Alabama and Georgia regardless of the winner, the winner of Michigan and Iowa, and Oklahoma.  Oregon suffers from lack of raw resume value and Notre Dame loses out on not having a conference championship game.
• Clemson still projects to win the ACC but only after coming through a 3-way tiebreaker with NC State and Wake Forest!  The tiebreaker would go all the way to CFP ranking which we project would go to Clemson though just barely.
• BYU is now a road win in Waco from projecting to go unbeaten.  The race for the Group of 5 CFP position likely still goes to Cincinnati who projects to finish 12-1, but an unbeaten BYU might just jump them to take that position.  UTSA running the table is a fun projection, but ultimately the raw resume is enough to hold them back from taking the CFP bowl.
• Appalachian State is the highest projected team not yet receiving AP votes with a projected 12-1 finish.  Auburn is the lowest projected team and may struggle to make a bowl game.
• Biggest winners from Week 4 were Michigan (11^th to projected 2^nd), Notre Dame (18^th to projected 7^th), Arkansas (unranked to projected 13^th), Wake Forest (unranked to projected 16^th) and NC State (unranked to projected 18^th)

Unexpected results from Week 4 after adjusting for our updated Composite Team Strength Rating

• Georgia Tech over North Carolina
• NC State over Clemson
• Syracuse over Liberty
• Bowling Green over Minnesota
• Louisiana Monroe over Troy
• In hindsight all other results were expected results given what we know now from each team’s strength rating

Top 5 risers and fallers in Composite Team Strength Rating

Risers

• #15 Arkansas (-8.9)
• #117 Bowling Green (-8.8)
• #111 Louisiana Monroe (-8.6)
• #23 SMU (-8.1)
• #54 UAB (-7.5)

Fallers

• #75 Minnesota (+13.1)
• #64 USC (+12.0)
• #88 Troy (+10.4)
• 100 Colorado (+9.7)
• #67 Virginia (+9.6)

Now let’s highlight a few Week 5 games worth watching (CTSR Ranking: CTSR Rating):

• #1 Alabama (1: 1.2) vs #12 Ole Miss (13: 23.1)
• #2 Georgia (2: 1.4) vs #8 Arkansas (15: 25.1)
• #9 Notre Dame (11: 21.6) vs #7 Cincinnati (12: 23.0)
• #14 Michigan (3: 15.6) vs Wisconsin (36: 37.8)
• #10 Florida (4: 18.4) vs Kentucky (35: 37.3)
• #25 Clemson (8: 20.5) vs Boston College (32: 35.4)
• #6 Oklahoma (5: 18.8) vs Kansas State (37: 37.9)
• #11 Ohio State (6: 20.0) vs Rutgers (38: 38.0)
• LSU (17: 28.7) vs Auburn (19: 30.5)
• #5 Iowa (7: 20.2) vs Maryland (41: 39.4)
• #19 Oklahoma State (20: 31.2) vs #21 Baylor (24: 32.5)
• #15 Texas A&M (18: 30.3) vs Mississippi State (45: 41.3)
• #20 UCLA (25: 32.9) vs Arizona State (42: 40.4)

That’s all we have for the Week 4.  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)