2023 Week 8 CFP Resume Rankings!

Welcome to the 2023 Week 8 College Football Playoff Resume Rankings!

Week 8 was a snooze fest if you were looking for CFP altering upsets, but that doesn’t mean there weren’t a lot of clunker games for top ranked teams that put the fear of God into several fan bases. While it wasn’t a major shakeup by win/loss, there are a LOT of major changes in the resume rankings to talk about this week. Here’s what happened this past weekend.

The most hyped game of the week was also billed by us as a top 3 game of the whole season. After Penn State and Ohio State slugged back and forth in a defensive affair where Ohio State pulled away in the 4th and never gave Penn State a chance, this game no longer holds that designation. As of right now, Ohio State/Penn State still rates as the 6th best game, now behind Texas/Alabama, Ole Miss/LSU and Oklahoma/Texas, as well as both team’s future games with Michigan. It’s still a meaningful game, and the win for Ohio State is going to cement their place atop the resume rankings for some time it seems. Ohio State dominated this game on defense, which seems to be the calling card for this year’s Buckeye team, and the offense got it going eventually against a really good Penn State defense. The Nittany Lions are still really good. Don’t fall for the media trap discounting the Ohio State win because Penn State’s offense is really bad. It isn’t. This Buckeyes team is just that good.

Quick Hitters:

• Florida State / Duke

  • Duke looked like the better team until QB Riley Leonard left with an injury. Florida State scored twice quickly and this game was over. Duke led into the 4th though. Don’t be surprised when this win carries a lot of value in the resume evaluation.

• Washington / Arizona State

  • If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound? If Washington, led by Heisman hopeful Michael Penix Jr fails to score an offensive touchdown against 1-5 Arizona State (now 1-6) in a 15-7 win that could easily have been a loss if not for a 90-yard pick six late in the game and it all happens after 1:00 EST Sunday morning, will anyone notice? This was a BAD game for Washington and will hurt in the strength ratings.

• Oklahoma / UCF

  • Oklahoma had been playing with such great efficiency this season and was sitting super tight with Ohio State and Michigan in the strength ratings, then they needed a 4th quarter comeback to beat Central Florida, who has not yet won a Big 12 game. OU is still unbeaten and in a great spot, but that was a serious scare that has the Sooners plummeting in the team strength ratings.

• Texas / Houston

  • Speaking of surviving a scare, Texas never trailed against Houston, but they never pulled away either. Houston had the ball in the redzone late with a chance to score and maybe go for 2 and the win, but a controversial 3rd down spot left Houston with 4th and 1 which they did not convert. The Longhorns were lucky this game didn’t go to overtime. We’ll see if Quinn Ewers will be back next week after leaving with an injury late in this win.

• Virginia / North Carolina

  • What in the world?! 1-5 Virginia does what 1-5 Arizona State could not replicate and takes down a top 10 unbeaten team on the road. North Carolina will still have a shot at the ACC, but an underwhelming strength rating means the climb up the resume rankings will be nearly impossible now. This result is almost enough to eliminate the Tar Heels from playoff contention all together.

• Alabama / Tennessee

  • Alabama remains alive in the CFP claiming yet another very strong win for their resume. Tennessee was up 13-0 through 1, and 20-7 at the half, but the second half was all Crimson Tide with Alabama running off 27 unanswered points to win this one. Alabama is about to create some serious controversy with how high their resume will rate and with how low they will sit in the AP.

• Utah / USC

  • Lincoln Riley and Caleb Williams fall to 0-3 against the Utah Utes. Both teams will have a shot at the Pac-12 still, but this served as an elimination game for the Trojans who fall to 6-2 on the season. Up next for Utah, the Oregon Ducks.

Let’s take a look at the Week 8 CFP Resume Rankings (note: these ranking should mirror a fair CFP committee):

Notes on the CFP Resume Rankings:

• Where do we begin? Let’s start with the easy stuff. Ohio State at #1 makes sense. They rate as the strongest team. They have the best raw resume. They deserve to be at the top. 60 AP voters disagree. 60 AP voters are wrong. This is the deserving #1 and it is not close.

• Also receiving 3 #1 votes from AP voters is the easy #2, Florida State. FSU has the 2nd best raw resume and rates as the 3rd strongest team behind Ohio State and Michigan. On team strength, Michigan has a comfortable edge, so it’s ok for a strength minded voter to have the Wolverines ahead, but when you evaluate the full resume and the depth of opponent Florida State has demonstrated their strength against, it’s clear they belong ahead of Michigan.

• Now for some controversy. At 3, 4, & 5 we have Alabama, Oklahoma and Texas respectively. Oklahoma beat Texas. Texas beat Alabama. It should be easy to rank those teams accordingly. The AP Poll gets it right, and the committee likely will as well, but this year we aren’t applying the Head-to-Head results when representing data, and the data has the Alabama resume higher. How? It’s all about the raw resume value. On team strength alone, Oklahoma is at 4, Texas at 6 and Alabama at 7. That makes sense. On raw resume, Alabama is at 3, OU at 4 and UT at 5. It’s also very close. The scales are just not linear. Alabama is much further ahead of OU/UT on raw resume than either are on team strength, and that means the Alabama resume is better, even if it correctly won’t be ranked as such.

• By the way, what happened to Oklahoma’s team strength rating?! Wasn’t it just last week that they were pushing Ohio State and Michigan for #1? The way the composite works out, there are a wide variety of strength rating methodologies at play. Some of those rating systems will not respond quickly to results in the season, holding onto informative priors for longer. Some will over react to results on the field. Some are more predictive in nature, not caring how good your opponents have been over the year seeking to understand if you have dominated the appropriate amount. Others will give a lot more credit in the strength measurement to teams who demonstrate quality against good teams. Oklahoma was a beneficiary of both the over reactors and the resume influenced strength systems for much of the year. After the poor showing this past week coinciding with Ohio State’s big win, almost all of those rating systems jumped ship and found a home with the Buckeyes or Michigan. OU still rates as a very strong team, but the dip was large enough to seriously impact their resume position.

• James Madison and Georgia is about as disparate as two unbeaten 7-0 teams can be this late into the season. Georgia is relying on almost entirely team strength at this point, and it’s not what they wish it was. James Madison is being bolstered by their raw resume, which surprisingly is much better than that of Georgia at this point in the season. This is not going to last, but we can always look back on a time in 2023 when James Madison legitimately had a better resume than the AP #1 Georgia. How is the road win over Troy more valuable than anything Georgia has done this year in the vaunted SEC? I have no idea! Ask the strength ratings. It’s crazy!

• Top 25 and vote receiving teams that are underrated by the AP Poll from the perspective of both Team Strength and Raw Resume: Ohio State, Florida State, Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas, LSU, James Madison, Kansas State

• Top 25 teams that the AP has overrated based on both Team Strength and Raw Resume: Georgia, Washington, Oregon, Oregon State, North Carolina, Air Force, Duke, Tulane

Unexpected results from Week 8 after adjusting for our updated Composite Team Strength Rating

• No result from this past weekend stood out more than Virginia over North Carolina, which we talked about earlier, but did anyone notice Nevada winning 6-0 over San Diego State? What the heck happened there?!

Top 5 risers and fallers in Composite Team Strength Rating

• Several of these teams have already been discussed, but look at Rice putting an old-fashioned whooping on Tulsa! The Owls absolutely stomped the Golden Hurricanes on Saturday, and our strength ratings took note!

Now let’s highlight a few Week 9 games worth watching (Top 50 games)

• This week’s slate is lean compared to the top end of the past 3 weeks, but there is still quality to be had at the top. Week 9 is headlined by Oregon traveling to Utah for an elimination game in the Pac-12 title race. Utah coming off of the win over USC will seek to continue their run atop the Pac-12 while Oregon comes in fresh after dismantling Washington State to end any hopes they had at a fairytale run at the Pac-12. This should be a top 10 game for the season.

• Duke vs Louisville doesn’t seem like the 2nd best game of any weekend in a college football season, but here we are! The Blue Devils are potentially without their starting QB, and Louisville is reeling after a bad loss to Pitt, but the winner of this one will still be in the hunt in the ACC with a chance to make a run at the title game.

• Ohio State, Oklahoma and Georgia all are double digit favorites against Wisconsin, Kansas, and Florida, but collectively there is a 44.4% chance one of the three loses this weekend. Keep an eye on that trio of games for a big result.

• Our best Group of 5 game this week is 6-1 Fresno State, hosting the surprisingly bowl eligible also 6-1 UNLV Rebels! It’s a game on paper that we wouldn’t have expected to be good before the season, but UNLV has surprised, and this could be a great game! This is objectively a better game to watch than UCLA/Colorado, who sit 3 spots lower in our Game Quality ratings.

That’s all we have for the Week 8. If you have any questions about the CFP Resume Rankings or just want to follow along come find us @CFPResumeRanks on Twitter/X. If you would like to officially reference our rankings or partner with us the DMs are always open. Have a great week everyone!

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