2024 Week 9 CFP Resume Rankings!

Welcome to the 2024 Week 9 College Football Playoff Resume Rankings!

What does it take to impress a computer rating system?  We are now 9 weeks into the 2024 campaign, and the Indiana Hoosiers have yet to trail for a single second.  At 8-0, AP #13 Indiana seems to be playing markedly better than the likes of AP #4 and 6-1 Ohio State.  Just this week for example, Ohio State struggled to put away the Nebraska Cornhuskers at home in a 21-17 victory.  Last week, Indiana demolished Nebraska 56-7.  In the expanded Big Ten, there are few common opponents between the Indiana and Ohio State schedule, so the only data point we have on their collective strength seems meaningful.  Still, the computers have their own methods for assessing team strength, and those methods continue to have Ohio State neck and neck for the title of “strongest team” while Indiana remains mired in the double digits.  It brings into question the modeling methodologies themselves, the phasing out of preseason priors, and the usage of 2024 season results.  Let’s take a look at a few of the models, the methods used, and where Indiana and Ohio State rate in each.

• SP+ - “What is SP+? In a single sentence, it's a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency.  SP+ is indeed intended to be predictive and forward-facing.” – Bill Connelly

  • Ohio State (2nd)

  • Indiana (13th)

• ESPN FPI – “Football Power Index that measures team's true strength on net points scale; expected point margin vs average opponent on neutral field.” – ESPN

  • Ohio State (2nd)

  • Indiana (11th)

• ESPN Efficiency – “Net efficiency on 0-100 scale; incorporates offense, defense and special teams efficiencies into a single schedule-adjusted measure of per-play efficiency.” – ESPN

  • Ohio State (1st)

  • Indiana (6th)

• KelleyFord – “Points per game above FBS average.  Power ratings designed to be purely predictive, or forward-looking.” – Kelley Ford

  • Ohio State (1st)

  • Indiana (11th)

• Sagarin Predictor, Golden Mean, Recent – “The PREDICTOR, is such that the score is the only thing that matters.  GOLDEN_MEAN also utilizes the actual SCORES of the games in a different way but is also completely SCORE BASED and thus should be a good match for the PURE POINTS in terms of predictive accuracy for upcoming games.  The RECENT, is score-based and weights RECENT play more heavily than earlier games. Its effect will become more pronounced the longer a season goes if a given team happens to have an upward or downward trend.” – Jeff Sagarin

  • Ohio State (1st, 1st, 3rd)

  • Indiana (16th, 18th, 16th)

• SRS – “SRS is primarily concerned with two data points: A team's average scoring margin; Strength of schedule.  It spits out a number that essentially functions as a weighted scoring margin. A team's weighted scoring margin is basically their average margin adjusted up or down for SOS. A team with a final rating of 0 is considered to be completely average whereas a team with a +5 rating is considered to be 5 points better than an average team.” – Bill Radjewski

  • Ohio State (1st)

  • Indiana (4th)

• Beta Ranks – “Beta_Rank is an advanced college football model built on drive level data from every game. It is an interlocking series of hierarchical models that provide deep insights into team performance.” – Rob Bowron

  • Ohio State (1st)

  • Indiana (11th)

• Massey – Rating overall strength considering “Off: Offensive power to score” and “Def: Defensive power to prevent opponent from scoring” – Kenneth Massey

  • Ohio State (3rd)

  • Indiana (21st)

• Colley – “The method is based on very simple statistical principles, and uses only wins and losses as input—margin of victory does not matter. The scheme adjusts effectively for strength of schedule, in a way that is free of bias toward conference, tradition, or region. Comparison of rankings produced by this method to those produced by the press polls shows that despite its simplicity, the scheme produces common sense results.” – Wesley Colley

  • Ohio State (7th)

  • Indiana (12th)

How many rating systems have Indiana ahead of Ohio State?  It isn’t zero, but it’s comfortably less than 10% of the rating systems we pulled at the writing of this weekend recap post.  It’s counter intuitive considering Indiana’s dominance on the season thus far, but when almost all rating methods agree on Ohio State’s strength, it leaves us to wonder if Big Analytics are conspiring against the Hoosiers, or if maybe there still isn’t sufficient evidence that Indiana is better.  Fortunately, we don’t have to rely on metrics for this one.  We will find out in a month when Indiana travels to Columbus on November 23rd.  Until then, we’ll continue to trust the analytics.

Quick Hitters:

• In the Friday night 29-24 win over UNLV, Boise State took a necessary step ahead toward CFP contention.  Amongst the feathers in the cap for the Broncos are a strong win over 7-1 Washington State, a close road loss to the #1 Oregon Ducks, and now a road win over a top 5 Group of 5 team in UNLV.  Boise State controls their own destiny at this point of the season, with only Army standing as a team with the potential opportunity to jump the Broncos for a CFP Auto Bid.  Army has opportunity with Notre Dame still on the schedule and could create a 2021 Cincinnati situation if they can upset the Fighting Irish, but absent that dynamic Boise State at 12-1 should remain ahead of all other potential playoff hopefuls.

• Texas followed up the loss to Georgia with a quality road win in a close game over Vanderbilt.  Texas A&M secured their position atop the SEC with a runaway home win over LSU.  Texas now looks ahead at 3 unranked teams before a season ending game against Texas A&M, who projects to also enter the November 30th showdown at 10-1.  The winner of this game likely plays for the SEC title.  The loser hopes for a CFP At Large bid.  Will we see any upsets, or are these teams on a collision course for an all-time rivalry renewal showdown?  Time will tell!

Let’s take a look at the Week 9 CFP Resume Rankings (note: these ranking should mirror a fair CFP committee):

Notes on the CFP Resume Rankings:

• Oregon pulls ahead of Georgia at the top of the rankings this week, with Alabama and Miami holding firm in the #3 and #4 slots.  Penn State and Texas A&M both take a sizeable step forward with wins over Wisconsin and LSU respectively and each slide in ahead of BYU.

• Ohio State continues to rate as the strongest team in the country, but the raw resume sits outside of the top 15, which continues to hold back the Buckeyes on overall resume.  If Ohio State wins at Penn State this coming weekend, that dynamic will change.  With a loss Ohio State will fall well behind on raw resume and will struggle to close the gap with their remaining schedule.

• The Pitt Panthers are on the rise, but remain ranked as the lowest power conference unbeaten team.  This week’s matchup against the 7-1 SMU Mustangs offers Pitt a chance to continue demonstrating team strength while building on their raw resume.  Expect the winner of SMU and Pitt to take a jump up to the fringes of the CFP At Large boundary.

• Boise State isn’t quite in the mix for the CFP At Large bids at present, but the Broncos do sit ahead of the 6-1 Clemson Tigers, currently ranked 11th in the AP poll.  Both of these teams sit behind 4 of our 2-loss teams, Alabama, LSU, Ole Miss, and … Colorado?  If the Buffs continue to win don’t be surprised if they slide up into the mid to upper teens as the season progresses.

Unexpected results from Week 9 after adjusting for our updated Composite Team Strength Rating

Congratulations to Kennesaw State on their first ever win as an FBS team!  The upset win over Liberty was also the largest unexpected result of the week by a large margin.  Also, shout out to the MAC for producing 3 of our top 5 upsets of the week!

With our resume rankings setting a 12-team CFP, who has the best odds to win the title?

Ohio State with the second to last At Large bid holds the second-best title odds, primarily due to rating as the strongest team in the country.  No need to wait for their hypothetical round one matchup with Penn State.  Kickoff in this one is at 12:00 EST Saturday in Happy Valley!  Oregon currently holds the strongest odds to win the title in our latest projection at just under 19% title odds.

Now let’s highlight a few Week 10 games worth watching

Top Game:

• The top game of the week is a big one, with Ohio State traveling to Penn State as a 3.5 favorite.  This is a game Ohio State needs if the Buckeyes want to win the Big Ten.  With a resounding win Penn State could make a claim as the #1 team in the country going into the initial CFP Committee Rankings.  It’s the best game of the weekend and currently the 4th best game of the entire season.

• Other top games include the SMU Mustangs hosting unbeaten Pittsburgh and Texas A&M traveling to South Carolina with both games being within a touchdown on spread.  The top Group of 5 game this week is a Wednesday night Sun Belt showdown between 6-1 Louisiana and 4-3 Texas State.  Despite the perception of the league this season, the Sun Belt continues to rate as the strongest and deepest Group of 5 conference.  The 41-33 loss to Tulane makes the path to the CFP challenging, but Louisiana is in the mix for top Group of 5 team, and with a few upsets elsewhere in college football it’s not inconceivable that the Ragin’ Cajuns could make a surprise run to the CFP.

That’s all we have for the Week 9.  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)