College Football: FBS Top 128 Power Rankings – Marshall Continues to Overwhelm Competition in Week 8 Rankings

Marshall continues to dominate its overmatched opponents week after week, vaulting to third in the Top 128 rankings despite getting less credit against weaker competition. (Alan Diaz/AP Photo)

Earlier this season we discussed whether an undefeated BYU team might be able to break into the College Football Playoff field. The Cougars, due largely to the broken leg suffered by otherworldly quarterback Taysom Hill, have plummeted down the rankings with three straight losses following a 4-0 start. But there is another mid-major team that has a much more realistic chance of running its slate undefeated.

After the dust settled following a wild Week 8, Marshall remained one of just four unbeaten teams left in the country — and that list is guaranteed to be thinned down by at least one, with Ole Miss and Mississippi State on a collision course to meet up in an Egg Bowl for the ages. Even more striking is the fact that the Thundering Herd are buoyed by the fact that only 18 one-loss teams remain in the hunt at this point, with Power Five carnage destined to reduce that number even further through October and November.

The Top 128 Power Rankings, set up to account for the quality of opponent by adjusting margin of victory, are designed to reduce the impact of victories over creampuff opponents. And Marshall — which has played a schedule only slightly more difficult than that faced by three-time defending FCS champion North Dakota State — has certainly played the epitome of a cupcake schedule so far.

That meant that Marshall would have to dominate each opponent to sufficiently impress the CFP selection committee. And that’s exactly what the Herd have done so far, winning each game by at least two touchdowns and scoring no fewer than 42 points in any contest. Ranked second in the country in scoring offense and seventh in scoring defense, Doc Holliday’s crew have surmounted every challenge in their way so far. And despite the relative weakness of their opponents, which saps the value of each victory, Marshall has nevertheless climbed up to third in this week’s accounting of adjusted margin of victory.

The selection committee is unlikely to give Marshall the benefit of the doubt barring even more chaos across the college football landscape. Even should they emerge as a 13-0 champion of Conference USA, the 13 people tasked with picking the top four teams for the inaugural bracket are almost certainly going to pick champions from the Power Five conferences. The discussion has centered on whether the SEC can land two teams in the field more than it has on the fate of mid-major schools from the Group of Five.

But what happens if Florida State, Ole Miss, and Mississippi State all lose before conference championship time? What if no team emerges from any Power Five conference with fewer than two losses? Given the fact that teams like Baylor, Alabama, Auburn, and Oregon have tumbled from the ranks of the unbeaten since the calendar flipped over to October, there is nothing guaranteed for any team in the major conferences. What would the selection committee do if teams continued to go the way of preseason contenders such as Oklahoma and UCLA?

The surest bet to go unblemished through the rest of the season, without any doubt, is Marshall. Games against Florida Atlantic, Southern Miss, Rice, UAB, and Western Kentucky aren’t exactly a murderer’s row of opponents. Whoever emerges from C-USA West would be a major underdog in the conference championship. And between the record-breaking exploits of Rakeem Cato and the Herd offense, and the back-breaking work being done by the Marshall defense, there is little threat of falling before December comes.

So keep your eyes open for a team that by all measure should be nowhere in the hunt given its mid-major status and lack of signature opposition. Should the Power Five conferences continue to pummel one another out of the unbeaten ranks, we could finally see a team from outside the blueblood cabal of the sport challenging for a national crown once again.

Here are some other quick thoughts after sifting through the FBS Top 128 data through Week 8:

• The top two teams in last week’s power rankings tumbled down the field… one due solely to a bye week, the other to a road upset. Auburn fell six spots due to the off weekend, while Baylor tumbled five following a two-touchdown defeat at West Virginia. The biggest climb among the top 10 teams came from Alabama; the Tide moved up from 12th to second behind Ole Miss. Nick Saban’s team benefited from a 59-0 shutout of Texas A&M that looked nothing like recent editions of the budding SEC West rivalry.
• The Big Ten continues to surge back into the CFP discussion thanks to the exploits of Ohio State, Michigan State, and Nebraska. All three gained position this week, headlined by the Buckeyes’ leap into the top five after knocking off Rutgers 56-17 in Columbus. Urban Meyer’s squad now leads the country in per-game adjusted margin of victory after Baylor’s loss, outscoring opponents after the adjustments by 17 points per game. Michigan State move leapfrogged Nebraska, moving from 11th into seventh after beating Indiana on the road by an identical score to the Buckeyes-Scarlet Knights tilt, while the Cornhuskers jumped one spot from 10th to ninth after an easy three-touchdown victory over Northwestern.
• The Pac-12 continues to look weakened in relation to the other Power Five conferences. Only three of the league’s teams — Oregon (at 13th following a 25-point win over Washington), USC (20th after knocking off Colorado 56-28), and Utah (moving into 25th after an overtime victory at Oregon State) — are even among the top 25 teams in the power rankings after eight weeks. Among the dozen teams ahead of the Ducks are seven SEC schools and three Big Ten teams, including the Michigan State team that they defeated by 19 points in September.
• Only one possible matchup of unbeaten teams remains in the regular season, if Ole Miss and Mississippi State can survive their remaining schedules to meet in the Egg Bowl after Thanksgiving without losses. The real battle at this point will be between one-loss teams, of which only 18 remain. No pairings of one-loss teams occur this weekend, but that doesn’t mean that none of them will be challenged. Here are the potential stumbling blocks in Week 9, in order of the probability each team suffers a second defeat:

• Utah (5-1) v. USC (5-2)
• Ohio State (5-1) at Penn State (4-2)
• Arizona State (5-1) at Washington (5-2)
• Auburn (5-1) v. South Carolina (4-3)
• Oregon (6-1) v. California (4-3) in Santa Clara
• Nebraska (6-1) v. Rutgers (5-2)
• Kansas State (5-1) v. Texas (3-4)
• Minnesota (6-1) at Illinois (3-4)
• Michigan State (6-1) v. Michigan (3-4)
• Arizona (5-1) at Washington State (2-5)
• Alabama (6-1) at Tennessee (3-4)
• TCU (5-1) v. Texas Tech (3-4)
• Colorado State (6-1) v. Wyoming (3-4)
• East Carolina (5-1) v. Connecticut (1-5)

(The weekly FBS Top 128 is calculated based on a formula described in Week 1. To review the methodology behind the adjusted aggregate score, read the full explanation here. To gain a better understanding about adjustments to the formula made in Week 3, click here. Go to the next page for adjusted margin of victory per game.)

FBS Top 128 - 2014 Week 8