College Football: FBS Top 128 Power Rankings – Baylor and Ohio State Make Statements in Week 11 Rankings

Ohio State and Baylor knocked off Michigan State and Oklahoma on the road to stake claims in the CFP race. (Marvin Fong/Cleveland Plain Dealer; Mark D. Smith/USA Today Sports)

The SEC has slipped back a bit in the FBS Top 128 Rankings as teams in the West continue to beat up on one another. Alabama’s overtime survival in Death Valley led to a two-spot drop; Ole Miss’ shutout of FCS Presbyterian wasn’t enough to keep it from being surpassed by a couple of teams; and Auburn’s defeat yielded similar results. The league still has three teams in the top 10, and half of the league’s 14 teams are in the top 25 in adjusted margin of victory. But they’ve started to drift back as other teams take preeminence in the rankings.

The biggest beneficiaries of the weekend were Baylor and Ohio State, who now lock down the top two spots in both aggregate and per-game adjusted margin of victory. The Bears bounced back to the top spot after trouncing Oklahoma 48-14 for the team’s first-ever road victory in Norman. The Buckeyes, meanwhile, traveled to East Lansing and went punch for punch with Michigan State for a 49-37 victory that put Urban Meyer’s team atop the Big Ten East.

Baylor subsequently vaulted four spots in both the AP and coaches polls. Ohio State took a similar boost, moving four spots in the coaches poll and five in the AP. While we still await the chance to see what impact the results will have on the weekly CFP rankings released every Tuesday, it is likely that both teams will rise into the top 10 this week.

Art Briles’ team has always been renowned for its offense, and the 2014 vintage is leading the nation with 50.1 points per game. The Bears are balanced as well, fifth in the country in passing yardage per game and 23rd in rushing. What is different is the defense; in a conference where the stereotype says defense is optional, Baylor is 20th nationally in points allowed. Not only are they winning, they’re winning by wide margins — even against a schedule rated 55th nationally according to Sagarin.

Ohio State’s schedule has been equally easy, as Sagarin’s schedule strength rates the Buckeyes just ahead of the Bears in 54th. Urban Meyer’s squad was the underdog in Michigan on Saturday, with most of the country viewing the Spartans as the logical representative for the conference. Ohio State still has to reconcile their early loss to Virginia Tech, especially as the Hokies plummet to the bottom of the ACC Coastal that they once owned year after year. They’re a slightly better rushing team than Baylor, a much less prolific passing offense, yet they’re scoring just four fewer points per game than the Bears.

If anything, these two teams look a lot like the defending national champion, Florida State, in terms of the schedules they’ve played. Obviously the Seminoles are undefeated, but otherwise they’ve looked far less impressive against an analogous schedule. The selection committee has proven a proclivity for giving undefeated schools precedence so far, but digging deeper shows that there have been far more impressive squads this season that continue to merit consideration.

Here are some other quick thoughts after sifting through the FBS Top 128 data through Week 11:

• 15 different teams are averaging 10 or more points per game in adjusted margin of victory. Baylor is joined by TCU and Oklahoma, two of their vanquished opponents in Big 12 play. Wisconsin, Nebraska, and Michigan State join Ohio State from the Big Ten. The SEC has five schools among the 15, led by Alabama’s 15.2-point average margin of victory. Oregon is the Pac-12’s lone representative, while Conference USA continues to have two teams — Marshall and Louisiana Tech — compiling huge victories as they race on a collision course to face one another in the league’s championship game.
• Just like last week, Ohio State would be playing Marshall in the Rose Bowl and Alabama would be squaring off against Baylor in the Sugar Bowl if per-game adjusted margin of victory were to determine the four-team CFP field at this point of the season. The Bears would likely be favored over the Crimson Tide, though it would be a classic battle of offense versus defense. The Thundering Herd, one of just three undefeated teams left in the country, would provide the opportunity for Cinderella drama in the inaugural season of the four-team playoff..
• Three Big Ten teams sit in the current top 10, with Michigan State the next team in line at 11th. They are joined by the SEC as the two leagues with the most schools in the top 10, followed by the Big 12 with Baylor and TCU. Oregon sits in fifth as the Pac-12’s best-positioned school in the CFP hunt, while Marshall rounds out the group. The ACC continues to be the odd man out in these rankings; Louisville is the highest ranked at 18th, while defending national champ Florida State is 23rd. Here is the full conference distribution of the top 25:
  • SEC: 7
  • Big 12: 4
  • Big Ten: 4
  • ACC: 4
  • Pac-12: 3
  • C-USA: 2
  • Sun Belt: 1
• Three unbeaten schools still remain, and there are now just nine teams with one loss after Auburn fell to Texas A&M and Michigan State, Notre Dame, and Kansas State lost head-to-head separation showdowns with other one-loss schools. And after those three showdowns, the last opportunity left to see a pairing of teams with one or fewer losses comes this weekend as undefeated Mississippi State visits one-loss Alabama.

(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.)