Preseason AP and FPI rankings have not been as kind to the SEC in recent years as they have been in the past, but that may end soon. SEC teams currently hold the top four spots in FPI—No. 3 Ole Miss, No. 8 LSU, No. 7 Georgia and No. 12 Alabama round out the top.
Ole Miss’ dominance this season has given it a massive lead in FPI. Following a big win in Tuscaloosa against Alabama, its FPI score jumped to 28.6, the highest of any team this season. It also boasts the most efficient offense in the nation and the eighth-most efficient defense, per ESPN.
A very weak performance from No. 1 Ohio State against Northern Illinois caused the Buckeyes to come crashing down in the rankings. Their score plummeted 4.2 points, the second-biggest fall in the country. While its remains atop the AP rankings, Ohio State has looked much worse than last year during its run to the National Championship. Every College Football Playoff prediction around has Ohio State as a shoo-in, but they have yet to show that they deserve to be there.
No. 3 TCU, another potential playoff team, also looked very shaky against a feeble opponent on Saturday. It surrendered nearly 40 points to an SMU team ranked in the bottom 20 of FPI, which dropped the Horned Frogs’ score by 3.2 points.
For the second straight week, Arkansas took an FPI nosedive, losing this time to Texas Tech. Its score fell three points, just a week after falling 4.1 points after a stunning upset loss to Toledo. The Razorbacks now have the distinct honor of being the only team in the country to drop at least three points in FPI in multiple weeks.
The outlook is gloomy for the rest of the season for Bret Bielema’s squad, which faces just one opponent not currently ranked in the top 50 of FPI, including three of the top four.
Probably the biggest surprise of this year has been No. 22 BYU, which made a sizable jump in FPI for the third-straight week after losing by just one point to No. 9 UCLA. The Cougars have climbed all the way to the top 20 of FPI after not even cracking the top 50 before the season. Even more impressively, they’ve done all this despite losing their superstar quarterback, Taysom Hill, for the season in their first game.
No. 17 Northwestern continued their steady rise up the rankings thanks to a 19-10 win against upstart Duke. Their defense is top in the country in efficiency and has held its opponents, who have averaged 33.3 points in all other games, to 5.3 points per game.
No. 22 Wisconsin dipped a small amount in the FPI rankings, but only because it was a massive favorite against Troy and won by only 25 points.
Non-conference schedules are finally coming to a close and highly ranked teams will be put to the test against each other. The coming weeks will say a lot about the playoff picture. Georgia and Alabama will push each other to the limit, while No. 6 Notre Dame faces a tough road test against No. 11 Clemson and Ohio State has to play against perennial powerhouse Indiana, which is undefeated. For now, though, the future remains as murky as ever.
