Week 13 Top 25: Entirely Bias Free

I started writing this far sooner than usual, sick over the embarrassing Nebraska loss, but ended up finishing it later than usual after being actually sick for all of Tuesday. Call me selfish, but I'll take the occasional Husker loss over repeated that day - I'll not take on for the team. Maybe for some sort of championship...

Today, I am still mad because my team blew their outside shot at the playoffs with an embarrassing loss to a team that I don't think is that great. It is so embarrassing that I am even refusing to engage in my normal talking of trash. Seems like that sort of thing would be cheap and unnecessary. Even worse,  several people who call themselves Husker fans are exhibiting their nature as being the worst kind of people, calling for firings and changes just short of giving up altogether after a bad loss... that was only our second loss of the season... that came from a team that will probably play for the conference championship. Boo friggin Hoo. Guess who else has lost twice? Everyone except for 9 teams, and of that group only Marshall and Colorado State aren't legit playoff hopefuls. We'll likely win 10 or 11 games and people will still want the staff cleared out to hire Scott Frost.

Deep breath.

Now for the rankings. This week you get my ranks next to the CFB ranks. 

	CFP		MINE
1	Alabama	9-1	Florida State
2	Oregon	9-1	Oregon
3	Florida State	10-0	TCU
4	Mississippi State	9-1	Alabama
5	TCU	9-1	Mississippi State
6	Ohio State	9-1	Ohio State
7	Baylor	8-1	Baylor
8	Ole Miss	8-2	Michigan State
9	UCLA	8-2	UCLA
10	Georgia	8-2	Arizona
11	Michigan State	8-2	Ole Miss
12	Kansas State	7-2	Kansas State
13	Arizona State	8-2	Arizona State
14	Auburn	7-3	Wisconsin
15	Arizona	8-2	Georgia
16	Wisconsin	8-2	Auburn
17	Utah	7-3	Utah
18	Georgia Tech	9-2	USC
19	USC	7-3	Nebraska
20	Missouri	8-2	Georgia Tech
21	Oklahoma	7-3	Missouri
22	Clemson	7-3	Oklahoma
23	Nebraska	8-2	Clemson
24	Louisville	7-3	Minnesota
25	Minnesota	7-3	Colorado State

My rankings aren't actually far off from theirs this week. I dropped some of my minor conference teams, because they haven't beaten enough teams worth mention and they lost to teams with too many losses... CSU is in there as my token team to represent the likes of Boise St, Marshall, and Air Force. 

Remember that wins and losses are my main criteria here. How many wins do you have, and how many wins the teams you beat have? How many losses do you have, and how many losses did the teams you beat have? That criteria explains some of the differences, especially with SEC teams dropping more for me with LSU and Texas A&M getting their fourth losses and Auburn getting their third. 

I feel like their ranks were artificially inflated by early records that aren't as impressive now. Look at Ole Miss and tell me they are worth ranking over Michigan State. Ole Miss beat Alabama, but only Boise St and Texas A&M show up on the radar otherwise. Their losses now look worse with LSU and Auburn adding to the wrong side of the w/l column this week. Michigan State's best win against Nebraska  may not look impressive, but they have only lost to the 1-loss Oregon and Ohio St teams. 

Miss St getting their first loss moves them down the ranks, but it wasn't a surprise. Beating LSU, Texas A&M, and Auburn looked great at the time, but now Miss St's best win is against a 3 loss team. Conference title games will probably drop them further as other teams add quality wins. 

Wins and losses for other teams had predictable results. Close wins for TCU, Ohio St, Arizona, and Utah keep them up in the rankings, and Florida State will apparently never, ever lose. Notre Dame is out of the picture entirely after losing to a Northwestern team that, incidentally, also beat Wisconsin. A glimmer of strength from the downtrodden B1G?

The SEC brought us some shocking, but not unpleasant results. Georgia torched Auburn, proving again that Auburn is not as good as I'd imagined. I love to see an SEC team lose, and with their win against Texas A&M, Missouri controls their destiny in the East division,  diluting the SOS of various teams who played A&M,  while continuing to be terrible. LSU gave Arkansas their first SEC win in 18 years, well 18 games. That was a bad loss, proves me right about LSU.

I think the biggest loss of the week was Arizona State's loss to Oregon St. There was talk that they would contend for a playoff spot if they won Pac 12 title game,  that doesn't seem reasonable now.  

I'd like to defend my Nebraska rank by reminding everyone that their two losses are both to teams with no more than 2 losses, ranked in the top 10 and 20. Big losses are embarrassing, but if they were earlier in the year the sting wouldn't be so fresh and they wouldn't be downgraded as much.