Recap: 7 Ranked Teams Go Down To Defeat

October 14, 2018 by Dave Congrove

Losses took down seven teams this week, including 4 in the Top 10. LSU was the biggest giant-slayer as Ed Orgeron's bunch, ranked 14th in the Congrove Computer Rankings (CCR Top 130), walloped 5th-ranked Georgia 36-16 in Baton Rouge. The other casualties were No. 8 Penn State (lost 21-17 to No. 19 Michigan State, No. 9 Washington (lost 30-27 in overtime at No. 34 Oregon), No. 10 Wisconsin (crushed 38-13 at No. 6 Michigan), No. 11 Miami (shocked 16-13 at No. 52 Virginia), No. 12 West Virginia (tossed aside 30-14 at No. 49 Iowa State), and No. 21 Auburn (lost 30-24 at No. 84 Tennessee).

Six of the seven losers were favored by Vegas oddsmakers to win their respective games, though the computer picked the Iowa State upset of West Virginia.

The Vegas math had Georgia favored by 7, Penn State by 13-1/2, Washington by 3-1/2, Miami by 6, West Virginia by 6-1/2, and Auburn by 17. The only Vegas underdog among the bunch was Wisconsin (+7-1/2).

Overall, the computer was 39-15 (.722) straight up in FBS vs. FBS games, and 29-25 against the spread (.537).

Our Feature Picks selections were 8-4 outright, and 6-6 against the spread.

Three teams - Georgia, West Virginia and Colorado - lost for the first time this season to reduce the number of 'perfect' teams from 11 to 8. Colorado (ranked 29th in the computer) fell 31-20 at Southern California, leaving the PAC-12 without a single undefeated team. The Big 12 was left in the same situation with West Virginia's loss.

3 of the remaining undefeated teams hail from the American Athletic Conference - UCF, Cincinnati and USF. The Knights won their 19th straight game, but needed a 4th quarter comeback to get out of Memphis with the 31-30 victory. USF also barely avoided the upset on Friday night, scratching out a late 25-24 comeback victory at Tulsa. Cincinnati was idle.

The other 5 undefeated teams are Alabama, Clemson, North Carolina State, Notre Dame, and Ohio State. You should be able to strike the Wolfpack from that list next week when they visit Clemson as a 20.62-point computer underdog. Clemson and N.C. State were both idle this week.

Notre Dame almost had its Final Four playoff hopes dashed. The Irish trailed Pitt for the entire game until scoring the winning points with 5:23 to play in their 19-14 victory at home.

Ohio State's home win over Minnesota was less than impressive and the Buckeyes even trailed the 30-point underdog Gophers for nearly 8 minutes in the second quarter. Alas, Urban Meyer's team notched a 30-14 victory as Ohio State won for the 14th time in its last 15 conference games.

Alabama wasn't really threatened in a 39-10 win over Missouri, though the Tide had to punt once for the first time in their last 3 games. By the way, the punt traveled 12 yards.

Other takeaways from the weekend:

- Tennessee's win over Auburn was its first since 1999 and ended a 6-game losing streak to the Tigers.

- Nebraska fell to 0-6 for the first time in the 129-year history of its football program. The Cornhuskers lost 34-31 in overtime at Northwestern and are projected to fall to 0-7 next week when they will be a slim 0.53-point home underdog to Minnesota.

- Oklahoma State lost for the third time in its last 4 games and dropped to 1-3 in the Big 12 with a 31-12 loss at Kansas State.

- Troy, which won 24-19 at Nebraska on September 15, lost to the newest kid on the FBS block, Liberty, 22-16.

- UCLA (1-5) finally got a win under Chip Kelly and did so by blistering California 37-7 as a 7-point underdog.

- Old Dominion dropped to 1-5 with a 42-20 home loss to Marshall, making the inexplicable upset of Virginia Tech even more inexplicable.

- Michigan State has now taken 5 of the last 6 meetings with Penn State.

FBS vs. FCS

There was just one game in this category this week as South Alabama hosted Alabama State and won 45-7. FBS teams are 93-7 (.930) vs. the FCS this season, and 1,312-124 (.914) since 2003.

Here are all of the FCS victories over FBS teams, so far, in 2018:

August 30: UC Davis 44, San Jose State 31
September 1: Villanova 19, Temple 17
September 1: Northern Arizona 30, UTEP 10
September 1: Nicholls State 26, Kansas 23 (OT)
September 2: North Carolina A&T 28, East Carolina 23
September 8: Maine 31, Western Kentucky 28
September 22: Illinois State 35, Colorado State 19

Streaks

UCF - Won 19 straight overall (FBS longest), Won 12 straight conference games including AAC title last year (FBS longest). Won 31-30 at Memphis on Saturday.

Alabama - Won 23 straight home games (FBS longest). Won 39-10 at home over Missouri on Saturday.

Oklahoma - Won 17 straight true road games (FBS longest). Idle this week.

UTEP - Lost 18 straight overall (FBS longest). Idle this week.

Kansas - Lost 13 straight conference games (FBS longest). Idle this week.

Oregon State - Lost 22 straight road games (FBS longest). Idle this week.