For the last few years, I have introduced the first edition of the College Football SRS Ratings after five weeks. I’m a week late this year, so it’s time to release the first college football ratings. And while it’s too early to put too much weight on these ratings, they help to at least begin framing the discussion of which are the most impressive teams in college football. As a reminder, here is the methodology:

1) For each game not played at a neutral site, 3 points are given to the road team. After that adjustment, all wins and losses of between 7 and 24 points are recorded exactly as such. This means that a 24-10 road win goes down as +17 for the road team, -17 for the home team.

2) With one exception, wins of 7 or fewer points are scored as 7-point wins and losses of 7 or fewer points are scored as 7 point losses. So a 4-point home win goes down as +7 (and not a 1) and a 1-point home loss is a -7 (and not a -4). The one exception is that road losses of 3 or fewer (and home wins of 3 or fewer) are graded as ties. So a 21-20 home victory goes down as a 0 for both teams.

3) Wins/Losses of more than 24 points are scored as the average between the actual number and 24. This is to avoid giving undue credit to teams that run up the score. So a 75-point home win goes down as a 48-point win.

Once we have a rating for each team in each game, we then adjust each result for strength of schedule. This is an iterative process, where we adjust the ratings hundreds of times (to adjust for SOS, you have to adjust for the SOS of each opponent, and the SOS of each opponent’s opponent, and so on.) in Excel. Then we produce final ratings, where the SRS rating is the sum of the Margin of Victory and Strength of Schedule in every week.

After six weeks, what are the results? As usual, the table is fully searchable (type “-0” for example, to see a list of undefeated teams, SEC to see all SEC teams, or ACC-Coas if you really want to see how the ACC Coastal is doing). Right now, the number one team is — wait for it — Alabama! Are you shocked?  This time last year, Michigan was the #1 team in the SRS, while Alabama and Clemson (the eventual national title game participants) ranked 3rd and 4th.

Below are the ratings for all 128 FBS teams.  More surprising might be seeing Ohio State at #2, since the Buckeyes not only lost at home by 15 to Oklahoma, but the Sooners just lost at home to Iowa State.  But Ohio State has won by at least 28 points in every other game this year.

As always thanks to Dr. Peter R. Wolfe for providing the weekly game logs.

Let’s do a quick conference check-in:

SEC: Alabama is still great, but this appears to be another year where the conference is very top heavy. Georgia looks legitimately great, too: the Bulldogs have won every game by 21 points other than an impressive win in South Bend. Georgia travels to Auburn on November 11th in what looks to pit two of the top three teams in the conference. But no matter what happens in that game, both teams will control their own destiny: UGA should run away with the SEC East and therefore get a chance to win the SEC in the SECCG. Auburn lost a close game in Clemson, but has a perfect SEC record: the Tigers can lost to Georgia and still control their own destiny with wins in the Iron Bowl and the SECCG.

But, until proven otherwise, this conference is all about Alabama.

B10: Michigan just lost to Michigan State this weekend, and Ohio State already has one (non-conference) loss. Penn State looks great, but after a bye next weekend, the Nittany Lions face Michigan and Ohio State in back-to-back weeks. That will go a long way towards deciding the Big 10 East and the conference as a whole. But Ohio State, Penn State, and Michigan all look like top tier teams again, and MSU is having a nice bounceback season.

As for the Big 10 West? Well, Wisconsin will have no trouble winning that division. The Badgers host Purdue and Iowa and only face Michigan out of the B10 East’s top teams. It’s not hard to imagine an 11-1 or 12-0 Wisconsin heading to Indianapolis for the B10CG. From there? We’ll see. Right now, the only ranked team on Wisconsin’s schedule is Michigan: the Badgers faced weak competition in FAU, BYU, and Utah State out of conference, and avoid Ohio State, Penn State, and even Michigan State from the B10 East.

B12: This is the opposite of the SEC: The B12 may not be top heavy, but there are five top-25 teams. OSU, Oklahoma, and TCU rank 11-12-13 in the SRS right now. And the SRS is probably underrating TCU: the Horned Frogs single game SRS grades this year are 77.7 vs Oklahoma State, 63.5 vs. SMU, 62.3 vs. Arkansas, 53.6 vs. West Virginia, and 46.5 vs. Jackson State. That last game was against an FCS opponent where TCU won 63-0, but there’s a limit to how much credit you can get in the SRS against an 0-5 FCS team. Remove that game (which I think is appropriate), and TCU’s SRS jumps to 64.3, making them appear like a top ten team.

TCU still has to travel to Norman, and the Sooners still have to go to Stillwater, so the conference is going to be wide open for awhile.

ACC: Florida State is your best 1-3 team in the country, but the Seminoles are out of the national conversation for the rest of the year. Clemson remains outstanding: the Tigers have scored a 60+ in the SRS in every game this year. Miami just upset FSU and could position itself for an ACC title run. At a minimum, the Hurricanes are now ACC Coastal favorites, and it’s conceivable that they could make the ACCG against Clemson as a true play-in game for the playoffs.

We might as well talk about Notre Dame at this time, too. Miami plays the Fighting Irish on November 11th in what could amount to a game with enormous postseason implications. That’s the only game remaining on Miami’s schedule where the Hurricanes won’t be clear favorites. But Notre Dame is really good, too: other than a 1-point loss to Georgia, Notre Dame has looked really strong this year, and that 20-point road win against the Spartans just got a lot prettier.

P12: Last year, Washington dominated this conference, and Washington State began 7-0 in conference play. This year, those two teams appear to be the best of the conference, with Washington winning each of its last five games by at least 27 points. WAZZOU is the real surprise, though: the Cougars just beat USC and Oregon in back-to-back weeks. The Apple Cup could have some enormous stakes this year.

In the P12 South, well, the less said about this division the better. USC is still good, but this division has no depth to it.

And here were the results from week 6: Ohio State bludgeoned a 3-1 Maryland team by 48 points to take the top spot, while Washington State and Iowa State pulled off impressive victories to round out the top three.

As always, please leave your thoughts in the comments.