Entering Week 7 of the 2023 college football season, résumés are starting to come together.
Florida State set a marker early with their opening win over LSU and take down of Clemson. Ohio State gritted out a win against Notre Dame. Texas made a statement against Alabama which allowed Oklahoma to make an even bigger statement against the Longhorns in Week 6.
But the voters in the AP Top 25 haven't completely committed to rewarding the big wins already on the table. They've still got Georgia and Michigan occupying the top spots in the polls even though several other teams have wins on their résumé that could easily justify the No. 1 ranking.
So what if the college football rankings were based solely on strength of record? (As calculated by ESPN's Football Power Index)
College football rankings: Comparing strength of record
- Oklahoma [5]
- Florida State [4]
- Ohio State [3]
- Texas [9]
- Louisville [14]
- Alabama [11]
- Georgia [1]
- Ole Miss [13]
- North Carolina [12]
- Washington [7]
- Oregon [8]
- Penn State [6]
- Michigan [2]
- USC [10]
- LSU [22]
- Kansas [23]
- Washington State [19-tied]
- Utah [16]
- Notre Dame [21]
- Kentucky [24]
- Duke [17]
- Oregon State [15]
- Tennessee [19-tied]
- UCLA [18]
- Miami [25]
The top of the rankings gets very interesting when you look at it this way with Oklahoma's win over Texas valued heavily to put them at No. 1. The Longhorns, despite the loss, still have one of the most impressive records out there.
Ohio State's win over Notre Dame is helping to keep them up at No. 3 and they'll have even more opportunities to impress with the No. 9 remaining strength of schedule.
By comparison, Michigan is all the way down at No. 13 because they ain't played nobody. That'll change with the No. 8 remaining SOS coming up. Penn State is in the same boat.
Even with one loss, Alabama has a more impressive strength of record than undefeated Georgia. The Bulldogs' strength of schedule thus far ranks 84th but that will improve with a remaining SOS ranking 21st.
Washington, Oregon and USC are all waiting for the difficult part of their schedules. And they are very difficult. The Trojans have the No. 1 remaining strength of schedule while the Ducks have the 15th and Huskies the 11th.
Right now, all rankings are incomplete. What ultimately matters is where you stand at the end of the season, but some teams can certainly argue they deserve higher standing.
