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MRI Football 2006 - Rankings Week 5

October 23, 2006

By Benjamin Miraski

Ohio State celebrates their rise to the top of the MRI. (AP Photo/Kiichiro Sato) The performance of the Ohio State Buckeyes this season was supposed to be of championship caliber. The biggest question coming in was their team defense. Losing nine starters from the year before is never easy. However, the newcomers have lived up to the challenge. The Buckeyes are among the national leaders in team defense, and have a +11 turnover ratio.

That is enough to have them vaulting into 1st place in the MRI this week. The Buckeyes had the largest gain of the week, after crushing Indiana in a very impressive all around performance. They pass by a Michigan team, who although they won, showed a little weakness finally. Perhaps it was the pressure of Iowa being the last big game before Ohio State that got to them.

Talk all week centered around how this game could be their trap, and for most of the game, it very well could have been. While the Michigan defense was clicking, the offense struggled a bit to get it going. The big play possibilities which had been how Michigan had devastated opponents leading up to now, were not there against Iowa. As a result, the crowd was totally out of the game until late when Michigan had all but signed off on the big win. The win keeps Michigan close with Ohio State in the MRI.

After the two Big Ten teams, the rest of the field is quite a way's back. Even if West Virginia were to have played the same number of games as the Buckeyes and Wolverines, they would still be in third place. That is how well that Ohio State and Michigan have played to this point. And that is assuming that West Virginia could keep performing at the pace they have all season. They have had to destroy almost every opponent to keep up due to their weak schedule so far (114 out of 119, based on the MRI calculation). The situation could make it tough for the Mountaineers to stick where they are in the standings. They have a bye week and then face Louisville the week after. They could find themselves slipping quickly especially with how dangerous the Cardinals can be.

LSU remains at #4 with another big win, this time taking out a Fresno State team from whom big things were expected this season. The Bulldogs continue to disappoint, not that LSU is complaining at all. Despite two losses in conference, the Tigers have shown that they can compete with any team in the nation. They will need to keep it up. They have a well deserved week off before traveling to Tennessee to face the surprisingly dangerous Volunteers.

Texas rounds out the Top 5 by virtue of their comeback in Lincoln this weekend. Needing a walk-on kicker to help clinch the victory didn't do much to help improve their MRI standing. They not only lost ground by slipping two places, they also failed to keep pace with Michigan and Ohio State, falling even further back. The Longhorns have a chance to jump back on track against a very schizophrenic Texas Tech team on Saturday.

Check out all the rankings in week 5 of the MRI.

And Now the Rankings

RANK	TEAM	RECORD	MRI	LW
1	Ohio State	8-0	104.88	2
2	Michigan	8-0	98.43	1
3	West Virginia	7-0	81.11	5
4	LSU	6-2	80.99	4
5	Texas	7-1	79.10	3
6	Clemson	7-1	78.60	7
7	Louisville	7-0	75.39	8
8	USC	6-0	74.03	6
9	Auburn	7-1	72.55	12
10	Florida	6-1	72.11	9
11	Cal	7-1	71.72	11
12	Wisconsin	7-1	71.28	10
13	Boise State	8-0	69.15	13
14	Rutgers	7-0	65.52	14
15	Missouri	7-1	64.92	17
16	Tennessee	6-1	62.17	16
17	BYU	5-2	57.97	NR(27)
18	Oklahoma	5-2	57.77	19
19	Tulsa	6-1	57.25	20
20	Pittsburgh	6-2	55.39	15
21	Texas A&M	7-1	54.79	22
22	Arkansas	6-1	53.71	25
23	Nebraska	6-2	53.51	18
24	Notre Dame	6-1	51.23	NR(28)
25	Oregon	5-2	48.33	21

Teams Dropped From The Top 25: Georgia Tech (LW #23, TW #31), Alabama (LW #24, TW #27)

Other Teams People Might Care About

RANK	TEAM	RECORD	MRI	LW
26	Washington State	5-3	46.37	35
29	Boston College	6-1	43.85	36
31	Georgia Tech	5-2	42.78	23
33	Miami	5-2	41.23	33
35	UCLA	4-3	40.92	26
38	Florida State	4-3	38.45	37
45	Iowa	5-3	36.26	39
48	Michigan State	4-4	32.57	49
53	Northern Illinois	5-3	26.29	61
62	Maryland	5-2	21.03	70
66	Purdue	5-3	18.48	52
73	Vanderbilt	3-5	14.59	64
83	Illinois	2-6	7.81	82
87	Indiana	4-4	5.77	78
105	Miami(Ohio)	1-7	-10.06	105
109	Northwestern	2-6	-18.95	111
116	Duke	0-7	-37.99	118

Last Place this week: Temple (0-8) at -64.56. 3rd week in a row.

Biggest Gain this week: Ohio State gained 12.45 points. (Beat Indiana, 44-3)
Biggest Loss this week: Stanford lost 16.71 points. (Lost to Arizona State, 38-3)

Conference rankings this week: Big East, SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, PAC-10, ACC, Mountain West, C-USA, WAC, MAC, Sun Belt