MRISports.com: MRI Football 2007

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October 8, 2007

MRI Football 2007 - Rankings Week 3

LSU celebrates their second straight week at the top of the MRI. .(AP Photo/Alex Brandon) Before you think that this week was a little more calm than last week, take this stat into consideration. Of the top upsets this season, seven of the top 10 were actually this week, instead of the week before (as measured by the MRI).

This week was actually more damaging to the ratings, as we saw three games where the favorite had an over 95% chance of winning lose. Three! Since 2003, there have only been 14 games total, and three of them were this week.

Most damaged in all of this was the West Coast. USC losing to Stanford and UCLA losing to Notre Dame means that LA should have been in mourning by the time their hang overs on Sunday morning were gone. Both teams were heavily favored at home, both teams looked really bad against inferior opponents. While USC barely lost, and is still probably among the better teams in the league (turnovers were really what did them in, and too much pride in themselves), UCLA is in bad shape.

This is their second loss this season to a team that should have had no chance against them. Notre Dame could barely manage 150 yards of offense but they still won. Why? 7!!! turnovers by the Bruins. Karl Dorrell, do yourself a favor. Don't read the papers, don't watch television, don't get on the internet and read the message boards. You will cry, and cry, and cry. There is no reason for a team to lose the ball seven times. After 3, you sternly talk to them, after 5, you yell. After seven, you resign, especially when you coach at UCLA and were playing a Notre Dame team who only have 9 takeaways all season coming in.

In other news, how great a game was the LSU-Florida game? Give the "Onions!" award to Les Miles for a number of gutsy calls throughout the game. Miles has the LSU Tigers pushing towards a National Championship and Saturday night's coaching was a good example of why that will happen. The real question will be who is their foe as most of the favorites for that place have fallen off the radar.

The MRI has the money on Arizona State right now, who came back to beat a scrappy Washington State team. I think I wrote that here first. The Sun Devils are in the #2 spot this week after their close win.

Moving back up into the Top 5 is West Virginia who did what Louisville couldn't do, beat Syracuse. The Mountaineers ran all over the Orange. The real question will be how much longer Pat White can continue to take the beatings he has the past weeks and still play. If there is a team in jeopardy right now, it is this one.

Rounding out the Top 5 were two teams who came up with big wins this week. Ohio State became the last undefeated team in the Big Ten by knocking off Purdue. Oklahoma dropped a few spots after defeating rival Texas in the Red River Shootout.

With that, let's see all of the rankings in Week 3 of the MRI.

And Now the Rankings

RANK	TEAM	RECORD	MRI	LW
1	LSU	6-0	92.11	1
2	Arizona State	6-0	77.82	4
3	West Virginia	5-1	77.56	9
4	Ohio State	6-0	76.65	3
5	Oklahoma	5-1	76.19	2
6	Connecticut	5-0	71.96	8
7	Florida	4-2	70.30	5
8	Kansas	5-0	69.30	6
9	Missouri	5-0	69.12	21
10	Cincinnati	6-0	68.21	10
11	Oregon	4-1	67.61	12
12	Boston College	6-0	66.65	15
13	USC	4-1	62.18	7
14	Boise State	4-1	59.33	NR(27)
15	Hawaii	6-0	59.28	13
16	Cal	5-0	57.18	14
17	Texas Tech	5-1	56.18	16
18	South Florida	5-0	53.74	19
19	Indiana	5-1	52.53	23
20	Kentucky	5-1	52.07	11
21	Wyoming	4-1	49.73	NR(26)
22	Colorado	4-2	49.38	NR(29)
23	Penn State	4-2	47.84	NR(47)
24	Rutgers	3-2	47.22	20
25	Auburn	4-2	47.01	NR(40)

Teams Dropped From The Top 25: Michigan State (LW #17, TW #28), Purdue (LW #18, TW #26), Kansas State (LW #22, TW #32), Texas (LW #24, TW #35), Ball State (LW #25, TW #48)

Other Teams People Might Care About

RANK	TEAM	RECORD	MRI	LW
26	Purdue	5-1	45.51	18
27	Florida State	4-1	45.47	37
28	Michigan State	4-2	44.28	17
29	Illinois	5-1	43.23	38
30	Texas A&M	5-1	42.64	39
34	UCLA	4-2	40.57	31
35	Texas	4-2	40.45	24
37	Wisconsin	5-1	39.99	28
38	Clemson	4-2	38.81	35
39	Michigan	4-2	38.40	60
40	Georgia Tech	3-3	38.20	46
42	Tennessee	3-2	37.58	52
52	Miami	4-2	31.24	41
53	Nebraska	4-2	28.68	34
55	Maryland	4-2	28.17	58
56	Vanderbilt	3-2	27.81	45
66	Iowa	2-4	22.62	53
71	Pittsburgh	2-3	18.99	76
76	Northwestern	3-3	16.50	85
87	Miami(Ohio)	3-3	7.57	96
89	Washington State	2-4	5.63	87
94	Duke	1-5	3.49	94
112	Notre Dame	1-5	-13.96	118
113	Northern Illinois	1-5	-15.57	114

Last Place this week: Florida International (0-6) at -43.46. 2nd week in a row.

Biggest Gain this week: Missouri gained 19.01 points. (Beat Nebraska, 41-6)
Biggest Loss this week: New Mexico State lost 17.56 points. (Lost to Boise State, 58-0)

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