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MRI Football 2008 - Rankings Week 1

September 22, 2008

By Benjamin Miraski

Four weeks have gone, and for some teams, that is a third of their season. And after four weeks, we have a new team at the top of the MRI football rankings.

Welcome to the Penn State Nittany Lions, who hold the No. 1 ranking for the first time ever in the MRI.

Penn State hasn't exactly beat the top teams to get here, but they have taken down their foes convincingly. Coastal Carolina, Oregon State, Syracuse, Temple: all casualties of the machine that Joe Paterno has built to try and move ahead of Bobby Bowden on the all-time win list for good.

Despite holding the top spot, Penn State isn't the story, and will likely fade as the season continues (it is just the nature of the beast, especially the Big Ten schedule). The big story is the Mountain West, which has been beating up on the PAC-10 and has two teams in the top five and three teams in the top 11. Utah and TCU are Nos. 2 and 3 this opening week.

At four is a Texas team which currently is tops in the Big XII, but doesn't look like they have what it takes to really play past Oklahoma in three weeks.

Rounding out the top five is USC, who is No. 1 in most polls. The difference in the MRI is that they have only played two games to most teams' three or four. On pure average, the Trojans are the top team. Given the way they are playing, they should be flying up the rankings to the top in the coming weeks, starting with what will likely be a big win on Thursday night.

But enough of the formalities, let's get to the rankings.

MRI Top 25 Rankings

Rank	Team	Record	MRI	LW
1	Penn State	4-0	71.24	15
2	Utah	4-0	70.80	24
3	TCU	4-0	70.13	NR(38)
4	Texas	3-0	64.93	19
5	USC	2-0	64.33	4
6	Alabama	4-0	60.23	NR(42)
7	Wisconsin	3-0	59.48	NR(39)
8	Oklahoma	3-0	57.78	3
9	Florida	3-0	57.50	5
10	Nebraska	3-0	56.71	NR(80)
11	BYU	4-0	56.64	16
12	Tulsa	3-0	54.54	NR(26)
13	Minnesota	4-0	54.49	NR(109)
14	Missouri	4-0	53.48	6
15	Arizona	3-1	51.56	NR(55)
16	Texas Tech	4-0	51.20	22
17	Wake Forest	3-0	50.56	NR(36)
18	Arkansas State	3-1	49.99	NR(82)
19	Oklahoma State	3-0	49.02	NR(40)
20	Cal	2-1	48.24	NR(45)
21	Georgia	4-0	48.06	11
22	Boise State	3-0	47.76	20
23	LSU	3-0	46.84	2
24	Oregon	3-1	46.84	8
25	South Florida	4-0	43.87	14

Other Teams People Might Care About

Rank	Team	Record	MRI	LW
27	Michigan State	3-1	42.50	33
29	Vanderbilt	4-0	41.71	68
30	Auburn	3-1	39.92	35
31	Iowa	3-1	38.45	69
32	Kansas	3-1	37.92	7
33	Boston College	2-1	37.58	18
34	Florida State	2-1	37.47	50
37	Georgia Tech	3-1	36.27	48
40	Northwestern	4-0	33.51	81
42	Indiana	2-1	33.07	65
45	Ohio State	3-1	31.75	9
47	Clemson	3-1	29.97	13
49	Pittsburgh	2-1	29.60	67
50	Duke	2-1	29.58	112
51	Miami	2-1	28.90	74
52	Tennessee	1-2	28.79	32
54	Illinois	2-1	27.42	37
64	Maryland	3-1	22.68	54
67	Notre Dame	2-1	20.71	99
74	Northern Illinois	1-2	18.69	115
75	Michigan	1-2	18.61	29
80	Purdue	2-1	16.27	43
93	Texas A&M	1-2	6.11	52
100	UCLA	1-2	0.53	47
104	Miami(Ohio)	1-3	-2.80	87
118	Washington State	1-3	-23.13	76

Last Place this week: SMU (1-3) at -25.55.

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

The MRI Rankings are copyright 2008 by MRISports.com. Ben Miraski writes for MRISports.com and is a featured blogger on FanIQ. Readers can contact Ben at bmiraski@mrisports.com

Posted September 22, 2008 9:31 PM

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