Alabama bounces back in Computer Composite rankings

Daniel Uthman | USA TODAY Sports

Show Caption Hide Caption Week 4 Campus Conclusions USA Today Sports' George Schroeder looks at lessons learned from Week 4 of the college football season.

Alabama is the highest-ranked one-loss team in the Amway Coaches, Associated Press and FWAA-NFF Super 16 polls. But that's not enough to get the Crimson Tide into the top 10 of any of them.

The former BCS computers, however, see Alabama differently. The Crimson Tide rose four places to No. 3 in the newest College Football Computer Composite rankings this week after beating Louisiana-Monroe 34-0. That leaves the Tide four spots ahead of the team it lost to 43-37 on Sept. 19, Mississippi. Mississippi's geometric mean ranking slipped from 4.29 to 6.27 despite the Rebels remaining unbeaten and defeating Vanderbilt 27-16.

The College Football Computer Composite combines five of the computer formulas used in the former Bowl Championship Series standings to remove the human element from college football rankings. It is compiled by taking the geometric mean of rankings formulated by Richard Billingsley, Wes Colley, Ken Massey, Peter Wolfe and Jeff Sagarin. Among the metrics feeding the CFCC are wins and losses, strength of schedule, home-field advantage, recency of game and, in Massey and Sagarin's case, margin of victory.

Alabama is No. 1 in Sagarin's rankings, No. 3 in Massey's, No. 7 in Wolfe's, No. 10 in Billingsley's and No. 14 in Colley's. Mississippi is No. 2 in Sagarin, No. 5 in Massey, No. 8 in Billingsley and No. 11 in Colley and Wolfe's rankings.

Ohio State and Michigan State remain No. 1 and 2 in the CFCC for the second consecutive week. The geometric mean difference between Alabama at No. 3 and LSU at No. 4 is six one-hundredths of a place. LSU was seventh a week ago.

The two teams with the greatest rise in the top 10 are from the Pac-12 South. UCLA rose from No. 11 to No. 5 and Utah jumped 12 spots to No. 10 after routing Oregon on Saturday. Utah started the season at No. 29 in the CFCC. Oregon fell 12 spots this week to No. 25.

Two of the more disappointing teams in FBS, Auburn and Arkansas, have fallen 22 and 39 spots, respectively, since the games of Week 2.

The biggest risers in the 128-team CFCC ranking are San Jose State, up 19 spots to No. 94 after beating Fresno State, and the biggest decliner is Virginia Tech, down 25 spots to No. 59 after losing at East Carolina.

Updated CFCC rankings are published each week during the season on FootballFour.com. The complete ranking of all 128 FBS teams is below.