Boombear's College Football Analysis: Power Ranking Trends through Week 15

Seeing is Believing

This season, I've been generating NFL Power Rankings based primarily on Wins and Losses adjusted for Strength of Schedule. The method is weighted so the more recent the results, the more impact it has on the overall ranking (without ignoring past performance entirely like some analysts seem to do). Over the last several weeks, I've compared the rankings to those of several media outlets: ESPN, CBS Sports, USA Today, Sports Illustrated and Bleacher Report individually and on an aggregate basis.

Below I have provided the charts for most* teams to show just how opinions for each have changed over the last 7 weeks. If you want to see the rest of the charts, check them out here.

* No need to include CIN since the ranking has been pretty much the same over the last seven weeks.

Bullish

OAK - Sure the Raiders are inconsistent and have had their share of disappointing losses but the bottom line is based on their #13 Strength of Schedule (assuming 1 is most difficult and 32 is easiest), their record is 13th worst in the league - middlin', to be sure, but about where you would expect them. Clearly, the Experts are punishing OAK by expecting them to play way above their heads.

PIT - When an ordinary team loses its veteran starting QB to start the season after losing their all Pro talent WR and RB in the preseason, the only logical response would be to pour one out on the curb for them and look forward to next year. But Tomlin and company are not an ordinary team. Nice to see that, despite the low outlook several weeks ago, the Experts have come around to my line of thought.

SEA - A million years ago I was watching an NC State game and there was this little QB flinging the ball all over the field. I was like, who the heck is this guy? The weirdest thing was the very next year I was watching a Wisconsin game and they also has a little guy who took the team on his shoulders. You probably know I'm talking about Russell Wilson, the guy who almost caused a melee between Gruden and the ESPN talking heads during NFL Draft. The guy has a Kobe/Jordan/Brady will to win and I'll hitch my wagon to that everytime.

Bearish

LAC - I started out higher than the Experts on this team. They are solid at the skill positions and have defensive stars but injuries and just lackluster play by their aging QB has soured me. Not so the Experts. When a team can notch back to back wins against CHI and GB, I can understand how that would give them a boost, but they have the 8th easiest schedule yet the 7th worst record in the league...not going to win any beauty contests for me.

IND - What can you say about a team that had it's #1 overall drafted QB with future HOF potential call it quits in the beginning of the season? Kind of hard to bounce back from that but IND is hanging in there. They have a great chance of finishing even at 8-8 (CAR in Week 16 and JAC in Week 17) so we will expect them to build on the solid group of young players they have.

DAL - You had to know this would be here, right? This team has been all over the place in terms of week to week perfomance, as shown on the chart, where both lines are sine wave-ish. Interestingly, both the Experts and I basically have the Cowboys currently around where we started them. They routinely loseto the teams they should lose to and beat the teams they should beat...but you have to beat upper tier teams to notch up on this list and they haven't done that at all this year. This team is lucky they are in the NFC East.