Former BCS computers put Washington at No. 3 entering Pac-12 final
Washington entered Week 13 of the college football season with the weakest strength of schedule of any Power Five team ranked in the College Football Playoff's top 25.
It also entered the season's final stretch with the chance to do something about it, based on the fact its final two opponents before bowl season would be Playoff top 25 teams and thus offered opportunities for quality wins.
That is reflected in this week's College Football Computer Composite (CFCC) rankings. After beating the CFCC's then-No. 19 Washington State 45-17 on Friday and partly due to Michigan's loss Saturday at Ohio State, Washington has reached a season-high No. 3 ranking in the combined formulas of the former Bowl Championship Series computers.
And it was a strong week for the Pac-12 at large, too. Though the Big Ten continues to have four teams in the CFCC top 10, the Pac-12 now has four teams in the top 14.
USC continued its rise from a season-low No. 39 to sit at a season-high No. 7 position, while Colorado also hit a season-high at No. 8 and Stanford rose two spots to No. 14.
Alabama, meanwhile, is a unanimous No. 1 for the fourth consecutive week and Ohio State is a unanimous No. 2 for the second week in a row. In terms of teams contending for Playoff berths, the geometric mean gap between No. 3 Washington and No. 6 Wisconsin is roughly equivalent to the gap between Wisconsin and USC. That suggests that in the computers' view, the Playoff should be a six-team race for four spots.
Washington is about attention to detail, not attention
The College Football Computer Composite combines five of the computer formulas used in the former BCS 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.
Mississippi State made the biggest overall jump this week after beating Mississippi in the Egg Bowl, rising 14 spots to No. 58. Arkansas State, which lost its first Sun Belt game of the season when it fell 24-19 to Louisiana Lafayette, is the week's biggest decliner, dropping 15 spots to No. 78.
Updated CFCC rankings are published each week during the season on FootballFour.com and below. Week-by-week rankings for this season can be found here.
