College football power ratings: Ohio State on top, Texas holds firm in No. 2 spot

The first full week of college football is in the books, and that’s great for multiple reasons. The first is that we all got to watch actual football being played for five straight days after a long offseason. More importantly, for our purposes here with these power ratings, we got actual data to use!

We also have a chance to teach a little. A reminder for those of you reading this for the first time who did not see our preseason ratings. These are power ratings — not an opinion poll, nor are they like what you see in the AP Top 25 where teams are (supposed to be) ranked based on results and performance. Power ratings are predictive. They focus more on performance and process than on the results in order to determine the most likely future outcomes.

So, you will not see drastic changes here on a weekly basis (though you will see some movement this week). I saw a lot of surprise and outrage over Texas remaining at No. 1 in a few different public power ratings this week despite losing 14-7 to Ohio State. Texas is not No. 1 here, but only because it wasn’t No. 1 before. Ohio State was, and still is.

However, for those who don’t understand why Texas doesn’t drop in a power rating, it’s because of what I told you two paragraphs ago. Power ratings aren’t nearly as concerned with the final score as the rest of us. They care more about what happened in the game, and if you look at the generic box scores, as well as some advanced metrics, Texas lost the game but outperformed Ohio State in a lot of key areas.

And that’s why Texas wasn’t punished much in anybody’s power ratings. The ‘Horns still No. 2 here as well.

When you go on the road to face the defending champions, who are one of the best teams in the country, and still have a chance to win the game late in the fourth quarter, there’s nothing there that suggests you’re suddenly a bad team. If Texas finds a way to punch the ball into the end zone from the 1-yard line in the third quarter, we might be having a very different conversation right now.

Of course, that kind of sanity and logical thinking gets lost in the Arch Manning melodrama about whether he’s the most overrated player ever or not. I certainly don’t think he played well, but while all that hootin’ and hollerin’ can be fun, we put on our noise-cancelling headphones and block it out when working on the power ratings.

Outside the top two, our 12 teams from last week remain the same, but there is plenty of movement worth discussing, so how about we do that?

National championship odds below via FanDuel Sportsbook.