It’s week nine of the ESP and week two of the BCS Standings. A comparison of the ESP and AV Ranking follows.

Elite Selection Playoff

The past few weeks have seen some movement at the top but the really surprising thing is the number of teams in the top 25 of the ESP that aren’t from BCS conferences.

Boise State (10), Utah (11), TCU (13), Ball State (15), Tulsa (17), and BYU (21) are all in the top 25 of the ESP. It also seems that these high rankings are at least somewhat justified. The lowest AV Ranking of these six teams is BYU at 26.

The top five of the ESP are identical to the BCS Standings. After that there are some differences, but not many.

A few of the top teams in the ESP and BCS seem to be over-rated at this point in the season. Forida, LSU, BYU, and South Florida all have an AV Ranking that is at least five greater than their ESP counterpart.

Elite Selection Playoff

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Strength of Schedule

Washington surrendered their top strength of schedule spot to Purdue but the race is still close. The Irish enter their next contest against Pittsburgh with the 107th ranked strength of schedule. In other words, they haven’t proven much.

The coming weeks will be a good opportunity for Notre Dame to do this against some better opponents with AV Rankings of 28 (Pittsburgh), 40 (Boston College), 42 (Navy), and 3 (USC). Syracuse rounds out the final five games with an AV Ranking of 103.

Strength of Schedule

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The AV Ranking

The AV Ranking looks pretty similar to the ESP with a few exceptions. Notre Dame comes in at 52nd this week, moving up only one spot after their win against Washington.

AV Ranking

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