Fornelli 50 rankings: Michigan is a clear No. 2, but not quite on Alabama's level

A ranking system that rates teams on nothing but their performance in 2016

The latest edition of the College Football Playoff rankings will be released on Tuesday night -- as well as the results of some election -- but frankly, you don't need to worry about them. These are the only rankings you need.

I mean, not to rub it in or anything, but the No. 4 team in last week's Fornelli 50 didn't lose to Mississippi State over the weekend. Texas A&M had only been ranked No. 12 in my rankings.

No, the top four in last week's Fornelli 50 is still the top four in this week's Fornelli 50, all holding steady in the same spot. In fact, the top six teams are all in the same spot, and it was nearly the entire top eight, but Auburn and Western Michigan decided to switch spots.

Sharing is caring and all that.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is that my rankings rule, and the CFP should probably consult me first next time.

Actually, there's still time to read my rankings before you release yours, CFP, so maybe you should do that. Before we get to them, though, let me explain to you how they're put together.

1. My opinion has absolutely nothing to do with the rankings. They are based on a mathematical formula of my creation. So keep this in mind before you call me an idiot, which I know you will.

2. There is true equality to start. The math doesn't play favorites. Before the season begins, defending national champion Alabama is just as good as our defending Bottom 25 champion Central Florida. The only factor that matters in the rankings is how you've performed on the field in 2016.

3. Wins and losses mean more than anything. I have a lot of different statistics involved, and I factor in strength of schedule, but at the end of the day whether you won or lost is going to mean more than anything else. Also, just because it's too difficult for me to rank FCS teams as well, my formula doesn't have much respect for FCS schools. If you beat one it won't mean much, and if you lose to one, well, you might show up in The Bottom 25.

4. The formula is in no way predictive. It is based on nothing but what has occurred in the season to this point in time. Just because a team is currently ranked No. 15 does not mean it's better or that it's going to beat a team ranked No. 35. It just means that, to this point, it has been the 15th-best team in the country. Think of it as a meritocracy in its purest form. The math plays no favorites. I put this here every week, but my inbox and Twitter mentions make it pretty clear you don't read it.

5. I won't share the formula. I just don't want to. I'm not a mathematician. I know my formula isn't perfect. I don't think a perfect formula can exist, so I don't share it because I don't care what anybody thinks. So don't ask. Just know that, even if you don't agree with it right now, at the end of the season, it has been startlingly accurate.

Now let's assign some numbers to some teams.

1. Alabama 9-0 (Last week: 1)

2. Michigan 9-0 (2): I angered Michigan fans this week, which is not difficult to do, particularly when Michigan is good. In the pre-Harbaugh years while things were cratering under Rich Rodriguez and Brady Hoke, you could get away with "disrespecting" the Wolverines and not have to worry about a bunch of Michigan fans lighting you up with polite, passive aggression.

Not anymore.

So after this week's The Monday After came out, and I publicly declared Alabama the king of the world, Michigan fans took offense. I understood why, because if there's any other team that's come close to approaching the kind of domination we've seen from Alabama this season, it has been Michigan. And as I wrote in my column, Michigan is the only other team I'd even expect to be a single-digit underdog against the Tide on a neutral field at this point.

So, to be clear, I think Michigan's very good, but I'm not ready to put it on the same level of Alabama for a multitude of reasons. The biggest reason being that Alabama has won four national titles since 2009. Michigan hasn't even won a conference title since 2004, so Alabama's built up a bit more credit in that whole buying in realm of belief.

Another reason is that, as good as Michigan has been, it hasn't exactly been lighting up great teams. Yes, it crushed Penn State 49-10, but the Penn State team the Wolverines beat that day is not the same team we're dealing with right now. The other two teams the Wolverines have played currently in the top 20 of these very rankings are Colorado and Wisconsin.

Michigan struggled with Colorado for a while before putting it away by 17, and beat Wisconsin 14-7 in a rock fight. Had the Wolverines been able to smother those two teams like they have everybody else, I'd be more on board.

Instead, I see an offense that struggled to put up 14 points against Wisconsin's defense and I have a hard time seeing it do much more against Alabama's defense.

Again, none of this is to say that Michigan isn't really good, because they've done what really good teams do. They've crushed everyone they're supposed to crush, and they've beaten everybody else they've played, so there isn't much more you can ask from it. The simple fact of the matter is that we won't know how good this team truly is until it faces Ohio State at the end of the regular season.

If this team heads to Columbus and beats Ohio State, then I'll re-evaluate my feelings on how it compares to Alabama, but not until then.

3. Washington 9-0 (3)

4. Louisville 8-1 (4)

5. Ohio State 8-1 (5)

6. Clemson 9-0 (6)

7. Auburn 7-2 (8)

8. Western Michigan 9-0 (7)

9. Boise State 8-1 (11)

10. West Virginia 7-1 (15)

11. San Diego State 8-1 (14): In Jerry Palm's latest bowl projections, he has San Diego State facing Penn State in the Cotton Bowl as the Group of Five's automatic bid. I'm sure this has caused quite a few people to do a double-take, because when it comes to the teams we talk about earning that bid, the Aztecs aren't brought up all that often.

You have Western Michigan, which looks like the best team in the MAC by far, and then there's Boise State. People will still even mention Houston despite the fact the College Football Playoff didn't even rank the Cougars last week.

I don't think Palm's projection is all that crazy, though. While I have no idea how in the world this San Diego State team managed to lose to South Alabama (and South Alabama's season is an entirely different case study in WTF), it's a very good team. It has a worthy Heisman candidate (well, as worthy as anyone not named Lamar Jackson can be) in running back Donnell Pumphrey, and a defense that's been doing Alabama-esque things in Mountain West play.

Here's a fun little fact about the Aztecs defense: did you know that it has scored more touchdowns (three) than it has allowed in five conference games? It has. This team is just plowing through the Mountain West, winning each game by an average of 30.8 points. It has already clinched a division title, and should it win out and win the Mountain West, it could easily be selected over a Western Michigan team by the committee.

12. Penn State 7-2 (20)

13. Washington State 7-2 (23)

14. Oklahoma 7-2 (18)

15. Troy 7-1 (22)

16. Wisconsin 7-2 (19)

17. Virginia Tech 7-2 (17)

18. Florida 6-2 (10)

19. Colorado 7-2 (16)

20. Nebraska 7-2 (13)

21. Texas A&M 7-2 (12)

22. USC 6-3 (26)

23. North Carolina 7-2 (29)

24. Appalachian State 7-2 (28)

25. Oklahoma State 7-2 (27)

26. South Florida 7-2 (24)

27. Baylor 6-2 (9): This will come as a surprise to many of you who are convinced that every member of the college football media hates your team, but I don't hate your team. In fact, I don't hate any teams. The truth is I want every team to do well, but we all know that isn't possible. Which means that I'm left with no choice but to share my opinions on teams, and if you're favorite team is playing poorly, I'm just going to say that. It doesn't mean I hate it.

Why am I saying all this in a section about Baylor?

Well, because when it comes to Baylor, things get complicated. I usually try to stick to the sport of college football whenever possible, but there's just been so much that's gone on around this Baylor program that it's hard to ignore, and it's hard to keep my personal feelings about the situation.

Simply put, when I look at this Baylor program right now, I see a toxic situation. Firing Art Briles before the season began was a start toward cleaning up the mess, but as was evident before Baylor's loss against TCU on Saturday, there's a lot of cleaning left to be done.

It angered me to not only see the black shirts supporting Art Briles being sold outside the stadium, but to see so many people happily standing in line to buy them. Art Briles isn't the victim of this story, and I'm sick and tired of people trying to spin it so that he is. He was the man in charge of the program, and ultimately everything that happens within it is his responsibility. Briles didn't do enough while he was in charge, whether that be in helping prevent sexual assaults, or the way he handled them after learning of them.

He deserved to be fired.

I was even angrier with coaches issuing a statement of support for Briles before the game as well, even though I understood where they were coming from. I just don't agree with it.

Anyway, this is all just an extremely long-winded way for me to explain to you why I wasn't upset to see Baylor lose to TCU, and in such thorough fashion. I'll never actively root against any team -- particularly when my problem isn't with the players currently on the team -- but Baylor losing again was a relief.

I just don't want Baylor being alive in the Big 12 conference race, because if Baylor can win the conference, then Baylor can still reach the College Football Playoff, and I don't want that. I just want this season to end for the Bears so they can get rid of every coach on staff still attached to Art Briles and everyone can just move forward.

It's the best thing that can happen to everyone involved.

28. Houston 7-2 (25)

29. Minnesota 7-2 (30)

30. Toledo 7-2 (32)

31. Western Kentucky 7-3 (34)

32. LSU 5-3 (21): I don't think anyone can really be surprised by what happened on Saturday night against Alabama. Sure, there was some mystery as to whether or not the Tigers could pull off an upset against Alabama, but I'm not sure anybody really believed it was possible, or at least I didn't.

Hell, the fact LSU couldn't even score a point didn't even come as much of a surprise, because Leonard Fournette's never found success against the Alabama defense, and when that's the case, well, it's hard to put too much stock in what Danny Etling will be able to do.

The question now becomes which direction does LSU head going forward? With a three-game winning streak entering the game under Ed Orgeron, Da Coach O was picking up a lot of momentum toward keeping the LSU job. Boosters were warming up to the idea, and it doesn't take a body language expert to look at LSU's players during a game and realize they love playing for the guy.

It's just, I still don't know if he's really the best guy for the job in the long-term, and I'm more skeptical about it after this latest loss.

LSU is fully capable of winning its last four games, and maybe winning a bowl game as well, which would likely lead to Orgeron keeping the job, but it's important to remember the biggest reason Les Miles was fired.

At the end of the day, the biggest crime Miles was committing in Baton Rouge was that he couldn't beat Alabama and Nick Saban anymore. Well, based on what we saw from LSU on Saturday night, what is there to convince anyone that Ed Orgeron can?

It's such a strange feeling, because on the one hand I feel like Oregeron is the perfect LSU coach, but I don't know if that makes him the right one.

33. Louisiana Tech 7-3 (31)

34. Temple 7-3 (33)

35. Tulsa 7-2 (36)

36. Utah 7-2 (37)

37. Air Force 6-3 (43)

38. Ohio 7-3 (40)

39. TCU 5-4 (Not Ranked)

40. Memphis 6-3 (NR)

41. Florida State 6-3 (44)

42. Wyoming 7-2 (49)

43. Miami 5-4 (NR)

44. Stanford 6-3 (47)

45. Texas 5-4 (45): Charlie Strong isn't going to make the decision to fire him easy, is he?

While it may not look like it on the surface, Texas' defense has definitely improved since Strong took over play-calling duties following a loss to Oklahoma State that dropped the Longhorns to 2-2 on the season. In his first game at the helm against Oklahoma, things didn't go that well, as the Sooners put up 45 points and 672 yards.

Since then, though, things have improved.

After allowing 39.6 points per game in the first five games of the season, Texas has allowed only 25.3 points per game in the last four.

In its first five games, Texas allowed 14 touchdowns of at least 20 yards. It's allowed one such score in the four games since.

The Texas defense has only allowed 11 touchdowns in the last four games after surrendering 26 in the first five games.

When you see the improvements in those stats, it's not hard to see why Texas is 3-1 in its last four games.

Should the Longhorns find a way to continue approving and pick up wins against West Virginia and TCU this month, it will be interesting to see how Texas goes about firing Strong after an 8-4 season in which the Horns won six of their last seven.

46. Navy 6-2 (46)

47. Indiana 5-4 (NR)

48. Middle Tennessee 6-3 (35)

49. Tennessee 6-3 (49)

50. Arkansas 6-3 (NR)

No Longer Ranked: Iowa (38), Georgia Tech (41), Army (42), Maryland (48), Pitt (50)