Tennessee State Still Atop HBCU Power Rankings

 

By Donal Ware

HBCU Columnist

College Sports Journal

 

PHILADELPHIA, PA. — Despite its 31-28 overtime loss to Jacksonville State, Tennessee State remains No. 1 in the Boxtorow/BCSP HBCU football power rankings.

 

Tennessee State is No. 3 in the BCSP poll and No. 2 in the Boxtorow poll, which make up two thirds of the formula, but remained a unanimous No. 1 in the computer portion.

 

Winston-Salem State in the only undefeated team in HBCU football and moved up one spots to the No. 4 spot this week after moving to the top spot in the Boxtorow poll. The Rams have remained in the top spot of the BCSP poll all season.

 

 

 

Key matchups Saturday could shake up the poll a bit as No. 2 Bethune-Cookman hosts No. 5 North Carolina Central and No. 6 Alabama A&M takes on No. 9 Alabama State in the Magic City Classic.

 

Much like the BCS, Boxtorow/BCSP HBCU football power rankings uses a pair of major HBCU weekly polls – the Black College Sports Page Top Ten and the Boxtorow HBCU Football Top 10 media poll – and four computer polls. 

 

Two of the computer polls, Massey Ratings and Peter Wolfe Ratings, are used in the actual BCS rankings.

 

The formula is such that the mean of the rankings of each school in the computer poll is added with the two “human” polls and divided by 3 to get the “BCF-BCS” ranking and ultimately the top 10 rankings. 

 

The human polls count 67 percent towards the outcome and the computer polls count 33 percent.

 

Boxtorow/BCSP HBCU Football Power Rankings for Week of 10/22/12

 

Rank School Average CPU Average BCPS Boxtorow

1. Tennessee State          2.00 1.00                3 2

2. Bethune-Cookman       2.33 2.00                2 3

3. Arkansas-Pine Bluff      4.75 3.25                6 5

4. Winston-Salem State   5.58 3.67                1 1

5. North Carolina Central  5.67 4.00                7 6

6. Alabama A&M             5.92 4.75                9 4

7. Howard                       7.67 6.00                9 8

8. Tuskegee                10.00 18.62                5 8

9. Alabama State       10.08 10.25              10 10

10. Miles                     11.00 22.00                4 7

 

 

Editor's Note: Donal Ware is one of the leading voices in Historically Black College and University football. His Boxtorow.com website, popular articles for such publications as Jet magazine and regular radio shows for such networks as Sirius/XM have given him a high profile in the college and professional sports world. You can read more of his material at Boxtorow.com