Virginia Tech moved up even further than MSU, however, thanks to a truly dominant performance against NC State. SP+ projected the Hokies to win by nearly two touchdowns, and not only did they win by 21, it could have been far worse. They averaged 9.6 yards per play to the Wolfpack's 4.2 in the first half and let their foot off the gas a bit in the second.
Another interesting couple of paragraphs:
Sometimes we end up with fluky upsets in college football -- the ball is pointy, the players are young and unlikely things happen. Neither KSU's nor MSU's upsets had much of a fluke factor, though.
Using my post-game win probability metric -- in which I take all the key, predictive stats from a given game, toss them into the air, and say "With these stats, you could have expected to win this game X% of the time -- Kansas State's 38-35 win over Oklahoma came with a 40% likelihood, while Mississippi State's 44-34 upset of defending national champion LSU was at a whopping 95%. The scores mostly reflected the stats, and in the case of LSU, the 10-point loss was kind to the Tigers. KSU and MSU therefore rose accordingly in the ratings.
Also a good note about Coastal rival Pitt, who dropped from 25th to 36th.
The most surprising name on this list might be Pitt. The Panthers moved to 3-0 with a 23-20 win over Louisville, but their post-game win expectancy was only 32%; their defense was excellent as always, but the offense was inefficient, particularly in the red zone. They needed a little turnovers luck to get over the finish line, and they fell a bit in the rankings. (Dropping 11 spots for that seems harsh, but note how closely bunched the teams in that range are -- they're only 1.9 adjusted points per game outside the top 30.)
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