[oldalum]

I don't think MSU's rise to #1 is based on their exceeding expectations. The first rankings are based purely on speculation but are not purely random; there is a good chance that a few teams (say, e.g., Stanford) might not perform according to initial expectations and therefore get dropped from the rankings. But it is not likely that most initially ranked teams will turn out not to be ranked later on. But at this point in the season, when two currently ranked teams play each other and the game is very close, we learn more than their currently correct rank order and that they should be close in ranking. The chance that both teams don't really deserve to be in the top 25 is far less than the chance that just one is a fraud, so we have much greater certainty that both teams deserve to be ranked. They therefore should rise above most (I would argue all if you want to be strictly evidence based) of the initially ranked teams that beat cream puffs, because we don't really have any more confidence based on results that those easy-but-meaningless-win teams belong in the ranking at all. I.e., playing a close game against a team you think is really good is better than blowing out a team that you think is bad. So I don't think elevating MSU to #1 is wrong, and the gap between MSU and Oregon should be close but its precise size is pure speculation.

[oldalum]

I don't think MSU's rise to #1 is based on their exceeding expectations. The first rankings are based purely on speculation but are not purely random; there is a good chance that a few teams (say, e.g., Stanford) might not perform according to initial expectations and therefore get dropped from the rankings. But it is not likely that most initially ranked teams will turn out not to be ranked later on. But at this point in the season, when two currently ranked teams play each other and the game is very close, we learn more than their currently correct rank order and that they should be close in ranking. The chance that both teams don't really deserve to be in the top 25 is far less than the chance that just one is a fraud, so we have much greater certainty that both teams deserve to be ranked. They therefore should rise above most (I would argue all if you want to be strictly evidence based) of the initially ranked teams that beat cream puffs, because we don't really have any more confidence based on results that those easy-but-meaningless-win teams belong in the ranking at all. I.e., playing a close game against a team you think is really good is better than blowing out a team that you think is bad. So I don't think elevating MSU to #1 is wrong, and the gap between MSU and Oregon should be close but its precise size is pure speculation.