Phil Steele: Vegas Power Ratings Top 25 ahead of Week 3 of college football

College football’s omniscient force, Phil Steele, consulted the bookmakers in the Mojave to compile a full 131-team ranking system. Two weeks into the season and Steele has published his most updated addition. Before showing them to you, here was his preamble explaining the rankings and how he exactly creates them, with examples included. Interesting stuff, for real.

As published on PhilSteele.com:

“This is not the AP poll but gives you an idea of how much teams would be favored over another team if they met on a neutral field. I use these to get an idea of lines on upcoming games. Keep in mind just because a team beat someone last week does not mean they would be favored over them in the Vegas ratings.

“Let me give you a couple of examples from this week. I will update these each week during the year. Notre Dame is 0-2 and lost at home to Marshall which is 2-0. If this was the AP poll you could not rank ND ahead of Marshall. Vegas on the other hand would favor Notre Dame by 10 on a neutral field. Alabama barely got past Texas by 1 and was basically outplayed in the game. If the two met again on a neutral field, ‘Bama would be a 16 point favorite. Texas A&M was outplayed by App St in Kyle Field. Should those two play on a neutral field A&M would be favored by 8.”

Without further ado, here were his top-25 for this week once the dust settled. The full 131 is on his aforementioned site, which you can see right here.

Phil Steele Vegas Power Rankings Top-25

So a list that doesn’t stray insanely far from the Coaches or AP Polls, yet features a fair share of big differences. Namely, a team like Tennessee. Who is all the way up at No. 6 compared to being much, much lower in the official polls. But otherwise, a good guide for guessing betting lines.