IowaHawkBlog's Marble Game Through Week 4

The beauty of David Burge's marble game is in the simplicity. No mess, no fuss, no drama. Play decent opponents and beat them and you'll distill to the top. Simple as that. Undefeated teams are moving up others are moving down, and the quality of the opponents sorts how those undefeated teams should be ranked against each other (this isn't dissimilar to my system--please check elsewhere on my blog) but I like how simply David's game works.

So the top ~10 isn't really surprising. We're still early on and there are lots of undefeated teams that are going to start getting picked off.  In fact, Stanford plays ND this Saturday (GO PAC GO!) and Ohio State plays Penn State.  There will be some large quantities of marble changing hands as a result of those games.

Given Purdue's amazing upset over the newly ranked Boston College, they were catapulted out of being the worst P5 school, all the way up to 60th here in the IHBMG.  That leave's UCLA as the lowest P5 school with their 0-3 record and 90 marbles putting them in 93rd. The Cornhuskers are trying hard to match them though. That Michigan game was brutal. (insert favorite corn vs soy vs Trump tariffs joke here).  To be fair though, according to my system (NEMindex) UCLA and Nebraska have played 2 of the 4 hardest schedules so far this season, but unlike South Carolina who has played the hardest, they haven't had the wins (see the lists here: http://thenemindex.blogspot.com/2018/09/2018-nemindex-rankings-through-week-4.html).

S. Florida won again and continues to climb as the best non-P5 school. Their win over the Pirates moves them to 4-0 with 205 marbles, good enough for 32nd. Coming from their given preseason position that's an impressive start. Look for them as a sleeper all season to make a possible bowl run like UCF did last year.

As always, let me know if you find any mistakes and I will track them down and fix them (@NateEMiller on Twitter).

EDIT (9/28/18): Following the direction of the Commissioner David Burge, on the suggestion of @BigRedOne5, BYU is now being initialized with 200 marbles and the counts have been updated below.

Rank	Team	W	L	Conf	Marbles
1	Alabama	4	0	SEC	355
2	Notre Dame	4	0	IND	350
3	Ohio State	4	0	B10	342
4	Duke	4	0	ACC	338
5	Georgia	4	0	SEC	333
6	Penn State	4	0	B10	330
7	Stanford	4	0	PAC	327
8	LSU	4	0	SEC	325
9	Kentucky	4	0	SEC	324
10	Oklahoma	4	0	B12	317
11	Clemson	4	0	ACC	305
12	California	3	0	PAC	303
13	W. Virginia	3	0	B12	272
14	Syracuse	4	0	ACC	267
15	Colorado	3	0	PAC	265
16	Wash.	3	1	PAC	257
17	Texas Tech	3	1	B12	252
18	NC State	3	0	ACC	251
19	Texas	3	1	B12	250
20	BYU	3	1	IND	247
21	Mich. St.	2	1	B10	246
22	Wisconsin	3	1	B10	245
23	Maryland	3	1	B10	244
24	BC	3	1	ACC	221
25	Miss. St.	3	1	SEC	216
26	Virginia	3	1	ACC	214
27	Florida	3	1	SEC	213
28	S. Carolina	2	1	SEC	213
29	Indiana	3	1	B10	211
30	Michigan	3	1	B10	209
31	Miami (FL)	3	1	ACC	207
32	Baylor	3	1	B12	206
33	S. Florida	4	0	AAC	205
34	Auburn	3	1	SEC	204
35	Virginia Tech	2	1	ACC	200
36	Minnesota	3	1	B10	198
37	Wash. St.	3	1	PAC	197
38	Iowa	3	1	B10	195
39	Ole Miss	3	1	SEC	193
40	USC	2	2	PAC	190
41	Missouri	3	1	SEC	185
42	North Texas	4	0	USA	184
43	Buffalo	4	0	MID	182
44	Oklahoma St.	3	1	B12	182
45	Cincinnati	4	0	AAC	181
46	Oregon	3	1	PAC	174
47	Arizona St.	2	2	PAC	169
48	Utah	2	1	PAC	165
49	Kansas	2	2	B12	164
50	N. Carolina	1	2	ACC	164
51	San Diego St.	3	1	MWC	155
52	Arizona	2	2	PAC	152
53	Iowa State	1	2	B12	149
54	Pittsburgh	2	2	ACC	146
55	UCF	3	0	AAC	145
56	Vanderbilt	2	2	SEC	144
57	TCU	2	2	B12	141
58	Northwestern	1	2	B10	140
59	Texas A&M	2	2	SEC	140
60	Purdue	1	3	B10	139
61	Louisville	2	2	ACC	138
62	Troy	3	1	SUN	138
63	Florida St.	2	2	ACC	134
64	Temple	2	2	AAC	133
65	Illinois	2	2	B10	132
66	Kansas St.	2	2	B12	130
67	Tennessee	2	2	SEC	129
68	Hawaii	4	1	MWC	128
69	Wake Forest	2	2	ACC	127
70	Houston	3	1	AAC	124
71	Coastal Caro.	3	1	SUN	120
72	Arkansas St.	3	1	SUN	119
73	Akron	2	1	MID	118
74	Boise State	2	1	MWC	112
75	Memphis	3	1	AAC	111
76	Fresno St.	2	1	MWC	110
77	Army	2	2	IND	109
78	Utah State	3	1	MWC	108
79	Rutgers	1	3	B10	106
80	App. St.	2	1	SUN	105
81	LA Tech	2	1	USA	100
82	Old Dominion	1	3	USA	98
83	Toledo	2	1	MID	97
84	UAB	2	1	USA	97
85	Arkansas	1	3	SEC	96
86	Georgia Tech	1	3	ACC	96
87	Oregon St.	1	3	PAC	96
88	Marshall	2	1	USA	94
89	Georgia So.	2	1	SUN	93
90	New Mexico	2	1	MWC	92
91	Nebraska	0	3	B10	90
92	Nevada	2	2	MWC	90
93	UCLA	0	3	PAC	90
94	E. Mich.	2	2	MID	88
95	S. Miss.	2	1	USA	87
96	E. Carolina	1	2	AAC	86
97	Florida Int.	2	2	USA	86
98	Florida Atl.	2	2	USA	80
99	Navy	2	2	AAC	80
100	UNLV	2	2	MWC	76
101	W. Michigan	2	2	MID	76
102	UL Monroe	2	2	SUN	75
103	Wyoming	2	2	MWC	75
104	Liberty	1	2	IND	72
105	Charlotte	2	2	USA	70
106	UMASS	2	3	MID	68
107	SMU	1	3	AAC	68
108	Air Force	1	2	MWC	64
109	Mid. Tenn.	1	2	USA	64
110	Ohio	1	2	MID	64
111	W. Kentucky	1	3	USA	64
112	Miami (OH)	1	3	MID	63
113	S. Alabama	1	3	SUN	61
114	UTSA	1	3	USA	61
115	Colorado St.	1	4	MWC	60
116	UL Lafayette	1	2	SUN	60
117	N. Illinois	1	3	MID	58
118	Tulane	1	3	AAC	54
119	C. Mich.	1	3	MID	52
120	Kent State	1	3	MID	51
121	Texas State	1	3	SUN	51
122	Ball State	1	3	MID	48
123	Connecticut	1	3	AAC	48
124	Georgia St.	1	3	SUN	48
125	NM St.	1	4	IND	48
126	Rice	1	3	USA	48
127	San Jose St.	0	3	MWC	48
128	Tulsa	1	3	AAC	48
129	Bowling Grn	1	3	MID	45
130	UTEP	0	4	USA	36