We’re three weeks from college football’s final playoff rankings, and we have no idea who the best team in the country is.

OK, it’s probably Ohio State. The Buckeyes have opened up at least a slight lead in this week’s SP+ ratings. But who’s No. 2? The teams ranked second through fifth in SP+ this week are separated by only 0.8 points. The top seven teams are separated by only 5.0 — basically a single funky bounce in a neutral-site game. We head toward the first genuine tournament in FBS history, the freshly expanded 12-team CFP that will start in about a month, and at least half the field of 12 will have a puncher’s chance at the title.

Hot damn, this is fun.

Below are this week’s SP+ rankings. What is SP+? In a single sentence, it’s a tempo- and opponent-adjusted measure of college football efficiency. I created the system at Football Outsiders in 2008, and as my experience with college football and its stats has grown, I have made quite a few tweaks to the system.

SP+ is indeed intended to be predictive and forward-facing. It is not a résumé ranking, so it does not automatically give credit for big wins or particularly brave scheduling — no good predictive system does. It is simply a measure of the most sustainable and predictable aspects of football. If you’re lucky or unimpressive in a win, your rating will probably fall. If you’re strong and unlucky in a loss, it will probably rise.

This week’s movers

Let’s take a look at the teams that saw the biggest change in their overall ratings. (Note: We’re looking at ratings, not rankings.)

Moving up

Here are the 10 teams that saw their ratings rise the most this week.

• Utah State: up 3.6 adjusted points per game (ranking rose from 121st to 114th)

• Tulane: up 3.5 points per game (34th to 25th)

• Auburn: up 3.3 points per game (26th to 20th)

• Ohio: up 3.1 points per game (96th to 82nd)

• Texas State: up 2.9 points per game (58th to 48th)

• Bowling Green: up 2.8 points per game (87th to 75th)

• Toledo: up 2.8 points per game (80th to 71st)

• UNLV: up 2.5 points per game (54th to 46th)

• Memphis: up 2.4 points per game (48th to 38th)

• Air Force: up 2.4 points per game (119th to 112th)

Auburn’s the only power-conference team that makes this list; the Tigers did so by actually handling their business in a proper manner for once in a 48-14 win over ULM, a touchdown better than projected. But maybe the big story here is Tulane.

For whatever reason, SP+ was slow to impress when it came to the Green Wave: They were still only 67th after a disappointing performance (and win) over Rice in Week 8. But they have shifted into overdrive, winning their past three games by an average score of 40-3, and SP+ has noticed. They’ve charged right past Army in the AAC rankings, and they’re only 0.7 points behind Boise State for the top overall Group of 5 team. Thanks to a pair of September losses, they’ll still need Boise State to slip up to nab an auto-bid into the CFP, but they are an absolute wrecking ball at the moment.

Moving down

Here are the 10 teams whose ratings fell the most:

• Oregon State: down 2.8 adjusted points per game (ranking fell from 91st to 100th)

• Hawaii: down 2.7 points per game (101st to 105th)

• LSU: down 2.5 points per game (15th to 19th)

• Utah: down 2.2 points per game (36th to 49th)

• Eastern Michigan: down 2.0 points per game (109th to 116th)

• Navy: down 2.0 points per game (64th to 68th)

• Northwestern: down 1.8 points per game (79th to 90th)

• Tennessee: down 1.8 points per game (ninth to 10th)

• Purdue: down 1.8 points per game (106th to 113th)

• Nebraska: down 1.7 points per game (45th to 53rd)

After a competitive loss to UNLV in Week 8, Oregon State found itself one spot behind Tulane at No. 68 in SP+. The Beavers are now 75 spots behind the Green Wave. They’ve underachieved against SP+ projections for six straight games and underachieved by 36.3 points in a dire shutout loss to Air Force on Saturday. Things have fallen apart in Trent Bray’s first season in charge.

Also: I see you, LSU. It’s one thing to get upset by a volatile Florida team; it’s another thing to get statistically destroyed. The Tigers averaged just 4.3 yards per play to Florida’s 7.9. They were lucky to lose by only 11.

Conference rankings

Here are FBS conferences ranked by average SP+:

1. SEC: 14.6 average rating (33.3 offense, 18.9 defense)
2. Big Ten: 7.2 average rating (27.2 offense, 20.0 defense)
3. ACC: 5.4 average rating (30.6 offense, 25.2 defense)
4. Big 12: 5.0 average rating (29.8 offense, 24.9 defense)
5. Sun Belt: -6.9 average rating (24.6 offense, 31.5 defense)
6. AAC: -7.1 average rating (25.1 offense, 32.4 defense)
7. Mountain West: -8.1 average rating (24.5 offense, 32.0 defense)
8. MAC: -13.2 average rating (19.9 offense, 33.1 defense)
9. Conference USA: -13.4 average rating (18.7 offense, 32.0 defense)

The MAC is No. 8 again! Its top teams have played pretty well of late, and after the latest round of midweek MACtion, the top teams rose by more than the bottom teams fell. Meanwhile, CUSA’s best teams all either lost or tried really hard to in Week 12.

Also: The Big Ten is only 2.2 points ahead of the Big 12, on average, and 7.4 points behind the SEC. Even while adding Oregon, this has been an awfully disappointing season for the 18-team conference.

Résumé SP+

Since the College Football Playoff rankings are well underway, I’m also including résumé SP+ rankings in this piece each week.

As mentioned above, SP+ is intended to be a power rating, not a résumé evaluation tool, but résumé SP+ attempts to fill that gap. It is a look at two things: (1) how the average SP+ top-five team would be projected to perform against your schedule (in terms of scoring margin) and (2) how your scoring margin compares to (1). Throw in a seven-point penalty for every loss a team has suffered, and you can say that this is what the CFP rankings would look like if SP+ were in charge.

(Note: Because of the high bar teams have to clear in getting compared to an average top-five team, and because of the loss adjustment, every team on this week’s list ends up with a negative score. It is what it is.)

Here is this week’s résumé SP+ top 15:

1. Indiana (10-0): -7.5
2. Texas (9-1): -8.7
3. Ohio State (9-1): -9.0
4. Notre Dame (9-1): -11.4
5. Oregon (11-0): -11.5
6. Ole Miss (8-2): -15.8
7. Alabama (8-2): -15.8
8. Penn State (9-1): -16.1
9. Miami (9-1): -16.1
10. Georgia (8-2): -17.2
11. Army (9-0): -19.8
12. Tennessee (8-2): -20.8
13. SMU (8-1): -21.1
14. BYU (9-1): -22.3
15. Boise State (9-1): -23.4

The main story for 2024 has been that every team is comfortably in the negative range. No one has constantly played at a top-five level, and the teams that have come the closest have also lost one or two games. I guess that just adds to the theme from the intro: We really don’t know who the best team is going to end up being in 2024.