2009 College Bowl Games Conference Summary Preview

Every year there is a debate about who the best team is and with the BCS we have an (imperfect) system to help us decide that, but a key factor that goes into everyone's opinion about who is best is strength of schedule and what conferences are perceived to be good or not.  Those from small conferences argue there is bias against them and traditional conferences do get the benefit of the doubt through much of the season.

What is great about the bowl games is that we get a host of inter-conference matchups that shed some light on who indeed is the best conference, and with that in mind, here is a summary of the upcoming bowl games with a slant on all of the conferences and how they fared getting teams in the bowls and how they should fare and be measured in their performance.

For a starting point,view my prior blog entry on conference comparisons and strengths.  Clearly the SEC has a clear advantage there this year, and it is less clear who is #2, but what does that mean to the bowl games?

First, lets take a look at how many teams each conference is sending to a bowl game with the teams in the conference in parenthesis and percentage of teams making it:

• SEC - 10 (12) - 83%
• Big-12 - 8 (12) - 67%
• Pac-10 - 7 (10) - 70%
  
• Big-Televen - 7 (11) - 64%
  
• ACC - 7 (12) - 58%
• Big-East - 6 (8) - 75%
• C-USA - 6 (12) - 50%
• Mountain-West - 5 (9) - 56%
  
• MAC - 5 (13) - 38%
• WAC - 4 (9) - 44%
• Sun-Belt - 2 (9) - 22%
• Independent - 1 (3) - 33%

That is probably a fair distribution given the conference strengths but one could argue the Big-Televen got one more than they should have this year.

So, given that these teams made it there, how should we expect each conference to do?  Using the current predictions from my computer as I write this as well as the current Vegas spread, we get:

• SEC - 8-2 and 7-3 (differ on LSU/PSU)
• Big-12 - 4-4 and 3-5 (differ on Nebraska/Arizona)
• Pac-10 - 4-3 and 6-1 (differ on Utah/Cal and Nebraska/Arizona)
• Big-Televen - 1-6 and 2-5 (differ on LSU/PSU)
• ACC - 4-3 and 4-3
• Big-East - 4-3 and 4-3
• C-USA - 2-4 and 2-4
• Mountain-West - 2-3 and 1-4 (differ on Utah/Cal)
• MAC - 3-2 and 3-2
• WAC - 2-2 and 2-2
• Sun-Belt - 0-2 and 0-2
• Independent - 0-1 and 0-1

It is interesting to see where my computer differs from Vegas, but the lesson learned here should be that judging the conferences at the end of the bowl games should not be done solely on the conferences record, but against the predicted records above.

For example, anything less than 7-3 and I'd argue 8-2 should be a disappointment for the SEC.  And if Conference USA could manage 3-3 they should be very proud.  And interestingly, if the MAC doesn't have a winning record they should be disappointed.

The reason for this is that it is all about the matchups, not just how strong a conference is.

With that, enjoy the games!

2009 College Football Conference Ratings and Rankings

With the regular season complete, we can now take a look at how the conferences compare and see if it matches perceptions.

First, lets take a look at the average/high/low rating across all of the conferences using my computer ratings as a reference.

Rank	Conference	Average	High	Low
Rank	Conference	Average	High	Low
1	SEC	78.134	92.067	63.234
2	Pac-10	73.561	82.424	54.839
3	Big-12	73.170	86.519	63.500
4	ACC	72.969	82.604	63.626
5	Big-East	72.193	81.371	62.401
6	Big-Televen	69.403	78.391	62.090
7	Mountain-West	66.870	85.377	52.423
8	Independent	65.699	71.911	55.203
9	WAC	64.261	81.817	51.060
10	C-USA	63.107	72.384	52.853
11	MAC	60.047	72.570	45.613
12	Sun-Belt	56.712	68.263	45.520

So the SEC was far and away the best conference based on average rating with a 4.5 point gap to the #2 Pac-10.  I think most would be surprised the Pac-10 is #2 ahead of the Big-12 especially given the Big-12 is ahead in both the high and low ratings.  But the Pac-10 has strength in the middle and only has the single outlier in WSU at the bottom.  It is also interesting that the 6 BCS conference are well ahead of the rest, although the Big-Televen is hovering in no mans land well behind the top-5 conferences.

Another way of looking at it is to just rank each conference in all their non-conference games.  Doing that results in:

Rank	Team	Rating	Record	Schedule
Rank	Team	Rating	Record	Schedule
1	SEC	75.166	42-6	60.517
2	Big-12	72.706	35-13	61.851
3	Big-East	72.083	32-8	62.803
4	ACC	70.792	30-18	63.330
5	Pac-10	70.671	21-9	65.282
6	Big-Televen	69.545	32-12	61.706
7	Mountain-West	67.907	21-15	65.077
8	Independent	66.698	18-15	66.227
9	WAC	65.112	19-20	65.990
10	MAC	61.739	16-36	66.424
11	C-USA	61.709	19-29	66.591
12	Sun-Belt	58.915	8-28	69.183
13	I-AA	53.491	5-89	71.532

This also has the SEC with a clear lead, but this shows us several very interesting observations.

The SEC has a clear gap to #2 Big-12 and does so with a very good 42-6 record out of conference, but does it again the weakest opposition of any conference.  This supports the perception that the SEC schedules a bunch of cream-puffs out of conference.

The second weakest schedule goes to the Big-Televen just edging out the Big-12.  So these conferences also do a good job of scheduling patsies.  The strongest schedule amongst the BCS conferences by a wide margin goes to the Pac-10, so they would seem to schedule the fewest patsies.

This method does have the Big-12 at #2 and the Pac-10 drops to #5 though.  The Big-Televen does remain #6 as the weakest BCS conference though.  It's kind of ironic then that the Big-Televen gets 2 BCS bowl berths then!

And the College Bowl Games Begin

With 34 bowl games to play, they had to start soon to get them all in, and today is the day with 2 games on tap.  As you might expect, my computer has picks for all the bowl games and I'll highlight some games here on the blog.  Newsletter subscribers have already received detailed picks for all the games and preview write-ups for the first three.

Things start with the New Mexico Bowl with Fresno State going up against Wyoming.  The computer likes Fresno State by just under a touchdown.  Wyoming has been quite consistent as shown by their performance chart for the season below, the only real anomalies being @Colorado and against BYU.  But at #92 and 6-6, one has to wonder how the Mountain West finagled getting them in a bowl game.

In the second game today, Rutgers goes against Central Florida in the St. Petersburg Bowl.  The computer likes Rutgers by 3.3 here.  Unlike Wyoming above, Rutgers has not been so consistent as shown by the chart below, with their best and worth games coming in consecutive weeks against South Florida and Syracuse.

The computer finished the regular season performing well going 396-305-11 against the spread and 539-173 picking winners besting Vegas going 532-173.

If you are interested in the performance charts for every team along with detailed picks against the spread and full bowl previews including degrees of separation, records against the spread, and more, sign-up for the Newsletter which has been discounted for the remainder of the season.  The newsletter also includes the same information for the NFL.

Enjoy the games.

2009 Week 14 NFL Ratings/Rankings and Summary

Week 14 of the NFL season is complete and there were remarkably few changes in the ratings at the top.  The ratings are below but can always be found at http://sites.google.com/site/computerratings/nfl-football/nfl-ratings.

And there are still 2.  And both are now projected to finish undefeated, but who knows who will rest and how much that may affect that.  Behind them, the rest of the top-6 stays the same as well, the first change being Baltimore moving to #7 ahead of Arizona after their loss to the 49ers.

The computer did a second great week against the spread going 12-4 after 11-5 last week and beat Vegas going 11-5 straight up compared to 9-6 for the Vegas spread.  And the best picks against the spread went a great 7-2 after 8-2 last week.  Details of the picks in last weeks newsletter.  Full prediction performance here.

Rank	Team	Rating	Record	Schedule	Change
Rank	Team	Rating	Record	Schedule	Change
1	New Orleans	91.529	13-0	79.735	+0, -0.036
2	Indianapolis	90.044	13-0	81.396	+0, +0.430
3	New England	86.905	8-5	82.236	+0, +0.436
4	Minnesota	86.185	11-2	78.259	+0, +0.677
5	Philadelphia	85.386	9-4	80.070	+0, +0.385
6	San Diego	85.032	10-3	79.608	+0, +0.075
7	Baltimore	83.951	7-6	80.613	+1, +0.079
8	Arizona	83.744	8-5	80.975	-1, -1.112
9	NY Jets	83.266	7-6	81.571	+4, +0.974
10	Green Bay	83.223	9-4	78.187	+2, +0.453
11	Houston	82.994	6-7	81.774	+4, +0.903
12	Dallas	82.901	8-5	79.458	-3, -0.773
13	San Francisco	82.670	6-7	81.029	+5, +1.217
14	Denver	82.620	8-5	81.615	-3, -0.491
15	Tennessee	82.499	6-7	82.763	+1, +0.630
16	Cincinnati	82.254	9-4	79.271	-6, -1.160
17	Miami	82.151	7-6	83.238	+2, +1.000
18	Atlanta	81.117	6-7	82.211	+2, +0.510
19	NY Giants	80.806	7-6	81.425	-2, -0.889
20	Pittsburgh	80.643	6-7	79.344	-6, -1.641
21	Buffalo	79.408	5-8	81.611	+2, +1.012
22	Jacksonville	79.155	7-6	80.969	-1, -0.177
23	Carolina	78.977	5-8	82.070	-1, +0.274
24	Washington	78.210	4-9	79.734	+2, +1.218
25	Chicago	77.619	5-8	79.866	-1, -0.561
26	Seattle	77.079	5-8	80.673	-1, -0.952
27	Kansas City	74.363	3-10	80.665	+1, -0.934
28	Oakland	74.250	4-9	81.144	-1, -1.654
29	Tampa Bay	74.087	1-12	82.527	+0, -0.418
30	Cleveland	73.604	2-11	81.617	+1, +1.256
31	St Louis	71.894	1-12	81.713	-1, -0.592
32	Detroit	70.230	2-11	81.431	+0, -0.188

The 2009 college regular season is over, now what?

With this past weekends games, the regular season for FBS is now complete and we can look forward to the bowl games.

The current ratings are always here, with #1 Alabama having a clear margin over #2 Florida and #3 Texas.  Yes, Florida is still #2 as their loss to Alabama dropped their rating but Texas' narrow win over Nebraska dropped theirs too.  See below for the full ratings/rankings.

For the season, the computer went 396-305-11 against the spread including 1-0 in the Army/Navy game this week, and a winning record every week but one since week 4 of the season.  It also just beat Vegas going 539-173 picking winners versus Vegas' 532-173.

The picks for the bowls are now up, and there may be a few surprises.  Take a look, and look for more previews here, but also consider a newsletter subscription that will give many more details on the picks including charts, confidence, and game by game previews.

Rank	Team	Rating	Record	Schedule	Change
Rank	Team	Rating	Record	Schedule	Change
1	Alabama	92.072	13-0	72.155	+0, -0.024
2	Florida	87.253	12-1	71.224	+0, -0.023
3	Texas	86.526	13-0	69.464	+0, -0.018
4	TCU	85.386	12-0	64.961	+0, -0.001
5	Virginia Tech	82.609	9-3	72.746	+0, -0.022
6	Oregon	82.432	10-2	72.517	+0, -0.015
7	Boise St	81.829	13-0	62.437	+0, -0.011
8	Arkansas	81.756	7-5	72.889	+0, -0.023
9	Cincinnati	81.377	12-0	66.792	+0, -0.026
10	LSU	81.132	9-3	72.603	+0, -0.022
11	Oklahoma	80.270	7-5	70.468	+0, -0.018
12	Georgia Tech	79.925	11-2	72.532	+0, -0.021
13	Miami FL	79.203	9-3	71.705	+0, -0.023
14	Texas Tech	79.038	8-4	68.013	+0, -0.020
15	Oregon St	78.781	8-4	70.381	+0, -0.020
16	Stanford	78.463	8-4	70.648	+0, -0.018
17	Ohio State	78.397	10-2	66.241	+0, -0.021
18	Clemson	78.094	8-5	70.699	+0, -0.020
19	Nebraska	78.079	9-4	68.966	+0, -0.019
20	Mississippi	77.978	8-4	70.184	+0, -0.017
21	Tennessee	77.733	7-5	70.893	+0, -0.023
22	Pittsburgh	77.443	9-3	68.065	+0, -0.031
23	Auburn	77.425	7-5	73.021	+0, -0.028
24	Arizona	77.358	8-4	71.962	+0, -0.012
25	Penn State	76.974	10-2	64.349	+0, -0.020
26	Southern Cal	76.722	8-4	71.869	+0, -0.016
27	Oklahoma St	75.882	9-3	68.815	+0, -0.020
28	Iowa	75.541	10-2	67.816	+1, -0.015
29	North Carolina	75.537	8-4	69.235	-1, -0.026
30	Georgia	75.350	7-5	73.968	+0, -0.023
31	South Carolina	75.083	7-5	73.643	+0, -0.025
32	West Virginia	74.805	9-3	69.188	+0, -0.029
33	Connecticut	74.600	7-5	68.888	+0, -0.027
34	Kentucky	74.388	7-5	69.501	+0, -0.024
35	Brigham Young	74.315	10-2	66.157	+0, +0.001
36	Mississippi St	74.264	5-7	73.415	+0, -0.022
37	Utah	74.167	9-3	65.684	+0, +0.004
38	California	74.010	8-4	71.146	+0, -0.008
39	Central Michigan	72.574	11-2	60.966	+0, -0.023
40	Florida St	72.527	6-6	73.089	+0, -0.023
41	Missouri	72.442	8-4	68.829	+0, -0.023
42	Boston College	72.434	8-4	68.518	+0, -0.023
43	Houston	72.391	10-3	63.723	+0, -0.025
44	Washington	72.379	5-7	72.721	+0, -0.015
45	Texas A&M	72.308	6-6	69.797	+0, -0.017
46	Wisconsin	72.272	9-3	65.932	+0, -0.018
47	Notre Dame	71.918	6-6	69.890	+0, -0.026
48	Rutgers	71.535	8-4	61.925	+0, -0.023
49	Wake Forest	71.489	5-7	71.027	+0, -0.039
50	UCLA	71.356	6-6	72.510	+0, -0.015
51	Air Force	71.015	7-5	63.950	+0, -0.000
52	Nevada	70.766	8-4	64.491	+0, -0.003
53	South Florida	70.698	7-5	66.892	+0, -0.030
54	East Carolina	70.565	9-4	66.754	+0, -0.042
55	Navy	69.990	9-4	64.888	+0, -0.088
56	Michigan St	69.682	6-6	67.193	+0, -0.009
57	Arizona St	69.340	4-8	69.564	+0, -0.014
58	Fresno St	68.857	8-4	65.577	+0, +0.001
59	Kansas	68.621	5-7	69.632	+0, -0.013
60	Troy	68.271	9-3	62.189	+0, -0.017
61	Central Florida	68.261	8-4	64.871	-1, -0.027
62	Minnesota	67.885	6-6	69.623	+0, -0.010
63	Virginia	67.749	3-9	73.287	+0, +0.011
64	Southern Miss	67.664	7-5	62.398	+0, -0.021
65	Iowa St	67.503	6-6	66.715	+0, -0.015
66	Kansas St	67.414	6-6	67.528	+0, -0.018
67	Purdue	66.949	5-7	67.863	+0, -0.018
68	Temple	66.886	9-3	60.633	+0, -0.057
69	Northwestern	66.726	8-4	63.052	+0, -0.019
70	Baylor	66.525	4-8	71.070	+0, -0.022
71	Middle Tennessee St	66.457	9-3	59.729	+0, -0.016
72	Louisiana Tech	66.449	4-8	65.835	+0, -0.012
73	Duke	66.377	5-7	68.003	+0, -0.023
74	Ohio U.	66.313	9-4	62.330	+0, -0.024
75	North Carolina St	66.108	5-7	67.227	+0, -0.027
76	Bowling Green	65.804	7-5	63.861	+0, -0.024
77	Syracuse	64.721	4-8	68.562	+0, -0.028
78	Northern Illinois	64.598	7-5	58.867	+0, -0.020
79	Marshall	64.269	6-6	66.234	+0, -0.016
80	SMU	63.827	7-5	63.998	+0, -0.022
81	Maryland	63.631	2-10	70.513	+0, -0.022
82	Illinois	63.571	3-9	68.642	+0, -0.013
83	Colorado	63.507	3-9	70.220	+0, -0.012
84	Michigan	63.400	5-7	64.289	+0, -0.020
85	Alabama-Birmingham	63.246	5-7	65.681	+0, -0.022
86	Vanderbilt	63.239	2-10	71.537	+0, -0.020
87	Utah St	62.463	4-8	66.477	+0, +0.006
88	Louisville	62.407	4-8	68.221	+0, -0.025
89	Buffalo	62.326	5-7	62.470	+0, -0.032
90	Idaho	62.294	7-5	64.446	+0, -0.001
91	UNLV	62.280	5-7	66.293	+0, +0.016
92	Wyoming	62.184	6-6	67.469	+1, +0.020
93	Tulsa	62.169	5-7	63.203	-1, -0.019
94	Indiana	62.095	4-8	65.898	+0, -0.017
95	Hawaii	61.609	6-7	63.267	+0, -0.009
96	UTEP	61.379	4-8	63.173	+0, -0.019
97	San Diego St	60.646	4-8	65.076	+0, +0.015
98	Colorado St	59.500	3-9	66.732	+0, +0.021
99	Kent St	58.949	5-7	60.353	+0, -0.030
100	Western Michigan	58.242	5-7	60.591	+0, -0.027
101	Florida Atlantic	58.061	5-7	61.418	+0, -0.013
102	Louisiana-Monroe	57.535	6-6	60.968	+0, -0.013
103	Toledo	57.382	5-7	62.140	+0, -0.025
104	Memphis	56.730	2-10	66.354	+0, -0.022
105	Army	55.208	5-7	60.061	+0, +0.049
106	Louisiana-Lafayette	55.063	6-6	60.295	+0, -0.013
107	Arkansas St	54.977	4-8	58.660	+0, -0.014
108	Washington St	54.848	1-11	73.183	+0, -0.017
109	Ball St	54.575	2-10	62.217	+0, -0.023
110	Tulane	54.002	3-9	64.875	+0, -0.014
111	Akron	53.858	3-9	62.238	+0, -0.030
112	Miami OH	53.549	1-11	67.318	+0, -0.027
113	San Jose St	53.146	2-10	67.247	+0, +0.014
114	Rice	52.860	2-10	66.999	+0, -0.027
115	North Texas	52.612	2-10	60.503	+0, -0.007
116	New Mexico	52.439	1-11	67.843	+0, +0.007
117	Florida Int'l	51.981	3-9	64.395	+0, -0.014
118	New Mexico St	51.108	3-10	64.153	+0, +0.009
119	Eastern Michigan	45.618	0-12	63.346	+0, -0.018
120	Western Kentucky	45.528	0-12	61.295	+0, -0.007

2009 Week 14 College Conference Rankings

With the end of the pre-bowl season, save the Army/Navy game, we can now take a look at how each conference fares.

The SEC is far and away the best conference this year with a nearly 5 point margin over #2 when looking at the average rating.  There is a group of 4 covered by just 1.4 ratings points behind them with the Pac-10 having a bunch of good teams and just one very bad one, while the Big-12 has several not so good teams pulling their average down.

The Big-Televen does manage to stay ahead of the non-BCS schools but clearly is not very strong this year and it is a bit of a travesty that they get two teams in the BCS.  For those looking for support of TCU over Boise State, there is over a 2.5 point margin between the Mountain West and the WAC.

The Sun-Belt appears to hardly deserve to be in the FBS/I-A with an average less than the low of the top 6 conferences (save WSU) and a high that is worse than the average of the top-6.  They do get to serve as the doormat teams for the SEC with 10 of their 32 FBS non-conference games being against the SEC, twice as many as any other conference.

Rank	Conference	Average	High	Low
Rank	Conference	Average	High	Low
1	SEC	78.163	92.097	63.260
2	Pac-10	73.585	82.448	54.866
3	Big-12	73.196	86.546	63.521
4	ACC	72.997	82.632	63.654
5	Big-East	72.227	81.404	62.433
6	Big-Televen	69.426	78.419	62.113
7	Mountain-West	66.873	85.388	52.433
8	Independent	65.728	71.945	55.161
9	WAC	64.282	81.842	51.100
10	C-USA	63.138	72.417	52.888
11	MAC	60.081	72.599	45.637
12	Sun-Belt	56.734	68.289	45.536

2009 Week 13 NFL Preview

The full predictions each week are at http://sites.google.com/site/computerratings/nfl-football/nfl-predictions but below is a discussion of some of the interesting games.  These games all picked by the current computer ratings located here.

The computer went an ok 8-7-1 against the spread last week but a great 14-2 picking winners against Vegas' 13-3.  And it is already 1-0 this week having picked the Jets -3.  See full records by week here and if you are interested in additional details on picks against the spread, best picks, locks, performance charts, and more, see this where you can subscribe to a weekly newsletter.

Atlanta hosts Philadelphia as a 5.5 point underdog but the computer likes Atlanta by 2.5!  Something's got to give and perhaps there are injuries the computer can't take into account.

Arizona hosts Minnesota in what should be an entertaining game also as a 5.5 point underdog and this time the computer does like the same winner, but only by 0.4 points.  A lot will depend on if Wariner plays and also if the Cards can play at home like they play on the road.

Indianapolis hosts a surging Tennessee and Vegas is giving Tennessee more credit than the computer setting the line at 6 while the computer has it at 10.9.  Can the Titans continue their fine play and keep it close or perchance pull the upset?

Enjoy the games.