2010 Week 5 College Football Rankings and Review; Oregon #1, Alabama #2, Stanford #3, tOSU #4, Nebraska #5

There were some big games in week 5 including several decisive wins leading to a shakeup in the rankings.  The full rankings are on the web-site, but the top-30 is below for quick reference.

Stanford's stay at #1 was short lived with their loss to Oregon propelling Oregon to #1 and dropping Stanford to #3.  Alabama's convincing win moves them up to a strong #2.  Right now, Oregon and Alabama are far and away the top-2 with #3 thru #13 as close as #3 is to #1.

Nebraska makes a big move to #5 due primarily to their last opponent, Washington, pulling the upset at USC.  Iowa also moves up right behind at #6.  Virginia Tech's resurgence helps Boise St get back to the top-10.

While Oregon has a substantial lead on Alabama right now, that is due in large part to the extra couple of TDs at the end of their game.  So it is always useful to look at the performance charts.





Alabama has been more consistent but Oregon's big win over Stanford is the difference.  If Stanford falters the rest of the year, that will hurt Oregon, but the same goes for Florida and Alabama.

Performance charts for all teams are available as part of a newsletter subscription.

Picking games, the computer was ok doing well picking winners beating Vegas but not well against the spread going 22-28-1 against the spread and 39-12 picking winners while Vegas went 38-12 picking winners.  The computer is still 125-118-2 against the spread for the year though.  Full prediction performance here.

Rank	Team	Rating	Record	Schedule	Change
Rank	Team	Rating	Record	Schedule	Change
1	Oregon	96.089	5-0	65.934	+4,+10.473
2	Alabama	92.612	5-0	69.325	+1, +4.796
3	Stanford	88.972	4-1	73.808	-2, -6.230
4	Ohio State	88.079	5-0	63.966	-2, +0.000
5	Nebraska	87.143	4-0	58.223	+10, +6.511
6	Iowa	87.077	4-1	66.612	+4, +3.437
7	TCU	85.651	5-0	63.789	-1, +0.321
8	Arizona	85.236	4-0	67.080	-1, +0.762
9	Miami FL	84.519	3-1	69.376	+2, +1.020
10	Boise St	84.466	4-0	66.451	+2, +1.846
11	Nevada	83.308	5-0	62.871	-7, -2.496
12	Florida	82.860	4-1	71.693	-4, -1.054
13	Arkansas	80.952	3-1	62.817	+6, +2.376
14	Virginia Tech	80.491	3-2	72.868	+6, +2.098
15	California	79.845	2-2	72.226	+1, -0.672
16	Oklahoma	79.609	5-0	70.580	+6, +2.738
17	Missouri	79.347	4-0	62.051	+10, +3.383
18	Kansas St	78.582	4-0	69.196	+0, -0.466
19	UCLA	78.556	3-2	73.676	-6, -2.620
20	LSU	78.269	5-0	68.335	-11, -5.468
21	Michigan	77.313	5-0	65.635	+4, +0.841
22	San Diego St	77.242	3-1	55.333	+19, +4.709
23	Auburn	76.587	5-0	62.767	-6, -2.463
24	North Carolina St	76.452	4-1	66.940	-10, -4.509
25	Air Force	76.294	4-1	61.040	+3, +0.664
26	Oklahoma St	76.133	4-0	62.967	+0, -0.248
27	Florida St	76.024	4-1	62.847	+18, +3.784
28	Penn State	75.990	3-2	73.181	-4, -0.506
29	South Carolina	75.465	3-1	64.856	-6, -1.346
30	Arizona St	75.065	2-3	70.540	+9, +2.240

2010 Week 4 College Football Conference Breakdown; Pac-10 #1, SEC #2, Big-12 #3

With most conferences playing the bulk of their non-conference schedule early in the year, we now have enough data to take a look at how the various conferences compare.  See the table at the bottom of this entry for the details where the average, high, and low ratings for each conference according to the computer are tallied.

In what may be a surprise, the Pac-10 has the highest average ahead of the SEC.  The Big-12, Big-Televen, and ACC fall in behind and what isn't a surprise is that the Big-East trails all other BCS conferences.

Why is the Pac-10 ahead of the SEC right now?  Simply put, it comes down to schedule strength to this point.  The average schedule strength for Pac-10 teams is 69.014 right now compared to 66.950 for the SEC.  That over 2 point gap is actually slightly greater than the gap between average team ratings so if the SEC had played a similar schedule to this point they'd likely be #1.  Also, the one direct connection between the conferences had Oregon thumping Tennessee.

Why is the schedule strength that much lower?  It is primarily because the Pac-10 has played against teams like Nevada (#4), TCU (#6), Iowa (#10), Boise St (#12), Nebraska (#15), Oklahoma St (#26), and Texas (#30) while the SEC has only played Oregon (#5), Clemson (#21), Penn St (#24), and Northwestern (#29).

The  Pac-10 certainly has highs and lows in their ratings though with WSU being the worst at #103 while the SEC worst is only #79 Tennessee.

Rank	Conference	Average	High	Low
Rank	Conference	Average	High	Low
1	Pac-10	77.141	95.202	57.011
2	SEC	75.220	87.816	64.126
3	Big-12	73.686	80.632	61.913
4	Big-Televen	72.185	88.079	58.136
5	ACC	71.666	83.499	57.619
6	Independent	69.039	71.573	65.240
7	Big-East	67.028	75.373	59.771
8	Mountain-West	65.443	85.330	43.160
9	WAC	64.912	85.804	46.075
10	C-USA	63.488	73.333	52.603
11	MAC	61.501	73.486	41.798
12	Sun-Belt	56.090	64.859	49.846

2010 Week 4 College Football Projections; Nevada, TCU, and Stanford Undefeated

Now things get interesting!  With the shake-up in the rankings, the regular season projected records are a bit of a surprise.  Here is what my computer projects and below are the 1-loss and undefeated teams.

And there are 3 projected to finish undefeated and Alabama and Ohio State aren't any of them.  Rather it is BCS busters Nevada and TCU, and what appears to be a hot Stanford team.

Stanford will be tested right away visiting Oregon next week and has a pretty good chance of finishing with one loss (40%) so them finishing unblemished is certainly not a given.

Nevada on the other hand, like Boise State, is now entering the easy part of their schedule.  The only game on their schedule that should be a test is Boise State and that game is in Reno.  With convincing wins hosting Cal and at BYU, if they beat BSU they can make a decent case for getting into the BCS.

TCU's only real opponent on the schedule is at Utah so they too are looking good.

There are a host of teams projected to have 1 loss that have a decent chance at an undefeated season, those being tOSU (44% up from 36%), Alabama (35%), NC State (30%), Boise State (21%), and Florida (8%).

It is a bit of a surprise to see NC State with such a good chance, but after next week's game hosting VaTech (#20), their only game against a team ranked higher than #45 is at Clemson (#21) so they have a chance.

Team	Record	% chance	% +1	% -1
Team	Record	% chance	% +1	% -1
Nevada	13-0	62.9	0.0	32.9
TCU	12-0	69.1	0.0	28.7
Stanford	12-0	50.0	0.0	39.9
Temple	11-1	63.0	0.0	31.1
Boise St	11-1	56.1	18.1	22.1
Ohio State	11-1	45.9	43.5	9.9
Alabama	11-1	45.8	34.9	16.8
North Carolina St	11-1	45.0	30.1	20.4
Florida	11-1	42.3	8.3	36.1

2010 Week 4 College Football Rankings and Review; Stanford #1, Ohio State #2, Alabama #3

Week 4 brought some surprises on the field and a bunch in the resulting rankings.  The full rankings are on the web-site, but the top-30 is below for quick reference.

Alabama's stay at #1 ends, replaced by a Stanford team that has looked impressive, and Ohio State passes them too at #2 dropping Alabama to #3.  Why is this?  It is a combination of several factors including:

• Alabama won by less than expected against Arkansas (4 vs 10)
• Alabama past opponent Duke lost to Army when the computer expected them to win
• Alabama past opponent San Jose State was thumped by Utah 56-3
• Alabama's pre-season rating (far and away #1) is less than 10% of their current rating, it was around 25% last week
• Stanford thumped Notre Dame by more than expected
• Stanford past opponent UCLA thumped Texas on the road when expected to lose
• Stanford's pre-season rating (#23) is no longer holding them down as much
• Ohio State prior opponent Miami won big at Pittsburgh

It can be useful to look at performance charts as well, here are the top-3:

You can see how important Stanford's win over UCLA and Ohio State's win over Miami are at this point of the season.  As more meaningful games are added and as those team rise or fall, things could change.  You can also see that Alabama is rated where they were after week 1, the other teams have just passed them by primarily due to their week 2 opponents improving.

Performance charts for all teams are available as part of a newsletter subscription.

Behind the top 3 is Nevada (helped by Cal losing by only 1) and Oregon was #2 last week but fell a few spots after a closer than expected win.

The BCS buster watch begins at #6 where TCU stays and Boise State actually falls from #9 to #12 after a less than stellar win.  BSU is helped by Nevada being highly rated at this point so a win over them (if they stay highly rated) will count nicely, but they have some ground to make up to just catch TCU.

Picking games, the computer stunk (as is often the case one of the first four weeks and this was that week) going 24-34 against the spread and 46-12 picking winners while Vegas went 51-7 picking winners.  The computer is still 103-90-1 against the spread for the year though.  Full prediction performance here.

Look for season projections and preview of the upcoming week here and on the web-site.

Rank	Team	Rating	Record	Schedule	Change
Rank	Team	Rating	Record	Schedule	Change
1	Stanford	95.202	4-0	66.961	+2, +7.848
2	Ohio State	88.079	4-0	63.221	+8, +5.241
3	Alabama	87.816	4-0	67.184	-2, -5.370
4	Nevada	85.804	4-0	62.773	+11, +5.356
5	Oregon	85.616	4-0	58.432	-3, -2.984
6	TCU	85.330	4-0	65.782	+0, +0.810
7	Arizona	84.474	4-0	67.844	+4, +1.856
8	Florida	83.914	4-0	64.240	-3, -1.900
9	LSU	83.737	4-0	72.167	-2, -0.183
10	Iowa	83.640	3-1	61.839	+3, +3.117
11	Miami FL	83.499	2-1	67.545	+15, +8.372
12	Boise St	82.620	3-0	70.586	-3, -0.309
13	UCLA	81.176	2-2	80.542	+28, +8.974
14	North Carolina St	80.961	4-0	64.397	+11, +5.747
15	Nebraska	80.632	4-0	57.988	-11, -5.827
16	California	80.517	2-2	71.923	+21, +7.198
17	Auburn	79.050	4-0	69.656	+3, +2.692
18	Kansas St	79.048	4-0	69.427	+15, +5.371
19	Arkansas	78.576	3-1	64.552	-3, -1.799
20	Virginia Tech	78.393	2-2	72.276	-2, -0.015
21	Clemson	77.545	2-1	53.678	+7, +2.770
22	Oklahoma	76.871	4-0	66.453	-10, -4.494
23	South Carolina	76.811	3-1	66.697	-6, -3.187
24	Penn State	76.496	3-1	67.870	-5, -1.533
25	Michigan	76.472	4-0	64.472	+17, +4.496
26	Oklahoma St	76.381	3-0	60.022	-5, +0.056
27	Missouri	75.964	4-0	59.847	+28, +5.607
28	Air Force	75.630	3-1	58.969	-14, -4.876
29	Northwestern	75.546	4-0	65.533	+7, +2.209
30	Texas	75.415	3-1	67.378	-22, -7.574

2010 Week 4 College Football Preview; Stanford/Notre Dame, South Carolina/Auburn, Cal/Arizona, Boise State/Oregon State, Alabama/Arkansas

There are a few interesting games this weekend, so here is a preview.

First, Stanford visits Notre Dame favored by 2.5.  Stanford's offense has been rolling leading to a #3 ranking by the computer while Notre Dame's heart breaking losses have them at #59 resulting in a Stanford pick by 14.8 so the clear pick is Stanford giving the points.

In a game between two top-20 teams (in the polls and computer), computer #17 South Carolina visits #20 Auburn.  The game line is Auburn by 3 and being at home does help them in the computers pick but not enough as South Carolina is the pick by 0.6 so take the points.

California visits Arizona licking their wounds after losing to Nevada last week.  Arizona is a 6.5 point pick by Vegas after their big win and the computer says that isn't enough setting it at 12.3.  Unless Cal bounces back and Arizona has a let down from last week the pick is clear.

In what will likely be Boise State's next to last opportunity to impress the voters (they play at Nevada late in the year), Oregon State visits as a 17 point underdog.  That is a lot as the computer has the margin at 13.4 so take the visitors plus the points.

And in a top-10 showdown (well the computer has Arkansas #16), #1 Alabama visits Arkansas favored by 6 and the computer says it isn't enough setting the margin at 9.8.

None of the above games is well connected since so few games have been played, but South Carolina vs Auburn have just 4 degrees of separation which is the fewest.  The rest are either not connected or have 8 degrees or more.

Enjoy the games.

2010 NFL Week 2 Projected Records; Shakeup in the NFC

With two weeks worth of games in the books, my computer can make updated projections for the regular season records and who will make the playoffs, and things are a bit clearer, ... perhaps.

See the full list for week 2, but here is some commentary.

The AFC is pretty clear with 6 teams at 10-6 or better, Pittsburgh and Houston leading the way at 12-4, Miami and Kansas City at 11-5, and San Diego and Indianapolis the wildcards at 10-6.  Baltimore, New England, and the Jets are all projected to be at 9-7 and so would have a good shot at improving and making the playoffs.

The NFC is where there are surprises.  Green Bay and New Orleans at 12-4 and 11-5 is as you might expect, but Atlanta at 10-6 may be, and Tampa Bay at 9-7 certainly is.  After that, there are 7 teams at 8-8 and remarkably the West and East division winners have to come from the group and would narrowly be Arizona and the Giants.

Stay tuned for more updates.

2010 NFL Week 2 Ratings and Rankings; Green Bay #1, Houston #2, Pittsburgh #3

As is often the case in week 2, there are more surprises and a few perhaps unexpected results in the new rankings.

While New Orleans won it was a lot closer than expected and against a team that had lost to a team that lost big this week.  This allowed Green Bay to take over #1 and a surprising Houston team is up to #2.  And perhaps Pittsburgh doesn't miss Big Ben at all as they move to #3 this week.

Baltimore and New England drop after losses but stay in the top-10 but Dallas has the largest drop of the week down 11 spots to #24.

Given how much teams change from last year and how varied performances can be early in the year, the predictions were not very good going 6-10 against the spread and 8-8 picking winners vs Vegas going 9-7.

See another post in a few minutes on projected records after week 2.

Rank	Team	Rating	Record	Schedule	Change
Rank	Team	Rating	Record	Schedule	Change
1	Green Bay	89.369	2-0	78.888	+2, +2.264
2	Houston	87.776	2-0	83.134	+4, +2.462
3	Pittsburgh	87.172	2-0	83.419	+6, +3.616
4	New Orleans	85.971	2-0	78.163	-3, -2.781
5	NY Jets	85.778	1-1	82.057	+2, +1.816
6	Miami	85.575	2-0	83.052	+5, +2.711
7	Indianapolis	85.405	1-1	84.120	+3, +2.331
8	Atlanta	85.246	1-1	82.323	+6, +2.765
9	Baltimore	85.160	1-1	86.311	-5, -0.953
10	New England	84.954	1-1	83.311	-8, -2.161
11	San Diego	83.703	1-1	81.336	+5, +2.411
12	Minnesota	83.085	0-2	85.773	-7, -2.844
13	Kansas City	82.476	2-0	80.393	+10, +3.381
14	Tennessee	81.592	1-1	75.851	-2, -1.257
15	Washington	80.863	1-1	79.838	+5, +0.556
16	Cincinnati	80.845	1-1	85.057	+6, +1.198
17	Philadelphia	80.757	1-1	81.270	-2, -1.079
18	Tampa Bay	80.480	2-0	75.844	+7, +2.883
19	NY Giants	80.463	1-1	80.005	-11, -3.269
20	Jacksonville	80.195	1-1	80.842	-3, -0.873
21	Chicago	79.955	2-0	75.535	+5, +2.985
22	Seattle	78.023	1-1	75.611	-1, -1.945
23	Denver	77.981	1-1	79.109	+5, +1.722
24	Dallas	77.900	0-2	80.409	-11, -4.821
25	Arizona	77.475	1-1	80.983	-7, -3.352
26	Cleveland	77.083	0-2	81.478	+1, +0.795
27	Buffalo	77.018	0-2	87.472	-3, -1.374
28	Carolina	74.605	0-2	80.471	-9, -6.006
29	San Francisco	73.241	0-2	81.997	+0, -2.452
30	Detroit	73.171	0-2	80.356	+2, +2.145
31	St Louis	70.720	0-2	74.002	+0, -0.507
32	Oakland	70.530	1-1	76.156	-2, -1.638