Orange Bowl Preview

The Orange Bowl will take place on 1/3 pitting Stanford against Virginia Tech.

Stanford is ranked #2 by the computer with a 11-1 record and a rating of 87.458 against a schedule strength of 72.868.  Their performance chart can be found below and shows they were up and down early then finished strong, their worst game being against Washington State and best game being against Oregon State.  They are 7-4 against the spread this year and the computer is 3-8 picking their games against the spread and 10-1 picking winners in their games.



Virginia Tech is ranked #9 by the computer with a 11-2 record and a rating of 81.256 against a schedule strength of 67.308.  Their performance chart can be found below and shows they were were actually quite consistent other than the JMU game, their worst game being against James Madison and best game being against North Carolina State.  They are 8-3 against the spread this year and the computer is 3-9 picking their games against the spread and 9-3 picking winners in their games.



The teams are separated by 2 degrees through Wake Forest as follows:

2 Stanford-->Wake_Forest-->Virginia_Tech
3 Stanford-->Notre_Dame-->Boston_College-->Virginia_Tech
3 Stanford-->Oregon_St-->Boise_St-->Virginia_Tech
3 Stanford-->Southern_Cal-->Virginia-->Virginia_Tech
3 Stanford-->Wake_Forest-->Boston_College-->Virginia_Tech
3 Stanford-->Wake_Forest-->Duke-->Virginia_Tech
3 Stanford-->Wake_Forest-->Florida_St-->Virginia_Tech
3 Stanford-->Wake_Forest-->Georgia_Tech-->Virginia_Tech
3 Stanford-->Wake_Forest-->North_Carolina_St-->Virginia_Tech

Against Wake Forest, Stanford won 68-24 at home and Virginia Tech won 52-21 at home.

The spread is Stanford by 3 and the computer agrees picking them by 6.3.  Here is the pick using the format from the newsletter:

 *Stanford              -3.0 over ..        Virginia Tech  6.3  3.3 0.740 0.633

Enjoy!

Early First Round Playoff Predictions: Saints, Packers, Jets, Ravens

With the playoff  match-ups set, here are my computer's early picks.

Seattle hosts New Orleans as a big underdog and my computer agrees they will lose but likely by less than the spread.

Green Bay is a road underdog at Philly but my computer is picking the upset as they are the computer's #2 team.

Similarly, the Jets are a road dog and while the computer predicts a virtual tie, the Jets get the nod for the upset here too.

Baltimore is a favorite at home over Kansas City and here my computer agrees.

More to come later including full previews for subscribers.

End of Regular Season Super Bowl Chances

We finally know the playoff teams and with that my computer can crunch all the scenarios that may happen and the chances of each.  The result is I have the chances of each team making it to and winning the Super Bowl.

Without further adieu, here it is.

Team	Get to	Win
New_England	0.491	0.318
Pittsburgh	0.315	0.179
Atlanta	0.424	0.175
Chicago	0.288	0.112
Green_Bay	0.128	0.062
Baltimore	0.070	0.039
NY_Jets	0.064	0.034
New_Orleans	0.081	0.028
Philadelphia	0.060	0.021
Indianapolis	0.037	0.015
Kansas_City	0.023	0.008
Seattle	0.014	0.003

No surprise that the Patriots are the favorite, nearly a 50% chance of getting to the Super Bowl and over 30% chance of winning it.  Interestingly, even though Pittsburgh has a slimmer chance of getting there than Atlanta, they have a better chance of winning it.

Final 2010/11 NFL Regular Season Ratings and Rankings

With Seattle's win over St. Louis, the regular season ends.  See the site for full ratings and rankings.

New England remains a far and away #1 and #2 thru #4 stay the same behind them.  The Jets swap with Atlanta at #5 and #6 and Philly and New Orleans swap at #8 and #9.

The best team to not make the playoffs is San Diego at #11 with the Giants and Tampa Bay at #12 and #13 close behind.  The worst team to make the playoffs is Seattle at #29.

I'll be posting a Super Bowl chances blog entry in just a minute so look for that.

Rank	Team	Rating	Record	Schedule	Change
Rank	Team	Rating	Record	Schedule	Change
1	New England	90.793	14-2	82.837	+0, +0.491
2	Green Bay	87.850	10-6	82.319	+0, +0.208
3	Pittsburgh	87.407	12-4	81.895	+0, +0.809
4	Baltimore	86.452	12-4	81.614	+0, -0.143
5	NY Jets	86.341	11-5	82.632	+1, +0.592
6	Atlanta	85.818	13-3	79.990	-1, -0.031
7	Chicago	84.664	11-5	81.752	+0, -0.050
8	Philadelphia	83.234	10-6	81.204	+1, -0.603
9	New Orleans	83.072	11-5	79.651	-1, -1.068
10	Indianapolis	82.933	10-6	80.406	+0, -0.106
11	San Diego	82.669	9-7	78.890	+0, +0.034
12	NY Giants	82.239	10-6	80.175	+0, +0.253
13	Tampa Bay	82.011	10-6	79.790	+3, +1.160
14	Detroit	81.797	6-10	82.839	+1, +0.312
15	Miami	81.455	7-9	83.643	-1, -0.240
16	Kansas City	80.603	10-6	78.448	-3, -1.318
17	Minnesota	80.212	6-10	83.012	+1, -0.325
18	Oakland	80.098	8-8	79.161	+5, +1.267
19	Cleveland	80.011	5-11	82.790	-2, -0.784
20	Dallas	79.945	6-10	81.165	+1, +0.516
21	Tennessee	79.721	6-10	80.757	-1, +0.149
22	Houston	79.206	6-10	81.067	+4, +0.852
23	Cincinnati	78.884	4-12	83.322	+2, +0.214
24	Jacksonville	78.752	8-8	80.228	-5, -0.935
25	Washington	78.463	6-10	81.564	-1, -0.222
26	Buffalo	78.460	4-12	83.988	-4, -0.613
27	St Louis	77.032	7-9	78.175	+0, -0.741
28	San Francisco	77.007	6-10	79.042	+0, +0.764
29	Seattle	75.528	7-9	78.778	+0, +0.712
30	Denver	74.208	4-12	79.955	+0, +0.063
31	Arizona	72.566	5-11	78.726	+0, -0.716
32	Carolina	71.854	2-14	81.474	+0, +0.058

1/2/2011 College Football Ratings and Rankings

Most of the bowl games have been played, a few important ones still to go of course, so I've updated the computer's ratings and rankings.

There is no change in the top-3, each team having not played yet, although each team's rating improved a bit due to prior opponents.  Behind them though, Boise State does move ahead of TCU even though both won.  Why do you ask?

Simply put, the teams were very close previously, TCU ahead by less than 0.4 ratings points, and BSU's win was more impressive than TCU's.  How is that?  My computer wasn't impressed with Wisconsin as much as the pollsters coming in having them #12 leading to a predicted win by TCU by 4.8, so their win by 2 was a little below expectations so they drop a bit.  Couple that with BSU beating TCU prior opponent Utah by more than expected and Boise moved ahead of TCU.

The biggest movers up are Washington and Mississippi State (both up 7), NC State (up 6), and Kentucky, Florida State, and LSU (up 5).  The movers down are Nebraska (down 9) and Baylor (down 8).

Here is the top-30.

Rank	Team	Rating	Record	Schedule	Change
Rank	Team	Rating	Record	Schedule	Change
1	Oregon	91.660	12-0	69.974	+0, +0.182
2	Stanford	87.458	11-1	72.868	+0, +0.310
3	Auburn	85.926	13-0	70.428	+0, +0.327
4	Boise St	84.630	12-1	65.333	+1, +0.037
5	TCU	84.306	13-0	64.722	-1, -0.670
6	Alabama	84.261	10-3	69.596	+0, +1.715
7	Arkansas	82.355	10-2	69.205	+0, +0.376
8	Ohio State	81.714	11-1	64.805	+0, -0.164
9	Virginia Tech	81.256	11-2	67.308	+2, +0.524
10	Oklahoma	81.205	12-2	70.862	-1, -0.250
11	Oklahoma St	80.360	11-2	68.435	+3, +0.751
12	Wisconsin	80.194	11-2	65.508	+0, -0.011
13	LSU	78.760	10-2	69.769	+5, +0.696
14	South Carolina	78.722	9-5	72.253	+1, -0.711
15	Florida St	78.692	10-4	70.350	+5, +1.491
16	Missouri	78.600	10-3	69.333	-3, -1.472
17	Texas A&M	78.582	9-3	69.858	-1, -0.715
18	Nevada	78.282	12-1	63.093	-1, +0.030
19	Nebraska	78.264	10-4	68.865	-9, -2.534
20	Arizona St	77.706	6-6	72.963	-1, +0.178
21	Southern Cal	76.490	8-5	73.971	+1, +0.246
22	North Carolina St	76.003	9-4	67.980	+6, +1.850
23	Iowa	75.742	8-5	67.136	+1, +0.156
24	Notre Dame	75.626	8-5	70.062	+3, +1.288
25	Mississippi St	75.515	9-4	68.128	+7, +1.898
26	Arizona	75.342	7-6	72.751	-5, -1.110
27	Oregon St	74.977	5-7	76.880	-2, +0.152
28	Florida	74.929	8-5	70.499	+2, +1.114
29	Michigan St	74.926	11-2	66.633	-6, -1.114
30	California	74.152	5-7	73.509	-1, +0.162

How the conferences are doing in bowl games: Big-12 stinking it up, Big-Ten bad but that was expected

Note: This post was for the 2010/2011 bowl games, the most recent post on 2011/2012 bowls is here.

I've written before about conference strengths and comparisons (here), and a lot of that focuses on looking at non-conference games and how teams do there.  With 35 bowl games, there is a plethora of games to look at to further analyze to see if conferences are indeed as strong, or as weak, as perceived.

As a reminder, my computer had the conferences ranked:

1. PAC-10
2. SEC
3. Big-12
4. Big-Ten
5. ACC
6. Independent
7. Big-East
8. WAC
9. Mountain-West
10. C-USA
11. MAC
12. Sun-Belt

In this analysis, I'll look at not just the records in bowl games, but look at the record compared with what the record "should be", and compare specific performance against both the Vegas line and my computer's prediction.  This is important because match-ups are very important and simply looking at win/loss misses that.

Below is a table that lists each conference along with what Vegas predicted the record should be and what my computer predicted.  I also include the record through bowl games played 1/1 except for the Fiesta Bowl and the how each conference did beating the spread through those games.

Conference	Vegas	Computer	Thru 1/1	Spread
ACC	4-5	3-6	4-3	3-3-1
Big-Ten	1-7	1-7	2-5	3-4
Big-12	6-2	7-1	2-4	1-5
Big-East	4-2	2-4	3-1	2-2
C-USA	1-5	2-4	2-4	2-4
Independent	0-3	1-2	2-1	2-1
MAC	3-1	3-1	1-2	1-2
Mountain-West	4-1	4-1	4-1	4-1
PAC-10	1-3	2-2	1-1	1-1
SEC	7-3	6-4	3-3	3-2-1
Sunbelt	1-2	1-2	2-0	2-0
WAC	3-1	3-1	1-2	1-2

As far as records compared to expected go, those teams doing better than expected are:

• ACC - already 4 wins with 2 to play but underdogs in those games
• Big-Ten - expected to be terrible so even a 2-5 record is a little better
• Independent - 2 wins when expected to have none or only 1
• Sunbelt - will finish with at least 2 wins when expected to only have 1

And those doing worse:

• Big-12 - very disappointing 2-4 record thus far when 6-2 or 7-1 expected
• MAC - 3 wins expected but only 1 with 1 to play
• SEC - still have 4 to play and favored in 3 of those 4 but would have to win 3 or 4 to get to expected
• WAC - only win thus far is BSU but Nevada still to play

Similarly, those doing well against the spread:

• Mountain West - a very good 4-1
• Sunbelt - a surprising 2-0

And doing poorly against the spread:

• Big-12 - 1-5 is just bad
• Conference USA - 2-4 a bit below what you'd expect

So the ACC could have a good showing and the Big-Ten wasn't quite as bad as expected but that isn't really a good argument that they are better than the #4 and #5 conferences.  However, the Big-12 has stunk it up putting their #3 in jeopardy.

The PAC-10 could do better than expected and they were my #1 conference and the SEC has to play a little catch-up to just do as expected.

Thoughts?

Cotton Bowl Preview

The Cotton Bowl will take place on 1/1 pitting Northwestern against Texas Tech.

Northwestern is ranked #71 by the computer with a 7-5 record and a rating of 63.861 against a schedule strength of 64.873.  Their performance chart can be found below and shows they were somewhat consistent, their worst game being against Illinois and best game being against Iowa.  They are 2-9 against the spread this year and the computer is 7-4 picking their games against the spread and 9-2 picking winners in their games.



Texas Tech is ranked #50 by the computer with a 7-5 record and a rating of 69.391 against a schedule strength of 68.545.  Their performance chart can be found below and shows they were pretty consistent, their worst game being against Texas and best game being against Missouri.  They are 4-6-1 against the spread this year and the computer is 3-7-1 picking their games against the spread and 8-3 picking winners in their games.



The teams are not separated by 2 degrees but are by 3 as follows:

3 Northwestern-->Illinois-->Missouri-->Texas_Tech
3 Northwestern-->Iowa-->Iowa_St-->Texas_Tech
3 Northwestern-->Rice-->Baylor-->Texas_Tech
3 Northwestern-->Rice-->Houston-->Texas_Tech
3 Northwestern-->Rice-->SMU-->Texas_Tech
3 Northwestern-->Rice-->Texas-->Texas_Tech

The spread is Texas Tech by 10 and the computer agrees picking by 5.4.  Here is the pick using the format from the newsletter:

 .Northwestern         +10.0 over *.           Texas Tech  5.4  4.6 0.726 0.696

Enjoy!