Week 3 Rankings

Hey football fans! I’ve been slipping over the first few weeks of the season but I promise I’ll get it together over the next few weeks.

It’s early but we’ve already seen a few big wins by the top 10. LSU has been the most impressive team over the first three weeks with wins over Oregon and Mississippi State. Not far behind is Florida State, who went on the road (road test Saturday!) to defeat Florida State on Saturday. The rest of the top 10 opened the season with their usual lopsided wins against directional universities and 1AA programs with Stanford, Boise State, Wisconsin and Alabama looking the most impressive, along with Oregon, who bounced back from a week one loss to LSU. The remainder of the top 10 can be found below:

Rank	Team	Rating	Record	SOS1	SOS2	E(FR)	P(WARG)
1	Oklahoma	27.50	2-0	5.75	0.090	10.83-1.17	0.264
2	Stanford	25.60	3-0	0.91	0.262	11.01-0.99	0.260
3	LSU	25.14	3-0	4.73	0.065	10.51-1.49	0.123
4	Boise State	24.30	2-0	-5.01	0.475	11.63-0.37	0.673
5	Oregon	23.36	2-1	2.53	0.111	9.65-2.35	0.129
6	Wisconsin	23.26	3-0	-1.68	0.341	10.89-1.11	0.231
7	Alabama	22.93	3-0	1.42	0.137	10.20-1.80	0.071
8	Florida State	21.35	2-1	1.70	0.176	9.65-2.35	0.141
9	Texas A&M	20.24	2-0	5.43	0.083	9.27-2.73	0.020
10	Oklahoma State	20.10	3-0	5.00	0.089	9.39-2.61	0.028

Not in the top 10 but still deserving of a comment is Notre Dame, who is currently ranked number 11. The national perception is that Notre Dame had a disappointing start to the season, which is true, to some extent, but their 1-2 record doesn’t tell the whole story. They opened the season against three teams currently ranked number 32 or higher. Only LSU had a tougher start to the season and even they had Northwestern State sandwiched in between Oregon and Mississippi State. Furthermore, Notre Dame is only two or three plays away from being 3-0. Yes, a loss is a loss, but from the perspective of determining how good they really are, there is a difference between losing due to two miracle plays and being solidly beaten. 1-2 is certainly a disappointing way to start the season but 2-1 was probably the expectation against South Florida, Michigan and Michigan State, which means that Notre Dame has basically performed as expected.

Here are the top 15 with the best chance of finishing undefeated

P(WARG) Rank	Rank	Team	P(WARG)
1	4	Boise State	0.673
2	1	Oklahoma	0.264
3	2	Stanford	0.260
4	6	Wisconsin	0.231
5	64	Florida International	0.132
6	3	LSU	0.123
7	20	South Florida	0.079
8	7	Alabama	0.071
9	51	Houston	0.047
10	16	Virginia Tech	0.046
11	21	West Virginia	0.030
12	10	Oklahoma State	0.028
13	65	Ohio	0.022
14	9	Texas A&M	0.020
15	18	South Carolina	0.009

As expected, Boise State is in the driver’s seat with a 67% chance of finishing the season undefeated. Oklahoma, The Tree and Wisconsin are next in line with Oklahoma having the advantage of not having to play a conference title game, although, that is already factored into the probabilities listed above. Finally, it is interesting to see teams like FIU, Houston and Ohio make this list but it ultimately won’t matter because it is unlikely that they would play for the national title even if they finished the season undefeated.

 We’ll learn a little more about the contenders as we get into conference play over the next few weeks. There are a couple of big games this weekend highlighted by LSU vs. West Virginia, Alabama vs. Arkansas, Oklahoma State vs. Texas A&M and Florida State vs. Clemson. If nothing else, it assures that a couple of the teams listed below will lose their first game of the season. It should be fun. Enjoy!

As always, the full ranking can be found at my personal website: www.biostat.umn.edu/~josephk/ps_rankings_report_2011.pdf