Week 12 Rankings

Well then, that’s not how it was supposed to go. As I’m sure you know, the college football world was thrown into a tizzy after national title contenders Oklahoma State, Oklahoma, Oregon and Clemson all lost, increasing the likelihood of a somewhat unsatisfying BCS championship game rematch between division rivals LSU and Alabama. Here is my updated top 10 after last weekend’s carnage:

Rank	Team	Rating	Record	SOS1	SOS2	E(FR)	P(WARG)
1	LSU	29.3	11-0	3.9	0.06	11.9-0.1	0.70
2	Alabama	27.2	10-1	1.0	0.16	10.9-1.1	0.92
3	Oklahoma	27.1	8-2	6.5	0.08	9.4-2.6	0.44
4	Oregon	26.3	9-2	3.8	0.08	10.0-2.0	0.87
5	Oklahoma State	25.4	10-1	5.9	0.10	10.6-0.4	0.55
6	Stanford	25.1	10-1	2.8	0.20	10.8-1.2	0.69
7	Wisconsin	24.2	9-2	-2.8	0.35	9.9-2.1	0.79
8	Boise State	21.9	9-1	-5.2	0.48	11.0-1.0	~1.0
9	Texas A&M	18.3	6-5	5.9	0.07	6.7-5.3	0.72
10	Michigan	17.6	9-2	2.0	0.28	9.8-2.2	0.74

The top 8 have remained the same for much of the season and are joined this week by Texas A&M and Michigan, who replaced Florida State and Georgia in the top 10. Michigan has played well all season and is underrated by the national media but it is surprising to see Texas A&M in the top 10. A closer look at their results, though, suggests that they are probably better than their record suggests. Five of their six wins were by two touchdowns or more, while their five losses include two overtime losses, a one point loss to Oklahoma State and a four point loss to Arkansas. Furthermore, they were dominating the Oklahoma State and Arkansas games at the half only to blow big halftime lead. I’m not convinced that they’re truly a top ten team but they’re certainly better than they are getting credit for.

Here are the top 14 teams from this week’s BCS rankings along with the probability that they win all of their remaining games:

BCS Rank	Rank	Team	P(WARG)
1	1	LSU	0.703
2	2	Alabama	0.917
3	12	Arkansas	0.126
4	5	Oklahoma State	0.555
5	23	Virginia Tech	0.416
6	6	Stanford	0.694
7	8	Boise State	0.995
8	16	Houston	0.531
9	3	Oklahoma	0.440
10	4	Oregon	0.871
11	35	Kansas State	0.818
12	21	South Carolina	0.712
13	14	Georgia	0.121
14	18	Michigan State	0.326

 Who knows what’s going to happen over the last two weeks of the season? Of course, it may not matter as everything I’ve read suggests that we’ll see an LSU vs. Alabama rematch unless something really wacky happens. Strangely enough, Alabama is probably in a better position than LSU. They have a 92% chance of beating Auburn in the Iron Bowl and only have to worry about the SEC Championship game if LSU loses to Arkansas and drops below number 2 in the BCS standings. LSU, on the other hand, has a tough game against Arkansas and, if they win (maybe even if they lose, too), a second tough game against Georgia in the SEC Championship game. They only have a 70% chance of winning both games but could probably survive one loss but not two. Arkansas, of course, could also play their way in but would need a win over LSU on Friday, Alabama to drop out of the top 2 in the BCS standings and a win over Georgia in the SEC Championship game. That second part, in particular, doesn’t seem likely to me. Finally, Oklahoma State is the only other team that has any reasonable chance of making the championship game but that would require a victory over Oklahoma in the Bedlam game first. I have they favored but they only have a 56% chance of winning.

This is one of my favorite weekends of the football season if for no other reason than the ridiculous names for rivalry games. I’ve already mentioned the Iron Bowl and the Bedlam Game (which is next weekend) but some of my other favorites include Civil War, Apple Cup, Egg Bowl, Backyard Brawl and Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate. That last one might be my favorite ridiculous rivalry game nickname. Happy Thanksgiving!

As always, the full ranking can be found at my personal website: www.biostat.umn.edu/~josephk/wk12_rankings_2011.pdf