Week 9 Rankings

Hi football fans. I hope you enjoyed the weekend!

Last weekend presented major tests for several national title contenders. Alabama, Kansas State and Notre Dame remained undefeated after facing difficult opponent with the big story being Notre Dame’s victory over Oklahoma in Norman. Florida, on the other hand, wasn’t so lucky, falling from the ranks of the unbeatens with a 17-9 loss to Georgia. Elsewhere, Oregon State lost their first game of the season 20-17 against Washington and Rutgers, who was never in the national championship picture, dropped their first game of the season 35-23 to Kent State.

 Here is my updated top 10:

Rank	Team	Rating	Record	E(FR)	P(WARG)
1	Alabama	33.14	8-0	11.60 – 0.40	0.517
2	Oregon	28.48	8-0	11.39 – 0.61	0.431
3	Kansas State	25.44	8-0	11.27 – 0.73	0.446
4	Florida State	25.38	8-1	10.48 – 1.52	0.518
5	Oklahoma	25.26	5-2	9.15 – 2.85	0.387
6	Texas A&M	22.86	6-2	8.84 – 3.16	0.118
7	Notre Dame	22.83	8-0	11.47 – 0.53	0.504
8	Florida	22.32	7-1	10.21 – 1.79	0.158
9	LSU	19.58	7-1	9.74 – 2.26	0.088
10	South Carolina	19.55	7-2	9.39 – 2.61	0.436

The Top 10 teams remain the same as last week, although, there was some reorganizing. Alabama, Oregon and Kansas State rank 1, 2 and 3 after Kansas State’s 55-24 victory over a solid Texas Tech football team. BCS #3 Notre Dame currently comes in at number 7. This probably comes as a surprise to many but margin of victory matters in these rankings and four of Notre Dame’s victories have been by a touchdown or less. In contrast, Alabama, Oregon and Kansas State have a total of two victories by a touchdown or less.

Here are the top 14 in the current BCS rankings along with the probability that they win all remaining games:

BCS Rank	Rank	Team	P(WARG)
1	1	Alabama	0.517
2	3	Kansas State	0.446
3	7	Notre Dame	0.504
4	2	Oregon	0.431
5	9	LSU	0.088
6	11	Georgia	0.375
7	8	Florida	0.158
8	10	South Carolina	0.436
9	4	Florida State	0.518
10	38	Louisville	0.245
11	26	Oregon State	0.010
12	5	Oklahoma	0.387
13	15	Clemson	0.311
14	17	Stanford	0.029

Alabama, Oregon, Kansas State and Notre Dame have separated themselves in the BCS rankings and all have at least a 43% chance of finishing undefeated. At this point, it is worth asking the question of how likely it is that three or more of these teams finish undefeated. Assuming that any two teams finishing undefeated are independent events, there is an 8% chance that all four lose, 28% chance that only two finish undefeated (with Alabama vs. Notre Dame the most likely scenario), 37% chance that at least three finish undefeated and a 22% chance that all four finish undefeated. As you can see, it is now more likely than not that at least three of the top four will finish undefeated, meaning that we are likely to have a major controversy on our hands in the penultimate season of the BCS.

We have another fun weekend ahead of us as three of the BCS top four face difficult tests. Alabama at LSU is the headliner, although, this game is probably getting more billing than it deserves as I have Alabama favored by 11. Meanwhile, Oregon plays at USC and Kansas State faces Oklahoma State at home. I have Oregon and Kansas State favored by 7 and 10, respectively. Finally, Notre Dame gets a bit of a breather with a home game against Pitt.

Full ranking can be found at my personal website: http://www.biostat.umn.edu/~josephk/index.php?page=sports