Hi football fans. I apologize for the delay. The Koopmeiners household
received a new addition over the weekend, which tends to cut into the time
available for things like updating this blog. On the bright side, late is
better than never!
Week 2 brought several unexpected results, highlighted by Wisconsin’s
surprising loss to Oregon State in Corvallis and Arkansas’ ugly loss to
Louisiana Monroe. It should be noted, though, that my rankings had both teams
ranked much lower than the media polls (#37 and #21, respectively) after
unimpressive week 1 victories over FCS opponents. Elsewhere, UCLA pulled somewhat
of an upset, defeating Nebraska 36-30 at home. It has been a rough start to the
season for the Big Ten. Ohio State is not eligible for the postseason and
several pre-season favorites have stumbled out of the gate (Wisconsin, Michigan
and Nebraska), meaning that Michigan State is now the conference’s only hope
for a title contender. Finally, Oklahoma State was not able to follow-up their
demolition of Savannah State with a victory, losing by 21 to Arizona on the
road.
Here is an
updated top 10:
|
Rank
|
Team
|
Rating
|
Record
|
E(FR)
|
P(WARG)
|
|
1
|
Alabama
|
27.08
|
2-0
|
10.55-1.45
|
0.106
|
|
2
|
LSU
|
25.86
|
2-0
|
10.32-1.68
|
0.091
|
|
3
|
Florida State
|
25.83
|
2-0
|
10.94-1.06
|
0.238
|
|
4
|
West Virginia
|
22.33
|
1-0
|
9.26-2.74
|
0.032
|
|
5
|
Ohio State
|
22.14
|
2-0
|
10.36-1.64
|
0.145
|
|
6
|
Georgia
|
21.86
|
2-0
|
10.24-1.76
|
0.045
|
|
7
|
USC
|
21.79
|
2-0
|
9.69-2.31
|
0.040
|
|
8
|
Oklahoma
|
20.92
|
2-0
|
8.54-3.46
|
0.010
|
|
9
|
Oklahoma State
|
20.10
|
1-1
|
7.79-4.21
|
0.010
|
|
10
|
TCU
|
20.07
|
1-0
|
8.38-3.62
|
0.006
|
Not much has changed since last year. Alabama and LSU come in at #1 and
#2, respectively, setting up an epic match-up on November 3rd in
Baton Rouge. Otherwise, 7 of the top 10 remain from last week with Georgia,
Oklahoma and TCU taking the place of Oregon, Clemson and South Carolina.
Here are the top 15 with the best chance of finishing undefeated
|
P(WARG) Rank
|
Rank
|
Team
|
P(WARG)
|
|
1
|
50
|
Ohio
|
0.287
|
|
2
|
3
|
Florida State
|
0.238
|
|
3
|
5
|
Ohio State
|
0.145
|
|
4
|
1
|
Alabama
|
0.106
|
|
5
|
25
|
Louisville
|
0.094
|
|
6
|
2
|
LSU
|
0.091
|
|
7
|
6
|
Georgia
|
0.045
|
|
8
|
7
|
USC
|
0.040
|
|
9
|
15
|
Michigan State
|
0.034
|
|
10
|
14
|
Oregon
|
0.033
|
|
11
|
4
|
West Virginia
|
0.032
|
|
12
|
8
|
Oklahoma
|
0.010
|
|
13
|
17
|
Clemson
|
0.010
|
|
14
|
45
|
Cincinnati
|
0.010
|
|
15
|
11
|
South Carolina
|
0.008
|
Ohio remains the team most likely to finish the season undefeated. It
will be interesting to follow this story if the Bobcats are still undefeated in
a couple of weeks. They don’t have the track record of Boise State or TCU and
it will be interesting to see if they can play the role of BCS-Buster coming
out of the MAC. Florida State appears to be in good shape and will look to take
advantage of a week ACC. Neither Alabama nor LSU have a great shot at finishing
undefeated but there is a 20% chance that at least one of them runs the table. Of course,
we learned last year that a one-loss Alabama or LSU is not out of the picture
as long as their only loss is to the other. Finally, it has to be a little sad
for Ohio State fans to see their team so high on the list but hey, those were
some sweet tattoos!
I’m going to stay out of the prognostication business after Washington
was thrashed by LSU but there are a couple of interesting games on the schedule for this
weekend. USC plays Stanford in what will be the first major test for the Tree
now that Andrew Luck has left for the NFL. Also, Notre Dame plays Michigan
State in what is key non-conference game for the Big Ten. A loss to the Irish
would mean that the entire conference is essentially eliminated from the
national title picture before the end of September.
Full ranking can be found at my personal website: http://www.biostat.umn.edu/~josephk/index.php?page=sports
