Week 1 Rankings!

Hey college football fans! I hope you enjoyed the first weekend of the season. I know I did!

The dream is still alive in Boise. The Broncos posted the most impressive win of the weekend by defeating Virginia Tech 33-30 in a neutral site game that was essentially a home game for the Hokies. LSU and TCU were the only other teams to defeat members of the pre-season top 25 with victories over North Carolina and Oregon State, respectively, although, North Carolina was without several regulars due to suspensions for various off-the-field shenanigans. Alabama, Ohio State, Nebraska and Oregon were also impressive with big victories against overmatched opponents, while Florida, Texas, Oklahoma and USC had disappointing opening weekends with lackluster performances in victories over very mediocre competition.

The rankings changed quite a bit after week 1 but that is to be expected during the first couple of weeks. The rankings should start to stabilize after the first month of the season. Oregon jumped up to number 1 after their 72-0 victory over New Mexico. TCU, LSU, Florida State and Georgia moved into the top 10, while USC, Texas, Florida and Oklahoma dropped out. Oklahoma took the biggest tumble, dropping all the way to number 23 after their 31-24 victory over the mighty Utah State Aggies.

Here are the top 15 teams ranked by the probability that they go undefeated:

P(WARG)* Rank	Rank	Team	P(WARG)*
1	3	Boise State	0.786
2	5	TCU	0.481
3	1	Oregon	0.324
4	2	Ohio State	0.254
5	26	Houston	0.127
6	7	Nebraska	0.088
7	4	Alabama	0.069
8	21	Utah	0.048
9	14	Wisconsin	0.047
10	15	Texas	0.034
11	9	Florida State	0.030
12	11	USC	0.025
13	8	LSU	0.023
14	10	Georgia	0.017
15	20	Iowa	0.010

* P(WARG) = Probability of Winning All Remaining Games.

Boise State was the big winner after week 1. They now have almost an 80% chance of finishing the season undefeated. Boise State's season essentially comes down to their matchup with Oregon State on September 25th. They'll still have to play good football for the rest of the season but they will be heavy favorites in all but the Oregon State game. TCU also looks like a good bet to go undefeated but it’s unlikely that they’ll play for the national title unless Boise State loses. Oregon and Ohio State are the best bets among the BCS conference schools but I think the probabilities presented above are overestimates due to instability in the model this early in the season.

Enjoy the weekend!

The week 1 rankings can be found at my personal website:

www.biostat.umn.edu/~josephk/wk1_ranking_report.pdf