Week 7 Rankings

Hey college football fans! Week 7 is behind us and you know what that means? Yep, the first BCS rankings of the season are out. I, for one, am pumped to hear about the grave injustices of the BCS instead of all the complaining about trivial issues like health care and the economy.

Wisconsin knocked off previously undefeated Ohio State, 31-18, in the biggest game of the weekend. Nebraska and Nevada also dropped from the ranks of the unbeaten with losses to Texas and Hawaii, respectively. The most surprising result of the weekend, though, was probably Auburn’s 65-43 victory over Arkansas. Yep, you read that right, 65-43. Cam Newton single handedly set SEC defenses back decades in one weekend (not to mention making himself a leading Heisman candidate). It will be fun to see if he can keep it up!

There was very little change in the top 10 from last week. The order changed a little but only Utah dropped out of the top 10 (to #11), while Iowa was the only team to enter the top 10 (moving up from #12). Oregon remains #1 but #2 Boise State is now a full field goal ahead of #3 TCU.

Here are the top 14 teams in the BCS rankings and the probability that they win all of their remaining games:

BCS Rank	Rank	Team	P(WARG)*
1	5	Oklahoma	0.128
2	1	Oregon	0.409
3	2	Boise State	0.849
4	14	Auburn	0.044
5	3	TCU	0.517
6	17	LSU	0.034
7	27	Michigan State	0.116
8	4	Alabama	0.291
9	11	Utah	0.128
10	6	Ohio State	0.385
11	13	Missouri	0.048
12	7	Stanford	0.229
13	21	Wisconsin	0.159
14	26	Oklahoma State	0.014

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

Don’t get too attached to/upset about this week’s BCS rankings. As you can see from column four, there will be plenty of changes before the end of the season. Boise State is the only team that we can say is likely to win all of their remaining games (85% chance) and there is a good chance that the Mountain West champion will finish the season undefeated (65% chance). Of course, there is virtually no chance that they will meet in the national title game even if they are the only undefeated teams remaining at the end of the season. Oregon has the best chance of finishing the season undefeated among BCS conference teams (41%). No other BCS conference team has more than a 13% chance of finishing the season undefeated. Finally, Alabama is an interesting team at #8 in the BCS rankings. They have a 29% chance of winning all of their remaining games and would likely move up considerably as the teams ranked ahead of them lose. It would be surprising if Alabama didn’t end up in the National Championship game if they finish the season 12-1.

Full week 7 rankings can be found at my personal website:

www.biostat.umn.edu/~josephk/wk7_ranking_report.pdf