Hey football fans!
We were treated to several big games over the weekend, highlighted by Alabama’s 38-10 victory over Florida in the swamp. Alabama has looked particularly strong over the last two weeks with big wins over teams ranked in the top 16. Nebraska received a rude welcome to the Big 10 on Saturday night in the form of a 48-17 beat-down by Wisconsin. This establishes Wisconsin as a serious national title contender after putting up big numbers against weak competition in the first month of the season. Somewhat off the radar but still very entertaining was Arkansas’ 42-38 victory over Texas A&M. The Razorbacks rallied from a 35-17 half-time deficit to defeat the Aggies in the Southwest Classic (you have to appreciate the irony of two future Southeastern Conference schools playing in the Southwest Classic). Finally, Clemson turned in what was perceived to be the biggest upset of the weekend by beating Virginia Tech 23-3. It should be noted, though, that Virginia Tech hardly looked like the 11th best team in the country over the first month of the season and I had them at #18 going into the weekend. Clemson has certainly exceeded expectation but their fans should probably temper expectations going forward. My updated top 10 can be found below:
| Rank | Team | Rating | Record | SOS1 | SOS2 | E(FR) | P(WARG) |
| 1 | Oklahoma | 28.6 | 4-0 | 5.9 | 0.10 | 11.1-0.9 | 0.37 |
| 2 | Alabama | 28.4 | 5-0 | 2.1 | 0.13 | 11.3-0.7 | 0.36 |
| 3 | LSU | 26.5 | 5-0 | 5.4 | 0.05 | 10.7-1.3 | 0.14 |
| 4 | Stanford | 25.7 | 4-0 | 2.0 | 0.24 | 11.0-1.0 | 0.23 |
| 5 | Oregon | 25.2 | 3-1 | 3.2 | 0.11 | 9.9-2.1 | 0.21 |
| 6 | Wisconsin | 24.5 | 5-0 | -3.2 | 0.38 | 11.2-0.8 | 0.30 |
| 7 | Boise State | 22.0 | 4-0 | -5.1 | 0.50 | 11.6-0.4 | 0.66 |
| 8 | Oklahoma State | 20.9 | 4-0 | 5.2 | 0.10 | 10.1-1.9 | 0.08 |
| 9 | Florida State | 19.8 | 2-2 | 0.9 | 0.17 | 9.0-3.0 | 0.24 |
| 10 | Texas A&M | 19.5 | 2-2 | 6.2 | 0.08 | 8.0-4.0 | 0.06 |
I hope LSU enjoyed their brief stay at number 1 as they were quickly passed by Oklahoma and Alabama. It’s not clear what LSU did to drop but it was most likely a combination of Oklahoma and Alabama posting big victories, while Mississippi State lost again, making LSU’s 19-6 victory in week 3 look a little less impressive. It’s also interesting to see the rankings remain bullish on Florida State and Texas A&M. Texas A&M has lost games by 1 point to #8 Oklahoma State and by 4 to #16 Arkansas, while Florida State played competitive games in losses to #1 Oklahoma and #22 Clemson. These results suggest that these teams are almost certainly better than their 2-2 records suggest.
Here are the top 15 teams with the best chance of finishing undefeated:
| P(WARG) Rank | Rank | Team | P(WARG) |
| 1 | 7 | Boise State | 0.662 |
| 2 | 1 | Oklahoma | 0.372 |
| 3 | 2 | Alabama | 0.355 |
| 4 | 6 | Wisconsin | 0.304 |
| 5 | 4 | Stanford | 0.233 |
| 6 | 3 | LSU | 0.144 |
| 7 | 46 | Houston | 0.112 |
| 8 | 8 | Oklahoma State | 0.076 |
| 9 | 12 | Michigan | 0.049 |
| 10 | 22 | Clemson | 0.035 |
| 11 | 26 | Georgia Tech | 0.013 |
| 12 | 18 | Texas | 0.004 |
| 13 | 36 | Illinois | 0.002 |
| 14 | 43 | Texas Tech | < 0.001 |
| 15 | 57 | Kansas State | < 0.001 |
This represents the full list of teams that remain undefeated after 8 teams suffered their first loss of the season last week. There are about five teams that have a decent chance of finishing the season undefeated (Oklahoma, Alabama, Wisconsin, Stanford and LSU), in addition to Boise State, who is more likely to finish the season undefeated than not. In addition, while neither Alabama or LSU are a lock to finish the season undefeated, there is a 50% chance that at least one of them will finish the season undefeated, extending the SEC’s streak to six straight years with a team in the title game.
There are only two big games on the schedule for this weekend but they’re about as big as they get. My #1, Oklahoma, takes on Texas in the Red River Rivalry*, while LSU takes on Florida in Baton Rouge. The AP poll would lead you to believe that Arkansas vs. Auburn could be an interesting game but my rankings are not a fan of Auburn and have Arkansas favored by about 10. Of course, my rankings weren’t a fan of Auburn all last year and we all saw how that ended up.
*Changing the name of this game to the Red River Rivalry from the Red River Shootout due to concerns that it condones gun violence is even sillier than Florida and Georgia dropping the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party as the nickname for their rivalry game.
As always, the full ranking can be found at my personal website: www.biostat.umn.edu/~josephk/wk5_rankings_2011.pdf
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