Hey football fans! Last weekend was short on drama but we did get the first BCS rankings of the year, which means that the race is on to see who will play in the national title game.
The top 10 weren’t really tested over the weekend with only Oklahoma State and Oregon facing top 25 opponents. Neither team won in a blowout but both posted comfortable wins with Oklahoma State defeating Texas 38-26 and Oregon defeating Arizona State 41-27. Elsewhere, 13 teams entered last weekend undefeated but, as I noted, five had very little chance of finishing the season undefeated. On cue, three of those five, Michigan, Illinois and Georgia Tech, suffered their first losses of the season to Michigan State, Ohio State and Virginia, respectively. My updated top 10 can be found below:
| Rank | Team | Rating | Record | SOS1 | SOS2 | E(FR) | P(WARG) |
| 1 | Alabama | 29.8 | 7-0 | 1.7 | 0.14 | 11.4-0.6 | 0.38 |
| 2 | Oklahoma | 29.6 | 6-0 | 5.6 | 0.10 | 11.3-0.7 | 0.43 |
| 3 | LSU | 29.5 | 7-0 | 5.2 | 0.04 | 11.2-0.8 | 0.28 |
| 4 | Stanford | 27.0 | 6-0 | 2.0 | 0.24 | 11.1-0.9 | 0.28 |
| 5 | Boise State | 26.8 | 6-0 | -5.5 | 0.49 | 11.8-0.2 | 0.82 |
| 6 | Oregon | 26.7 | 5-1 | 3.7 | 0.07 | 10.2-1.8 | 0.27 |
| 7 | Wisconsin | 25.8 | 6-0 | -3.1 | 0.35 | 11.3-0.7 | 0.36 |
| 8 | Oklahoma State | 22.6 | 6-0 | 5.4 | 0.09 | 10.7-1.3 | 0.16 |
| 9 | Texas A&M | 20.3 | 4-2 | 6.2 | 0.07 | 8.5-3.5 | 0.08 |
| 10 | Notre Dame | 18.9 | 4-2 | 6.1 | 0.12 | 8.7-3.3 | 0.12 |
There was a little reshuffling but, for all intents and purposes, the top 10 remains unchanged from last week.
Here are the top 14 teams from the initial BCS rankings along with the probability that they win all of their remaining games:
| BCS Rank | Rank | Team | P(WARG) |
| 1 | 3 | LSU | 0.282 |
| 2 | 1 | Alabama | 0.383 |
| 3 | 2 | Oklahoma | 0.427 |
| 4 | 8 | Oklahoma State | 0.157 |
| 5 | 5 | Boise State | 0.816 |
| 6 | 7 | Wisconsin | 0.362 |
| 7 | 22 | Clemson | 0.049 |
| 8 | 4 | Stanford | 0.278 |
| 9 | 12 | Arkansas | 0.031 |
| 10 | 6 | Oregon | 0.265 |
| 11 | 46 | Kansas State | < .001 |
| 12 | 23 | Virginia Tech | 0.134 |
| 13 | 25 | Nebraska | 0.009 |
| 14 | 17 | South Carolina | 0.038 |
As it stands, the SEC champion and Big 12 champion would play for the national title if they finish the season undefeated. It’s difficult to predict whether or not it will stay this way (especially if Oklahoma State goes undefeated) but this appears to be the preferred scenario for fans outside of Madison, Palo Alto and Boise. As usual, there is some angst over the initial Wisconsin/Clemson/Stanford ordering but, unlike the polls, a team can jump teams ranked ahead of them in the computer rankings even if the higher ranked team doesn’t lose and fans should wait for more of the season to play out before getting too upset. Furthermore, all three are more likely to lose a game than not and the ordering is irrelevant if they don’t finish the season undefeated. Finally, Boise State enters the initial BCS rankings at number 5 but it’s pretty well known that they will finish behind an undefeated conference champ from any of the BCS conferences. What’s not known is how they stack up against a one-loss conference champ from one of the BCS conferences. They would almost certainly finish behind a one-loss SEC champ but time will tell how they stack up against a one-loss Big 12, Big 10, Pac 12 or ACC champ.
Wisconsin and Oklahoma State face difficult road tests on Saturday at Michigan State (#19) and Missouri (#15), respectively. Missouri isn’t getting any respect from the pollsters. We’ll see if they can prove me right and give Oklahoma State a game. Elsewhere, LSU faces what the polls perceive as a difficult test against Auburn but my rankings have Auburn ranked number 38 and predict a relatively easy victory for LSU.
As always, the full ranking can be found at my personal website: www.biostat.umn.edu/~josephk/wk7_rankings_2011.pdf
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