Week 11 Rankings

Hey football fans! I apologize for the brief hiatus. I’ve been busy the last two weeks and, honestly, I just didn’t feel like writing about football last week given the events at Penn State. It’s been a busy three weeks, though, and I have a lot to cover.

LSU established itself as the team to beat after winning the most recent ‘Game of the Century’ over Alabama and is on a collision course with Oklahoma State who continues to put up gaudy numbers on a weekly basis. Of course, the picture wouldn’t be so clear had Clemson, Boise State and the Tree not suffered their first losses of the season to Georgia Tech, TCU and Oregon, respectively.  We’ll take a look at how likely we are to get a nice, clean BCS championship game in a minute but first, here is my updated top 10:

Rank	Team	Rating	Record	SOS1	SOS2	E(FR)	P(WARG)
1	Alabama	29.7	9-1	1.4	0.16	10.9-1.1	0.93
2	Oklahoma	29.0	8-1	6.2	0.07	10.4-1.6	0.42
3	LSU	28.4	10-0	4.3	0.05	11.8-0.2	0.65
4	Oregon	27.6	9-1	3.7	0.08	10.9-1.1	0.71
5	Oklahoma State	27.5	10-0	5.4	0.10	11.5-0.5	0.53
6	Stanford	26.1	9-1	2.4	0.20	10.8-1.2	0.75
7	Wisconsin	24.5	8-2	-2.9	0.36	9.8-2.2	0.66
8	Boise State	22.1	8-1	-5.3	0.45	10.9-1.1	0.91
9	Florida State	19.0	7-3	0.3	0.21	8.6-3.4	0.56
10	Georgia	18.1	8-2	1.0	0.23	9.7-2.3	0.16

The top 10 has stabilized, for the most part, by this time of the season. Some might be surprised to see Florida State in the season but they’ve hovered around 10 or 11 for most of the season. Georgia makes their first appearance in the top 10 after steadily creeping up the rankings after early losses to Boise State and South Carolina. The Bulldogs are one win away from representing the SEC East in the SEC title game and are capable of giving LSU a tough game.

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	0.646
2	5	Oklahoma State	0.532
3	1	Alabama	0.931
4	4	Oregon	0.712
5	2	Oklahoma	0.419
6	12	Arkansas	0.096
7	28	Clemson	0.093
8	24	Virginia Tech	0.301
9	6	Stanford	0.746
10	8	Boise State	0.913
11	17	Houston	0.442
12	16	South Carolina	0.704
13	36	Kansas State	0.192
14	10	Georgia	0.164

As you can see, we’re still a long way from an LSU/Oklahoma State national title game. In fact, there is only a 34% chance that they both finish the season undefeated. LSU has a slightly better chance but still has difficult games remaining against Arkansas and in the SEC championship game (most likely against Georgia). Oklahoma State’s season comes down to the Bedlam game against Oklahoma. I currently have Oklahoma State as a 1.7 point favorite against Oklahoma (the game is at Oklahoma State), making the game essentially a toss-up, which is reflected in the Cowboy’s 53% chance of finishing the season undefeated. The other team’s in the top 5 of the BCS standing are all in good position should either LSU or Oklahoma State stumble. Alabama has a 93% chance of winning their two remaining games against Georgia Southern and Auburn. Oregon has a slightly tougher road due to having to play a conference championship game but will be in good shape if they beat USC on Saturday. Finally, Oklahoma has a 42% chance of winning out but this is deceiving. Oklahoma will only factor into this equation if they beat Oklahoma State and they have about an 80% chance of winning out conditional on winning the Bedlam game. To put it in different terms, there is a 95% chance that either Oklahoma or Oklahoma State will win all of their remaining games.

There are interesting games every weekend from here on out. LSU, Oklahoma State and Alabama shouldn’t be tested but Oregon and Oklahoma both have tough games as they try to stay in the national title picture. Oregon hosts USC, who are underrated nationally because a) they’re not in the same league as Pete Carroll-era USC and b) they’re on probation and are ineligible for post-season play. The Ducks are still two touchdown favorites but USC has played well over the last month. Oklahoma travels to Waco to play Baylor, who are probably a little overrated nationally but are capable of the upset with RG3 at quarterback.

As always, the full ranking can be found at my personal website: www.biostat.umn.edu/~josephk/wk11_rankings_2011.pdf