Week 13 Rankings

 

Hey football fans. I hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving! The season is almost over and, from the sound of it, the national title game is pretty much decided but there are still a few things to talk about.

Last weekend was the end of the regular season for most of college football. Number 1 LSU finished their regular season in convincing fashion with a 41-17 win over Arkansas. Elsewhere, Alabama posted a comfortable victory over Auburn, Stanford defeated Notre Dame 28-14 and Virginia Tech and Oregon clinched their respective divisions with victories over in-state rivals Virginia and Oregon State. Here is my updated top 10 heading into championship weekend:

Rank	Team	Rating	Record	SOS1	SOS2	E(FR)	P(WARG)
1	LSU	30.1	12-0	5.2	0.04	12.8-0.17	0.83
2	Alabama	27.9	11-1	1.2	0.16	RSC	RSC
3	Oregon	26.4	10-2	3.5	0.07	11.0-2.0	0.99
4	Oklahoma	26.1	9-2	6.4	0.08	9.4-2.6	0.43
5	Wisconsin	25.5	10-2	-1.5	0.27	10.8-2.2	0.77
6	Stanford	25.4	11-1	3.0	0.19	RSC	RSC
7	Oklahoma State	25.3	10-1	5.7	0.11	10.6-1.4	0.57
8	Boise State	20.8	10-1	-5.3	0.48	11-1	~1.0
9	Florida State	17.8	8-4	-0.2	0.28	RSC	RSC
10	USC	17.8	10-2	6.1	0.07	RSC	RSC

Again, the top 8 have been the same for much of the season. Florida State moved back into the top 10 after defeating Florida and USC makes their first appearance after posting an impressive victory over UCLA. The Trojans have looked as impressive as any team in college football over the last month but are ineligible for a bowl game due the Reggie Bush scandal.  

It sounds as if the BCS title game is going to be an LSU/Alabama rematch regardless of what happens this weekend but there is still meaningful football to be played including four championship games in BCS conference games and a de facto championship game in the Big 12. Here are the lines for the six conference championship games and the Bedlam Game, which serves as the de facto Big 12 Championship game:

Game	Favorite	Underdog	Line	P(Upset)
SEC Championship	LSU	Georgia	13.4	0.17
Pac 12 Championship	Oregon*	UCLA	31.0	0.01
ACC Championship	Virginia Tech	Clemson	6.1	0.33
Big 10 Championship	Wisconsin	Michigan State	10.6	0.23
Bedlam Game	Oklahoma State*	Oklahoma	2.5	0.43
Conference USA Championship	Houston	Southern Mississippi	12.7	0.19
MAC Championship	Northern Illinois	Ohio	3.9	0.39

*Home team, all other games are played at neutral sites

As you can see, it’s certainly not a sure thing that LSU will beat Georgia. That said, LSU will play for the national championship unless they lose badly on Saturday and that is only fair because they would still have the best resume in the country even if they lost on Saturday to finish 12-1. It looks like the most interesting game of the weekend should be the Bedlam Game between Oklahoma and Oklahoma State. It doesn’t sound like Oklahoma State has much of a chance to play for the national title even if they win but I’m not sure why? Sure, the loss to Iowa State was terrible but a win on Saturday would give them victories against Oklahoma (#4 in my rankings), Texas A&M (#12), Missouri (#19), Texas (#21), Baylor (#31) and Kansas State (#34). In contrast, Alabama’s only good win is against Arkansas (#13) but they didn’t play Georgia or South Carolina, which means that their second best win was against either Florida (#27) or Penn State (#33). This is not to say that Oklahoma State is clearly better than Alabama, in fact, Alabama is probably better than Oklahoma State, but they’re pretty close and I would be inclined to give the nod to Oklahoma State should they win on Saturday due to their schedule and because they will have won their conference. It will be interesting to see what happens when the match-ups are announced.

Finally, most of the bowl matchups will be announced on Sunday but I won’t post my bowl preview until after the Army/Navy game, which is in two weeks.

As always, the full ranking can be found at my personal website: www.biostat.umn.edu/~josephk/wk13_rankings_2011.pdf