Week 10 Rankings

Hi football fans. I hope you enjoyed the weekend!

Alabama, Kansas State and Oregon remained undefeated with wins over difficult opponents LSU, Oklahoma State and USC, respectively. Surprisingly, Notre Dame, who was expected to have the easiest weekend of the BCS top 4, needed three overtimes to defeat Pitt 29-26. Elsewhere, Louisville also remained undefeated but barely cracked the BCS top 10 and are currently ranked number 35 in my rankings.

 Here is my updated top 10:

Rank	Team	Rating	Record	E(FR)	P(WARG)
1	Alabama	32.12	9-0	11.77 – 0.23	0.609
2	Oregon	28.02	9-0	11.64 – 0.36	0.560
3	Florida State	25.47	8-1	10.52 – 1.48	0.550
4	Kansas State	25.21	9-0	11.44 – 0.56	0.538
5	Oklahoma	24.96	6-2	9.25 – 2.75	0.432
6	Texas A&M	23.73	7-2	9.11 – 2.89	0.194
7	Florida	21.59	8-1	10.30 – 1.70	0.174
8	Notre Dame	21.11	9-0	11.46 – 0.54	0.490
9	LSU	19.85	7-2	9.55 – 2.45	0.612
10	South Carolina	19.83	7-2	9.36 – 2.64	0.410

It would take a monumental upset to drastically change the top 10 at this point. Notre Dame dropped a spot due to their struggles against Pitt but the top 10 are essentially the same as last week. Texas A&M did their part to justify my ranking in a 38-13 victory over Mississippi State. Mississippi State is having a solid season and their only other loss is to Alabama. Finally, Florida State continues to fly under the radar but are a one point loss to NC State from being in the middle of the national title conversation.

Here are the top 14 in the current BCS rankings along with the probability that they win all remaining games:

BCS Rank	Rank	Team	P(WARG)
1	1	Alabama	0.609
2	4	Kansas State	0.538
3	2	Oregon	0.560
4	8	Notre Dame	0.490
5	11	Georgia	0.446
6	7	Florida	0.174
7	9	LSU	0.612
8	10	South Carolina	0.410
9	35	Louisville	0.288
10	3	Florida State	0.550
11	26	Oregon State	0.025
12	5	Oklahoma	0.432
13	12	Clemson	0.433
14	18	Stanford	0.034

Alabama, Oregon and Kansas State all drastically improved their chances of finishing undefeated over the weekend, while Notre Dame’s probability of finishing undefeated essentially stayed the same after their victory against Pitt. The rankings didn’t give Pitt much of a chance in the first place and Notre Dame appears slightly less likely to defeat USC in a couple of weeks after Saturday’s mediocre performance. Last week, I misspoke, saying that there was a greater than 50% chance of at least 3 of the top 4 finishing undefeated. That’s not quite right, but it’s close. At this point, there is a 4% chance that all four lose, a 20% chance that three of the four lose, a 37% chance that two of four finish undefeated, a 30% chance that three of the four finish undefeated and a 9% chance that all four finish undefeated. While there is less than a 50% chance that three or more of the top four finish undefeated, it’s pretty close at 39%.

Alabama faces their last real test of the regular season on Saturday against Texas A&M. The rankings have been high on the Aggies all season and it will be interesting to see how they stack up against the Tide. Kansas State also faces a solid opponent in TCU. TCU may not be a top 10 football team but they’re pretty solid and ranked #22 in my rankings. Finally, Oregon and Notre Dame should have an easier go of it with games against California and Boston College, respectively.

Full ranking can be found at my personal website: http://www.biostat.umn.edu/~josephk/index.php?page=sports