Week 14 Rankings

Hey football fans! The last two weeks have been pretty hectic due to the holiday and the end of the semester but I wanted to get this post out quickly before the big games start today. I only wish I would have posted this sooner as my rankings correctly predicted that Bowling Green would knock off Northern Illinois last night!

Last weekend was an epic weekend of college football, highlighted by Auburn’s crazy, last-second victory over Alabama. Ohio State was the beneficiary of the big upset; although, they almost blew it and escaped with a one point victory over Michigan. The weekend featured several other big-time match-ups that mostly went as expected with the exception of Penn State’s surprising victory over Wisconsin.

Here are the updated top 10 after week 14:

Rank	Team	Rating	Record	SOS1	SOS2	E(FR)	P(WARG)
1	Florida State	38.2	12 – 0	-1.1	0.24	12.9 – 0.1	0.985
2	Alabama	29.0	11 – 1	2.2	0.13	RSC	RSC
3	Baylor	28.1	10 – 1	1.0	0.18	10.9 – 1.1	0.891
4	Oregon	28.1	10 – 2	3.5	0.13	RSC	RSC
5	Ohio State	25.1	12 – 0	0.5	0.25	12.7 – 0.3	0.719
6	Arizona State	24.2	10 – 2	9.1	0.04	10.7 - 2.3	0.654
7	Oklahoma State	23.6	10 – 1	3.4	0.16	10.8 – 1.2	0.800
8	Missouri	22.1	11 – 1	5.1	0.10	11.6 – 1.4	0.599
9	Stanford	21.9	10 – 2	9.5	0.03	10.4 – 2.6	0.346
10	Wisconsin	21.7	9 – 3	1.6	0.09	RSC	RSC

The top 10 have been pretty consistent for the second half of the season with Florida State far and away the best team in the country. In fact, I don’t think people really understand how good they are. Florida State would be a 9.2 point favorite against number 2 Alabama on a neutral site. For comparison, Alabama would only be a 7.3 point favorite over number 10 Wisconsin. Furthermore, Florida State is the best team since I started doing the rankings in 2006 and would be a 4.5 point favorite against the next best team: 2008 Florida.

Rather than look at the BCS standings, I think it make sense to go directly to today’s big conferences championship games and the Bedlam Game, which has an outside shot of being important if Duke pulls off one of the greatest upsets in the history of college football:

• ACC Championship: #1 (in my rankings) Florida State vs. #41 Duke, Florida State favored by 30.8, 99% chance of winning 
• Big Ten Championship: #5 Ohio State vs. #19 Michigan State, Ohio State favored by 11.2, 79% chance of winning 
• SEC Championship: #8 Missouri vs. #16 Auburn, Missouri favored by 3.6, 60% chance of winning 
• Pac – 12 Championship: #9 Stanford @ #6 Arizona State, Arizona State favored by 5.2, 65% chance of winning 
• Bedlam Game: #20 Oklahoma @ #7 Oklahoma State, Oklahoma State favored by 11.4, 79% chance of winning

Florida State is going to win barring a major catastrophe. Therefore, the only real question is whether they will play Ohio State or the SEC champion in the BCS championship game. From above, we see that there is a 79% chance that they play Ohio State, a 12.6% chance they play Missouri and an 8.4% chance they play Auburn.

As always, full rankings can be found at my faculty webpage:

https://sites.google.com/a/umn.edu/koopm007/statistics-in-sports/college-football-rankings

It should be a fun weekend. Enjoy!