Week 7 Rankings

Hey football fans!

Boy, week 7 was a lot of fun, wasn’t it? Oregon solidified their hold on number 1 with a three touchdown victory over Washington. Missouri pulled the big upset of the weekend with a 15 point victory over Georgia in Athens. Meanwhile, LSU and Texas A&M picked up solid victories in top-25 matchups against Florida and Mississippi, respectively.

Here are the updated top 10 after week 7:

Rank	Team	Rating	Record	SOS1	SOS2	E(FR)	P(WARG)
1	Oregon	35.5	6 – 0	4.5	0.14	11.7 – 0.3	0.64
2	Florida State	33.0	5 – 0	0.1	0.18	11.4 – 0.6	0.48
3	Alabama	26.9	6 – 0	2.0	0.15	11.3 – 0.7	0.31
4	Baylor	26.3	5 – 0	1.2	0.27	11.1 – 0.9	0.38
5	LSU	24.3	6 – 1	5.3	0.06	9.8 – 2.2	0.14
6	Clemson	23.2	6 – 0	2.6	0.11	10.6 – 1.4	0.09
7	Ohio State	21.1	6 – 0	0.0	0.35	11.2 – 0.8	0.32
8	Wisconsin	20.1	4 – 2	1.7	0.18	9.1 – 2.9	0.32
9	Missouri	20.0	6 – 0	5.3	0.13	10.3 – 1.7	0.04
10	Stanford	19.8	5 – 1	8.7	0.05	8.9 – 3.1	0.02

There was a little bit of shuffling in the top 6 but the teams remain the same. Oregon and Florida State appear to be head and shoulders ahead of the rest, while there isn’t much separation between Alabama, Baylor, LSU and Clemson. In the bottom half of the top 10, Georgia, Washington and Louisville dropped out of the top 10 due to losses against Missouri and Oregon and an unimpressive victory for the Cardinals against Rutgers. Missouri, Wisconsin and Ohio State filled the void thanks to big victories for Missouri and Wisconsin over Georgia and Northwestern, respectively, and an off weak for the Buckeyes.

Here are the top 10 teams with the best chance of finishing undefeated:

P(WARG) Rank	Rank	Team	P(WARG)
1	11	Louisville	0.716
2	1	Oregon	0.637
3	2	Florida State	0.480
4	4	Baylor	0.376
5	7	Ohio State	0.317
6	3	Alabama	0.309
7	44	Fresno State	0.188
8	6	Clemson	0.094
9	73	Northern Illinois	0.086
10	9	Missouri	0.038

Missouri replaces Stanford in the top 10 after their victory over Georgia and Stanford’s upset loss to Utah. Otherwise, the top 10 are essentially the same as last week. At this point, there are only fourteen remaining undefeated teams in the FBS division. We’ll lose one more from this list on Saturday when Clemson plays for Florida State, while Missouri will face a tough test against Florida and still-undefeated UCLA will have their hands full against Stanford.

This week’s headliner is Florida State vs. Clemson in an ACC elimination game. The winner will remain undefeated and have a good chance of finishing the season undefeated, while the loser will likely be eliminated from national championship contention. There are several other big games on the schedule this weekend. Here is a run-down:

#2 (in my rankings) Florida State @ #6 Clemson, Florida State favored by 7.2, 71% chance of winning

#5 LSU @ #22 Mississippi, LSU favored by 7.7, 72% chance of winning

#16 Florida @ #9 Missouri, Missouri favored by 4.5, 63% chance of winning

#14 UCLA @ #10 Stanford, Stanford favored by 3.7, 61% chance of winning

#12 Washington @ #15 Arizona State, Arizona State favored by 1.1, 53% chance of winning

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

Enjoy the week 8!

Week 6 Rankings

Hey football fans!

Week 6 was a huge weekend of college football! Stanford won the game of the week with a close victory over Washington, while Ohio State picked up a big win over Northwestern. Elsewhere, Florida State continued to look impressive with a 63-0 victory over Maryland. Not to be outdone, Baylor racked up 864 yards of total offense in a 73-42 victory over West Virginia in a game that wasn’t as close as the score would indicate – seriously.

Here are the updated top 10 after week 6:

Rank	Team	Rating	Record	SOS1	SOS2	E(FR)	P(WARG)
1	Oregon	34.5	5 – 0	4.5	0.12	11.4 – 0.6	0.46
2	Florida State	32.7	5 – 0	0.1	0.14	11.3 – 0.7	0.41
3	Baylor	26.5	4 – 0	0.7	0.23	10.9 – 0.1	0.29
4	Clemson	25.2	5 – 0	2.3	0.12	10.8 – 1.2	0.16
5	LSU	24.6	5 – 1	5.8	0.05	9.6 – 2.4	0.13
6	Alabama	24.5	5 – 0	2.5	0.14	10.9 – 1.1	0.18
7	Louisville	21.4	5 – 0	-7.9	0.77	11.7 – 0.3	0.73
8	Stanford	21.3	5 – 0	8.0	0.07	9.9 – 2.1	0.03
9	Georgia	20.9	4 – 1	8.7	0.05	9.4 – 2.6	0.05
10	Washington	20.9	4 – 1	6.6	0.04	8.9 – 3.1	0.04

The biggest story in the top 10 is that Alabama continues to drop and is now ranked #
6. This would be viewed as almost heretical by the mainstream press but I’m not sure why? Every week, more articles are written about how Alabama doesn’t look as impressive as expected, while Oregon, Florida State and Baylor have yet to play competitive football games. Meanwhile, Alabama is the near unanimous #1 and Baylor is ranked #15(!) in both major media polls. One of the biggest criticisms of the major polls is that they are too dependent on pre-season rankings and this is why. My prior is based on the same pre-season rankings that had Alabama #1 but the data now overwhelm the prior and suggest that Alabama is not the best team in the country (not even close, apparently). It would be nice if the polls exhibited the same fluidity – especially early in the season.

Here are the top 10 teams with the best chance of finishing undefeated:

P(WARG) Rank	Rank	Team	P(WARG)
1	7	Louisville	0.725
2	1	Oregon	0.460
3	2	Florida State	0.407
4	11	Ohio State	0.291
5	3	Baylor	0.290
6	6	Alabama	0.183
7	43	Fresno State	0.178
8	4	Clemson	0.157
9	65	Northern Illinois	0.132
10	8	Stanford	0.034

Alabama is the story here, as well. The probability that they finish undefeated dropped about 10% even though they won. What gives? First, there was essentially no chance that Alabama would lose to Georgia State, so the Tide’s win on Saturday didn’t play a factor one way or the other. Second, and more importantly, LSU is now ranked slightly ahead of Alabama and it now appears that LSU will give Alabama one heck of a game when they play in November. Elsewhere, Ohio State increased their chances of finishing undefeated by about 10% after their victory over Northwestern.

My alma mater (or, at least, one of my alma maters), the University of Washington has the game of the week for two weeks in a row! Unfortunately, the Huskies are underdogs for the second week in a row and, this time, they’re about a 10-point underdog compared to a 3-point underdog against Stanford.  If that doesn’t interest you, there are four other top-25 matchups on the schedule this weekend. Here is a run-down:

• #1 (in my rankings) Oregon @ #10 Washington, Oregon favored by 10.4, 78% chance of winning
• #12 Florida @ #5 LSU, LSU favored by 8.8, 74% chance of winning
• #16 Missouri @ #9 Georgia, Georgia favored by 6.6, 69% chance of winning 
• #17 Texas A&M @ #24 Mississippi, Texas A&M favored by 0.3, 51% chance of winning 
• #23 TCU @ #20 Oklahoma State, Oklahoma State favored by 3.7, 61% chance of winning 

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

Enjoy the week 7!