Week 6 Rankings

Hey football fans! It’s been a long week in the Koopmeiners household due to a sick fifteen month old. He appears to be on the mend but I’ll try to keep this short so I can go to bed.

Oklahoma and LSU continued their strong starts to the season with impressive victories over Texas and Florida, respectively. Alabama did their best to keep pace with a 34-0 victory over Vanderbilt. Although, there is a limit to how impressive you can look beating up on the smart kids of the SEC. The remainder of the top 10 beat up on a smorgasbord of mediocre opponents, highlighted by Oklahoma State hanging 70 on Kansas. My updated top 10 can be found below:

Rank	Team	Rating	Record	SOS1	SOS2	E(FR)	P(WARG)
1	Oklahoma	30.3	5-0	5.4	0.11	11.3-0.7	0.47
2	Alabama	28.6	6-0	2.0	0.14	11.3-0.7	0.35
3	LSU	28.1	6-0	5.1	0.04	11.0-1.0	0.21
4	Stanford	26.6	5-0	2.1	0.25	11.1-0.9	0.27
5	Oregon	26.4	4-1	3.5	0.09	10.1-1.9	0.22
6	Boise State	25.6	5-0	-5.2	0.47	11.8-0.2	0.80
7	Wisconsin	24.1	5-0	-3.1	0.35	11.1-0.9	0.27
8	Oklahoma State	21.8	5-0	5.3	0.09	10.3-1.7	0.09
9	Notre Dame	19.4	4-2	6.4	0.11	8.8-3.2	0.14
10	Texas A&M	18.7	3-2	6.0	0.07	8.2-3.8	0.05

Not much has changed since last week with Notre Dame the only new team in the top 10. This is certainly at odds with the two major polls, who don’t even have Notre Dame in the top 25, but, as I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Notre Dame’s record is deceiving. Notre Dame played one of the most difficult September schedules in the country and their two losses were by a combined seven points. Combine that with consecutive blowout victories and the Irish look a lot better than the polls are giving them credit for. On the other end of the spectrum are Clemson, Georgia Tech and Kansas State. All three are undefeated and have received plenty of love from the national media but all three are outside the top 20 in my rankings.

Here are the top 13 teams with the best chance of finishing undefeated:

P(WARG) Rank	Rank	Team	P(WARG)
1	6	Boise State	0.796
2	1	Oklahoma	0.467
3	2	Alabama	0.352
4	7	Wisconsin	0.270
5	4	Stanford	0.266
6	35	Houston	0.248
7	3	LSU	0.212
8	8	Oklahoma State	0.094
9	11	Michigan	0.054
10	22	Clemson	0.026
11	30	Georgia Tech	0.014
12	33	Illinois	0.003
13	52	Kansas State	< 0.001

Only 13 teams remain undefeated after 6 weeks of the season, several of which, Clemson, Georgia Tech, Illinois, Kansas State and, to a lesser extent, Michigan, have very little chance of finishing the season that way. Houston has a decent chance of finishing the season undefeated but have no chance at reaching the national title game and, while the Broncos are receiving more respect than they used to, Boise State appears likely to end up on the outside looking in even though they currently have an 80% chance of finishing the season undefeated. That leaves Oklahoma, Alabama, Wisconsin, Stanford, LSU and Oklahoma State as the major players in the BCS. None of these teams have more than a 50% chance of finishing the season undefeated (although, Oklahoma is close at 47%) but it should be noted that there is a 56% chance that either Alabama or LSU finish the season undefeated and a 56% chance that either Oklahoma or Oklahoma State finish the season undefeated. The first BCS standings come out next week and it will be interesting to see what the initial pecking order looks like.

The upcoming weekend doesn’t offer much for compelling matchups with only Oklahoma State facing a meaningful challenge and that comes with a major asterisk as it’s not clear how Texas will recover after taking a beating in the Red River Rivalry.

As always, the full ranking can be found at my personal website: www.biostat.umn.edu/~josephk/wk6_rankings_2011.pdf

Week 5 Rankings

Hey football fans!

We were treated to several big games over the weekend, highlighted by Alabama’s 38-10 victory over Florida in the swamp. Alabama has looked particularly strong over the last two weeks with big wins over teams ranked in the top 16. Nebraska received a rude welcome to the Big 10 on Saturday night in the form of a 48-17 beat-down by Wisconsin. This establishes Wisconsin as a serious national title contender after putting up big numbers against weak competition in the first month of the season. Somewhat off the radar but still very entertaining was Arkansas’ 42-38 victory over Texas A&M. The Razorbacks rallied from a 35-17 half-time deficit to defeat the Aggies in the Southwest Classic (you have to appreciate the irony of two future Southeastern Conference schools playing in the Southwest Classic). Finally, Clemson turned in what was perceived to be the biggest upset of the weekend by beating Virginia Tech 23-3. It should be noted, though, that Virginia Tech hardly looked like the 11^th best team in the country over the first month of the season and I had them at #18 going into the weekend. Clemson has certainly exceeded expectation but their fans should probably temper expectations going forward. My updated top 10 can be found below:

Rank	Team	Rating	Record	SOS1	SOS2	E(FR)	P(WARG)
1	Oklahoma	28.6	4-0	5.9	0.10	11.1-0.9	0.37
2	Alabama	28.4	5-0	2.1	0.13	11.3-0.7	0.36
3	LSU	26.5	5-0	5.4	0.05	10.7-1.3	0.14
4	Stanford	25.7	4-0	2.0	0.24	11.0-1.0	0.23
5	Oregon	25.2	3-1	3.2	0.11	9.9-2.1	0.21
6	Wisconsin	24.5	5-0	-3.2	0.38	11.2-0.8	0.30
7	Boise State	22.0	4-0	-5.1	0.50	11.6-0.4	0.66
8	Oklahoma State	20.9	4-0	5.2	0.10	10.1-1.9	0.08
9	Florida State	19.8	2-2	0.9	0.17	9.0-3.0	0.24
10	Texas A&M	19.5	2-2	6.2	0.08	8.0-4.0	0.06

I hope LSU enjoyed their brief stay at number 1 as they were quickly passed by Oklahoma and Alabama.  It’s not clear what LSU did to drop but it was most likely a combination of Oklahoma and Alabama posting big victories, while Mississippi State lost again, making LSU’s 19-6 victory in week 3 look a little less impressive. It’s also interesting to see the rankings remain bullish on Florida State and Texas A&M. Texas A&M has lost games by 1 point to #8 Oklahoma State and by 4 to #16 Arkansas, while Florida State played competitive games in losses to #1 Oklahoma and #22 Clemson. These results suggest that these teams are almost certainly better than their 2-2 records suggest.

Here are the top 15 teams with the best chance of finishing undefeated:

P(WARG) Rank	Rank	Team	P(WARG)
1	7	Boise State	0.662
2	1	Oklahoma	0.372
3	2	Alabama	0.355
4	6	Wisconsin	0.304
5	4	Stanford	0.233
6	3	LSU	0.144
7	46	Houston	0.112
8	8	Oklahoma State	0.076
9	12	Michigan	0.049
10	22	Clemson	0.035
11	26	Georgia Tech	0.013
12	18	Texas	0.004
13	36	Illinois	0.002
14	43	Texas Tech	< 0.001
15	57	Kansas State	< 0.001

This represents the full list of teams that remain undefeated after 8 teams suffered their first loss of the season last week. There are about five teams that have a decent chance of finishing the season undefeated (Oklahoma, Alabama, Wisconsin, Stanford and LSU), in addition to Boise State, who is more likely to finish the season undefeated than not. In addition, while neither Alabama or LSU are a lock to finish the season undefeated, there is a 50% chance that at least one of them will finish the season undefeated, extending the SEC’s streak to six straight years with a team in the title game.

There are only two big games on the schedule for this weekend but they’re about as big as they get. My #1, Oklahoma, takes on Texas in the Red River Rivalry*, while LSU takes on Florida in Baton Rouge. The AP poll would lead you to believe that Arkansas vs. Auburn could be an interesting game but my rankings are not a fan of Auburn and have Arkansas favored by about 10. Of course, my rankings weren’t a fan of Auburn all last year and we all saw how that ended up.

*Changing the name of this game to the Red River Rivalry from the Red River Shootout due to concerns that it condones gun violence is even sillier than Florida and Georgia dropping the World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party as the nickname for their rivalry game.

As always, the full ranking can be found at my personal website: www.biostat.umn.edu/~josephk/wk5_rankings_2011.pdf