Ratings 10/19/02  
Ratings (October 19)

The standard "ethics" of football rankings is that highly ranked teams (especially #1) keep their ranking unless they lose. To punish a team because they didn't win by enough just encourages coaches to run up the score. It's considered somewhat of an unsavory political impurity to allow margin of victory to affect rational judgements (sorry, but this is the NCAA; they talk like this). Hence the BCS has outlawed computer ratings that utilize margin of victory. So it's ironic that Tech's struggle against Rutgers dropped them dramatically in my computer ratings -- all the way down to where the BCS has them! In fact, the computer ratings listed below look amazingly like the BCS. (Which has me quite worried about the accuracy of my computer.)

This is a fun time of year, with several teams in the running for conference titles. Are Minnesota and Iowa for real? How about Arizona State and Washington State? Can Oklahoma run the table (Colorado and Texas A&M are next)? How about Georgia (Kentucky, Florida on the road the next two weeks)? How many games are Florida and Nebraska going to lose this year? Individually, can anybody win the Heisman trophy?

This week's games include several big Rose Bowl match-ups and a couple of tests for unbeaten teams: Oklahoma has a bye and Miami has the week off at West Virginia, but Notre Dame and NC State have tough road games. The following predictions are straight from the ratings, with 4 points added for the home team.

Virginia Tech over Temple by 31
Virginia over Georgia Tech by 3
Florida State and Notre Dame even
Clemson and NC State even
Ohio State over Penn State by 10
Michigan over Iowa by 4
Arizona State over Washington by 7
Washington State over Arizona by 14

1 Oklahoma 68.12
2 Notre Dame 65.52
3 Miami 64.74
4 Virginia Tech 63.45
5 Ohio State 62.00
6 Southern Cal 61.74
7 Florida State 61.40
8 Georgia 61.30
9 Texas 59.75
10 LSU 59.58
11 Alabama 58.82
12 Michigan 58.05
13 Iowa 58.04
14 Air Force 57.46
15 Iowa State 57.35
16 Wash State 57.34
17 Penn State 56.34
18 California 56.30
19 Kansas State 55.46
20 Arkansas 54.88
21 NC State 54.12
22 Kentucky 53.35
23 Bowling Green 53.25
24 Florida 52.95
25 Oregon 52.72
26 Colorado 52.49
27 Texas Tech 52.00
28 UCLA 51.95
29 Maryland 51.75
30 Virginia 51.74
31 Texas A&M 51.34
32 Wisconsin 50.40
33 S Carolina 50.38
34 Arizona St 50.38
35 South Florida 50.27
36 Oregon St 49.88
37 Boston College 49.82
38 Clemson 49.76
39 Colorado St 49.65
40 Minnesota 49.55
41 Tennessee 49.35
42 Boise 49.09
43 Pittsburgh 47.99
44 Marshall 47.33
45 Nebraska 47.18
46 Auburn 46.77
47 Washington 46.73
48 Mississippi 46.64
49 Louisville 46.22
50 Southern Miss 45.97
51 Missouri 45.85
52 Toledo 45.27
53 West Virginia 45.22
54 Purdue 45.10
55 Wake Forest 44.50
56 TCU 44.46
57 Georgia Tech 44.26
58 Miami O 44.03
59 Michigan State 42.75
60 North Ill 42.32
61 Stanford 41.97
62 NM State 40.82
63 Oklahoma St 40.10
64 Hawaii 39.93
65 Indiana 39.61
66 Cincinnati 38.89
67 North Carolina 38.79
68 Utah 38.67
69 Arizona 38.67
70 Illinois 38.62
71 Fresno 38.18
72 Tulane 38.09
73 UCF 37.98
74 Miss State 37.81
75 Nevada 36.93
76 Western Mich 36.14
77 Temple 36.08
78 UNLV 36.05
79 North Texas 34.99
80 New Mexico 34.85
81 BYU 34.09
82 San Jose 34.07
83 Duke 33.85
84 Northwestern 33.42
85 Memphis 32.88
86 East Carolina 32.84
87 UConn 31.77
88 San Diego St 31.71
89 Ball State 31.43
90 UAB 31.06
91 Central Mich 30.85
92 Baylor 30.40
93 Houston 30.34
94 Troy State 30.32
95 Mid Tenn 29.84
96 Vanderbilt 29.54
97 La Tech 29.31
98 Kansas 28.97
99 Utah State 28.73
100 Ohio 28.11
101 Syracuse 27.68
102 La-Lafayette 27.68
103 Kent State 27.45
104 Arkansas St 26.95
105 Akron 25.98
106 Rice 25.77
107 Wyoming 24.60
108 UTEP 24.35
109 Idaho 24.07
110 Navy 23.75
111 Rutgers 22.56
112 Eastern Mich 21.06
113 SMU 21.03
114 La-Monroe 18.92
115 Buffalo 18.79
116 Tulsa 18.05
117 Army 12.74