Ratings 10/19/02
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 |