Ratings 10/26/02
That was an odd weekend! All the "big games" were blowouts, often with the road team having all the fun. The Wuffpack and F'ing Irish remained unbeaten and Iowa took over the Big 10 lead. Southern Cal had a big win at Oregon, which impressed my computer greatly. There could be an old school Southern Cal - Notre Dame finale with big stakes. It turns out that NC State still hasn't played a decent team, hence the lack of love from the computer. The TV announcers called Notre Dame's season the "feel good story of the year" which made me feel not so good in the stomach. The ref who gave ND a first down without measuring when the ball was short of the TV yellow line felt a little too good.
Bad news for the home teams. Tech takes another hit from a lackluster win over a Bad East team. The local headline for Virginia Saturday morning was "Conference Championship or Bust." Looks like the Cavs will have to settle for Anna Nicole. The bowls will have to work hard to figure which ACC teams to put in the 4th and 5th spots (the computer likes Virginia and Clemson, but I don't think it's been paying attention lately). I mentioned last week that the conferences were more spread out than usual. So, of course, this week's rankings put Pac 10 teams in line from #21 through #24 and then #26.The conference races are starting to sort themselves out. NC State, Florida State and Maryland are the best of the ACC; the Wuffpack has both teams left. Tech, Miami and Pitt are tied in the Big East; we'll see this week if Pitt belongs there. Iowa and Ohio State are unbeaten in the Big 10; they don't play each other and Iowa has a nice schedule remaining. Colorado has a 2-game lead in the Big 12 North, but several tough games left. Oklahoma and Texas are the class of the South. Washington State and Arizona State are unbeaten in the Pac 10, SC has one loss; the States play on Saturday. Georgia has a big lead in the SEC East, LSU's 2-game lead in the SEC West was cut in half by Auburn. And, of course, in the Sun Belt, New Mexico State has a half-game lead over North Texas (2-0 in conference, 3-5 overall).
Some big conference battles out west this week: TCU-SMU on Wednesday
(SMU as in Southern Miss, the one that still plays football), Colorado State -
Air Force on Thursday and Arizona State - Washington State on Saturday.
The World's Largest Cocktail Party hits Jacksonville - is Georgia really favored?
Oklahoma and Texas again have tough games.
As always, the spreads below are straight from the ratings with 4 points added
for home team. Maybe they'll be more accurate than last week.
Southern Miss over TCU by 6
Air Force over Colorado State by 4
Washington State over Arizona State by 8
Georgia over Florida by 11
Iowa over Wisconsin by 12
Oklahoma over Colorado by 7
Ohio State over Minnesota by 18
Virginia Tech over Pittsburgh by 16
Texas over Nebraska by 9
NC State over Georgia Tech by 13
1 | Oklahoma | 68.53 |
2 | Notre Dame | 64.85 |
3 | Southern Cal | 63.42 |
4 | Miami | 63.38 |
5 | Georgia | 62.62 |
6 | Ohio State | 61.70 |
7 | Texas | 61.69 |
8 | Alabama | 60.39 |
9 | Virginia Tech | 60.00 |
10 | Iowa | 58.83 |
11 | Florida State | 58.42 |
12 | Arkansas | 57.20 |
13 | Kansas State | 56.84 |
14 | Wash State | 56.34 |
15 | Colorado | 55.74 |
16 | Iowa State | 55.65 |
17 | NC State | 55.22 |
18 | LSU | 54.83 |
19 | Penn State | 54.76 |
20 | Michigan | 54.52 |
21 | UCLA | 53.48 |
22 | California | 52.84 |
23 | Oregon St | 52.62 |
24 | Oregon | 52.57 |
25 | Bowling Green | 52.34 |
26 | Arizona St | 52.14 |
27 | Maryland | 51.95 |
28 | Florida | 51.84 |
29 | Boise | 51.75 |
30 | Auburn | 51.34 |
31 | South Florida | 51.00 |
32 | Wisconsin | 50.41 |
33 | Kentucky | 50.35 |
34 | Air Force | 50.01 |
35 | Colorado St | 49.99 |
36 | S Carolina | 49.42 |
37 | Texas Tech | 49.23 |
38 | Nebraska | 48.66 |
39 | Tennessee | 48.48 |
40 | Virginia | 48.43 |
41 | Pittsburgh | 48.19 |
42 | Minnesota | 48.11 |
43 | Texas A&M | 48.03 |
44 | Clemson | 47.21 |
45 | Southern Miss | 46.59 |
46 | Missouri | 46.36 |
47 | Marshall | 46.35 |
48 | Georgia Tech | 46.09 |
49 | Boston College | 46.00 |
50 | Wake Forest | 45.92 |
51 | Louisville | 45.76 |
52 | Purdue | 45.68 |
53 | Mississippi | 45.46 |
54 | Washington | 45.44 |
55 | Miami O | 45.42 |
56 | West Virginia | 45.31 |
57 | TCU | 44.19 |
58 | North Ill | 43.27 |
59 | Toledo | 42.31 |
60 | Cincinnati | 41.64 |
61 | Hawaii | 40.94 |
62 | Oklahoma St | 40.90 |
63 | Illinois | 40.65 |
64 | Stanford | 40.44 |
65 | Michigan Stat | 40.00 |
66 | NM State | 39.90 |
67 | Tulane | 38.60 |
68 | Arizona | 38.34 |
69 | UCF | 37.67 |
70 | North Carolina | 37.52 |
71 | Temple | 37.47 |
72 | Fresno | 37.34 |
73 | Miss State | 37.33 |
74 | North Texas | 36.93 |
75 | Indiana | 35.85 |
76 | San Diego St | 35.14 |
77 | New Mexico | 34.71 |
78 | Utah | 34.57 |
79 | Western Mich | 34.20 |
80 | Nevada | 33.44 |
81 | UNLV | 33.09 |
82 | San Jose | 31.92 |
83 | BYU | 31.81 |
84 | Duke | 31.75 |
85 | East Carolina | 31.68 |
86 | Vanderbilt | 31.61 |
87 | Troy State | 30.88 |
88 | Ball State | 30.73 |
89 | Central Mich | 30.69 |
90 | La Tech | 30.65 |
91 | Baylor | 30.39 |
92 | Memphis | 30.27 |
93 | Wyoming | 30.19 |
94 | Syracuse | 30.07 |
95 | Northwestern | 30.05 |
96 | Houston | 29.71 |
97 | UAB | 29.58 |
98 | UConn | 29.44 |
99 | Kansas | 28.25 |
100 | Kent State | 27.92 |
101 | Mid Tenn | 27.35 |
102 | Ohio | 27.34 |
103 | Idaho | 26.95 |
104 | Arkansas St | 26.95 |
105 | Utah State | 26.01 |
106 | Akron | 25.13 |
107 | Rice | 24.40 |
108 | La-Lafayette | 24.10 |
109 | La-Monroe | 21.79 |
110 | Tulsa | 21.48 |
111 | UTEP | 20.74 |
112 | Navy | 20.68 |
113 | Eastern Mich | 20.08 |
114 | Rutgers | 19.74 |
115 | SMU | 19.01 |
116 | Buffalo | 17.30 |
117 | Army | 12.60 |