Ratings 11/26/05  
Ratings (11/26)

Here are some random thoughts on the past week. A couple of borderline teams blew big opportunities. Iowa State could be in the Big 12 championship, UTEP could be in the CUSA champiosnip game, Louisiana Monroe could have their first bowl, and South Florida could be playing for the Big East championship. The Fat Man went 2-1, with Kansas and Toledo up and Maryland down. RC prof Harry Wilson had quite a year, with Rutgers finishing 7-4 and Penn State 10-1. And, how low can Florida State go?

This is the silly season. And not just in golf, with its odd tournaments and guys in skirts. Is it really a good idea to let Florida State play for the ACC championship? How about Colorado for the Big 12 championship? (By the way, Oklahoma is probably the second best team in the conference now.) Should there be a CUSA championship game? I'm envisioning a weekend with Colorado beating Texas, UCLA beating USC, Florida State beating Virginia Tech and cancellation of all bowl games. I'm not BCS bashing, I'm conference championship game bashing. To recycle Darrell Royal's classic summary of forward passes, there are three things that can happen and two of them are bad. You can have mismatched divisions with "champions" like Florida State, Colorado and Akron. You can have rematches of games that probably weren't very good in the first place. Or you could actually have a good game. This year, Georgia-LSU is the only one that is worth playing.

It's a good thing that my computer is not the official BCS rankings. It might be difficult explaining how Southern Cal jumped Penn State when they both had the week off. It's an interesting lesson in how strength of schedule works; if the teams that you played (like South Florida) lose, your strength of schedule drops and hence your rating drops, even if you didn't play. So the bottom line is that Southern Cal had a better week off than Penn State did. In any case, the relative rankings of the two will be determined by the USC-UCLA game this Saturday.

Most of the games this week have bowl implications. Even more important than that, Army and Navy play for the Commander in Chief trophy, since both beat Air Force. As far as the players are concerned, it doesn't get any more important than that. Army is 4-6 after an 0-6 start, so on paper it's an even match for the first time in a few years. The following predictions are straight from the ratings, with 4 points added for home field in the cases where somebody is at home. (It was not always clear cut this week.)

USC over UCLA by 13 (for LA, PAC-10 and BCS titles; and the Heisman?)
Navy over Army by 3 (as emotional as any game all year)
West Virginia over South Florida by 3 (the Eers want to enter the BCS on a high note)
Louisville over UConn by 11 (can the Cards score big without Brohm?)
MAC: Northern Illinois over Akron by 9 (avenging an earlier loss to the Zips)
CUSA: Central Florida over Tulsa by 2 (no lie; O'Leary's done a great job)
ACC: Virginia Tech over Florida State by 15 (the Hokies hope for other upsets)
B12: Texas over Colorado by 19 (this could be ugly; the Buffs beat Texas in 2001)
SEC: Georgia over LSU by 1 (the Dawgs go for a second straight win in Atlanta)
1 Texas 71.44
2 Southern Cal 69.04
3 Penn State 68.43
4 Ohio State 67.45
5 Virginia Tech 66.40
6 Miami F 61.60
7 Michigan 60.92
8 Notre Dame 60.55
9 Oregon 58.91
10 Auburn 58.56
11 West Virginia 58.20
12 Texas Tech 57.93
13 LSU 57.91
14 Georgia 57.49
15 Louisville 57.48
16 Minnesota 57.16
17 Wisconsin 57.07
18 Boston College 56.85
19 UCLA 56.19
20 Iowa 55.87
21 Alabama 55.63
22 TCU 55.33
23 Northwestern 55.30
24 Florida 54.87
25 Oklahoma 54.75
26 Georgia Tech 54.14
27 Clemson 53.12
28 Colorado 52.17
29 Arizona State 51.54
30 Florida State 51.42
31 Michigan State 50.85
32 South Florida 50.78
33 Iowa State 50.39
34 Purdue 50.38
35 South Carolina 50.24
36 Nebraska 49.98
37 California 49.98
38 Fresno State 48.69
39 NC State 48.55
40 Virginia 48.29
41 UNC 47.33
42 Maryland 47.33
43 Tennessee 46.37
44 Texas A&M 46.24
45 Northern Illinois 46.20
46 Kansas 45.57
47 Missouri 45.56
48 Tulsa 44.81
49 Stanford 44.65
50 BYU 44.19
51 Rutgers 44.17
52 Toledo 44.11
53 Boise State 44.11
54 Pittsburgh 43.65
55 Central Florida 43.33
56 Wake Forest 43.15
57 Miami O 43.02
58 Arkansas 42.93
59 Baylor 42.87
60 Colorado State 42.40
61 Connecticut 42.22
62 Central Michigan 42.07
63 Southern Miss 42.03
64 Oregon State 41.88
65 Kansas State 41.75
66 Utah 41.70
67 Washington St 41.69
68 San Diego St 41.50
69 UTEP 41.49
70 Vanderbilt 41.03
71 Indiana 40.88
72 Arizona 40.50
73 Memphis 40.49
74 Navy 40.03
75 Houston 39.99
76 New Mexico 39.59
77 Bowling Green 38.86
78 Nevada 38.19
79 Western Michigan 37.02
80 Oklahoma State 36.94
81 Akron 36.66
82 Army 36.59
83 Washington 36.46
84 East Carolina 36.25
85 Cincinnati 35.87
86 Air Force 35.79
87 UAB 35.72
88 SMU 35.72
89 Wyoming 35.64
90 La Tech 34.87
91 Kentucky 34.58
92 Illinois 34.53
93 Mississippi St 34.33
94 Ball State 33.74
95 Ole Miss 33.51
96 Hawaii 32.71
97 Marshall 32.67
98 Eastern Michigan 32.35
99 Ohio 31.79
100 Syracuse 31.48
101 La-Lafayette 31.35
102 Middle Tenn 31.05
103 Arkansas St 29.71
104 Duke 29.21
105 La-Monroe 25.69
106 Rice 25.37
107 Tulane 24.56
108 Troy 23.98
109 UNLV 23.92
110 Florida Inter. 23.72
111 Utah State 23.37
112 San Jose State 22.70
113 Temple 21.24
114 Kent State 20.66
115 Florida Atlantic 20.08
116 Idaho 18.97
117 Buffalo 18.87
118 North Texas 18.67
119 New Mexico St 16.34