Ratings 11/26/05
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?)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 |