Ratings 11/27/04  
Ratings (November 27)

The ACC gets a championship game this season after all! With Tech's win over UVa, the winner of the Tech-Miami game goes to the Sugar Bowl. This is certainly a fitting BCS game, but the bowls would prefer that this be for the Big East spot and not the ACC spot. This year is not one that a system like the BCS is going to handle well. According to my ratings (and the polls aren't that much different), the top two teams are in the same conference and the next two teams are in the same half of a conference! Any system that is "fair" enough to honor the champions of the power conferences will struggle with that scenario. So, this year it looks like an 8-team playoff is needed. Although you'd have to go to 16 to get a Big 10 team involved! And you'd pretty much have to let in all 117 to get the Big East in there.

I'll call this week Disaster Week for college football. Three of the ten games are make-up games from the hurricane disasters of September. The conference championship games are more of an unnatural disaster. Two are rematches of earlier games, won by Miami 23-16 and Auburn 34-10. Colorado's less of a disaster than Iowa State would have been, but you can't say that the Buffaloes are one of the best five teams in the Big 12. According to my ratings, Bowling Green is the best in the MAC, but instead their top two enemies play for the title. And why would anybody be excited about Auburn against a team they've already beaten by 24 and whose last three games were a loss to Notre Dame at home, and wins over Vanderbilt by 5 and Kentucky by 6? One of the hurricane make-up games, Pitt at South Florida, completes the Big East disaster. I've got Pitt #53, and a win gets them a BCS bowl. Ouch! At least Pitt did come from behind to beat Furman earlier in the year.

Of course, you can imagine bigger disasters for the BCS. Wins by Tennessee, Colorado, Southern Miss and UCLA would really shake things up. It could be Utah and Texas for the championship! But maybe not: I doubt that my ratings would drop SC from #1 even if they lose this week. I suspect that there would be a wide range of poll and computer rankings if some of those upsets come to pass. Then we'd have some real arguments.

The following predictions are straight from the ratings, with 4 points added for home field.

Miami over Virginia Tech by 7 (Sugar Bowl on the line in the OB)
Navy over Army by 13 (has Bobby Ross improved Army enough?)
Southern Cal over UCLA by 16 (can the Trojans go #1 wire to wire?)
Michigan State over Hawaii by 3 (the Rainbows can go 2-0 in the Big 10)
Pittsburgh over South Florida by 4 (the Panthers try to "earn" a BCS spot)
Louisville over Tulane by 23 (the Cardinals scored 70 last week, how many this week?)
California over Southern Miss by 23 (oddly, a game in Hattiesburg decides the Rose Bowl)
Miami over Toledo by 1 (MAC Championship Game)
Oklahoma over Colorado by 18 (Big 12 Championship Game)
Auburn over Tennessee by 8 (SEC Championship Game)

1 Southern Cal 72.63
2 California 68.45
3 Oklahoma 68.43
4 Texas 65.39
5 Utah 64.91
6 Auburn 62.85
7 Miami F 61.87
8 Louisville 61.19
9 Arizona St 60.54
10 Boise St 60.01
11 Virginia Tech 58.93
12 Texas A&M 58.66
13 LSU 57.25
14 Iowa 57.02
15 Georgia 56.76
16 Florida State 56.69
17 Virginia 56.41
18 Oklahoma St 56.27
19 Michigan 55.82
20 Texas Tech 55.73
21 Oregon St 54.80
22 Tennessee 54.39
23 Purdue 53.58
24 UCLA 52.50
25 Wisconsin 51.92
26 Ohio State 50.87
27 Florida 50.86
28 Colorado 50.86
29 Notre Dame 50.77
30 New Mexico 49.85
31 Fresno St 49.69
32 UNC 49.06
33 Clemson 48.23
34 UTEP 48.21
35 Arkansas 48.17
36 Stanford 47.93
37 Georgia Tech 47.89
38 BYU 47.29
39 Oregon 47.22
40 Alabama 46.85
41 Washington St 46.33
42 NC State 46.33
43 Minnesota 46.08
44 West Virginia 45.91
45 Kansas 45.85
46 S Carolina 45.47
47 Iowa State 45.13
48 Boston College 44.94
49 Memphis 44.51
50 Bowling Green 44.36
51 Northwestern 44.22
52 Wyoming 43.59
53 Pittsburgh 43.54
54 UAB 43.40
55 Maryland 43.40
56 Michigan St 43.23
57 Missouri 42.97
58 Nebraska 42.85
59 Arizona 42.66
60 Cincinnati 42.40
61 Kansas State 42.33
62 Syracuse 42.22
63 Navy 41.93
64 Air Force 41.56
65 Southern Miss 41.25
66 La Tech 40.98
67 UConn 40.73
68 Penn State 40.57
69 Colorado St 40.51
70 Wake Forest 40.31
71 Miami O 39.81
72 Troy 39.61
73 TCU 39.34
74 Ole Miss 39.18
75 Toledo 38.83
76 San Diego St 38.47
77 North.Illinois 38.00
78 Baylor 36.44
79 Marshall 36.09
80 Hawaii 35.72
81 Illinois 34.80
82 South Florida 34.78
83 North Texas 34.77
84 Tulane 34.66
85 Indiana 34.36
86 Washington 34.33
87 Houston 33.64
88 Miss St 33.11
89 New Mexico St 33.10
90 Duke 33.09
91 Tulsa 32.86
92 Kentucky 32.08
93 UNLV 32.00
94 Vanderbilt 31.72
95 Rutgers 31.49
96 Nevada 30.36
97 Rice 30.32
98 Kent 30.23
99 Akron 29.94
100 SMU 29.21
101 Army 28.61
102 Middle Tenn 28.41
103 La-Monroe 27.80
104 Temple 27.58
105 Ohio 26.48
106 East Carolina 26.04
107 La-Lafayette 25.85
108 Utah State 25.59
109 San Jose 24.71
110 Arkansas St 24.28
111 Cent.Michigan 21.86
112 Idaho 21.11
113 East.Michigan 20.99
114 Ball State 19.28
115 West.Michigan 17.25
116 Buffalo 17.13
117 Central Florida 15.32