Ratings 11/29/08  
Ratings (11/29)

Oh, the outrage! How could Oklahoma jump Texas? Relying on the polls and computers is a horrible way to solve anything. And yet, the argument for Texas starts with using the polls to eliminate Texas Tech. Then you use head-to-head to pick Texas. Does that really make sense? To my mind, the 3-way tie is a legitimate 3-way tie between great teams with 11-1 records. The whole "ignore Tech" thing seems to me to be the standard big-boy bias against schools that haven't already won multiple national championships. So, here is an "objective" view. Counting Oklahoma State as a legitimate top-ten team, the round robin among the four teams only includes one road win -- Oklahoma over Oklahoma State. Texas gets half a point for a neutral site win, but Oklahoma has a full point for Saturday's win. Or, you could look at out-of-conference schedules and give it to Oklahoma for playing TCU and Cincinnati. Or, leave it to my computer, which like the BCS computers jumped Oklahoma over Texas because of strength of schedule.

In a way, the national semifinals are this weekend. The winner of Alabama-Florida advances. Probably the winner of Oklahoma-Texas advances. The only thing is that Texas has to give its proxy to Missouri. Stranger things have happened in the Big 12 Championship game than a Missouri upset. It's basically a home game for the Tigers. If the upset happens, Texas is next in line.

The conferences got lucky in the sense that only the ACC has a rematch for their championship game. And that is a rematch of last year's rematch. The MAC, Big 12 and CUSA were very unbalanced, with most of the good teams in the same division. But that's part of the process we have now.

For those of you who want a playoff, the D-3 and FCS playoffs have reached the quarterfinals. FCS is the division formerly known as 1-AA. The initials stand for Football Championship Series, since they play a championship series. The 1-A's play a bowl series, so for their acronym F is followed by BS. Predictions are included below. The D-3 predictions come from using the rating system on games exclusive to D-3. The ratings went 5-3 last week, in a week in which the NCAA seedings (and therefore the home field) only went 3-5. The ratings currently have Wisconsin-Whitewater a slight favorite over Mount Union for the championship in Salem. That, of course, has been the matchup the last three years running.

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

Navy over Army by 17 (One of the great traditions, even if the game hasn't been good lately.)
Southern Cal over UCLA by 27 (I'm not sure a crosstown trip is worth 4 points, but does it matter?)
MAC: Ball State over Buffalo by 12 (Very cool that the Bulls made it this far, but ...)
CUSA: Tulsa over East Carolina by 4 (Both teams seem to have righted the ship after midseason slumps.)
ACC: Boston College over Virginia Tech by 2 (It depends on which QB's show up for which team.)
SEC: Florida over Alabama by 8 (The Gators look unbeatable, but Saban's a good big game coach.)
BIG 12: Oklahoma over Missouri by 11 (And "Big Game" Bob Stoops has not done well in games like this.)

FCS Playoffs
JMU over Villanova by 11
Montana over Weber State by 6
Appalachian State over Richmond by 6
Northern Iowa over New Hampshire by 0.1

D3 Playoffs
Mount Union over Cortland by 25
Franklin over Wheaton by 3
Wisconsin-Whitewater over Wartburg by 21
Mary-Hardin Baylor over Washington & Jefferson by 22

1 Florida 99.98
2 Oklahoma 98.33
3 Texas 98.05
4 Southern Cal 97.61
5 Penn State 93.59
6 Texas Tech 92.95
7 Alabama 91.91
8 Utah 90.82
9 Ohio State 88.48
10 TCU 87.74
11 Missouri 87.59
12 Boise St 87.12
13 Georgia 86.54
14 Oklahoma St 86.53
15 Oregon 85.67
16 Florida St 85.20
17 Boston College 84.85
18 Georgia Tech 84.74
19 California 84.28
20 Oregon St 84.27
21 Mississippi 84.25
22 North Carolina 84.19
23 Iowa 84.06
24 Clemson 83.11
25 Michigan St 82.97
26 Cincinnati 82.77
27 Nebraska 82.73
28 Brigham Young 82.68
29 Ball St 82.52
30 Virginia Tech 82.47
31 Wake Forest 82.29
32 Pittsburgh 82.18
33 Miami FL 80.95
34 South Carolina 80.40
35 Northwestern 80.13
36 West Virginia 79.90
37 James Madison 79.70
38 Kansas 79.65
39 Connecticut 79.06
40 Tulsa 78.46
41 LSU 78.39
42 North Carolina St 78.37
43 Arizona 77.95
44 Maryland 77.88
45 South Florida 77.65
46 Wisconsin 77.30
47 Virginia 76.98
48 Vanderbilt 76.49
49 Rutgers 76.38
50 Navy 76.26
51 Air Force 76.00
52 Rice 75.43
53 Duke 75.14
54 Notre Dame 74.95
55 Appalachian St 74.79
56 East Carolina 74.13
57 Baylor 74.03
58 Arizona St 73.50
59 Minnesota 73.43
60 Illinois 73.37
61 Stanford 73.31
62 Tennessee 73.14
63 Richmond 73.03
64 Kentucky 73.01
65 Western Michigan 72.97
66 Nevada 72.90
67 Villanova 72.71
68 Houston 72.39
69 Arkansas 71.84
70 Colorado 71.78
71 Auburn 71.61
72 Purdue 71.24
73 Wofford 70.78
74 Central Michigan 70.63
75 Buffalo 70.55
76 Hawai`i 70.40
77 Kansas St 70.32
78 Colorado St 70.04
79 Troy 69.77
80 Southern Miss 69.50
81 Montana 69.37
82 New Hampshire 69.23
83 Louisville 68.70
84 Fresno St 68.65
85 Texas A&M 68.19
86 Bowling Green 68.05
87 New Mexico 67.93
88 Northern Illinois 67.22
89 Weber St 67.15
90 Louisiana Tech 67.13
91 UNLV 67.07
92 William & Mary 67.03
93 Michigan 67.02
94 UCLA 66.66
95 Temple 66.29
96 Cal Poly SLO 65.93
97 Mississippi St 65.60
98 Memphis 65.38
99 Northern Iowa 65.27
100 UTEP 65.07
101 San José St 64.81
102 Elon 64.73
103 Akron 64.65
104 Syracuse 63.97
105 Arkansas St 63.68
106 Florida Atlantic 63.63
107 Massachusetts 63.50
108 Marshall 63.15
109 Harvard 62.55
110 Furman 62.09
111 Central Florida 62.06
112 Indiana 61.90
113 Middle Tennessee St 61.86
114 Iowa St 61.78
115 Southern Illinois 61.71
116 Liberty 61.62
117 Maine 61.58
118 Samford 61.52
119 Ohio U. 61.47
120 Utah St 61.45
121 Georgia Southern 61.44
122 Wyoming 61.32
123 Louisiana-Lafayette 61.20
124 Central Arkansas 60.12
125 Florida Int'l 59.63
126 Army 59.55
127 Eastern Washington 58.96
128 Kent St 58.85
129 Alabama-Birmingham 58.10
130 Toledo 57.87
131 Washington 57.47
132 South Carolina St 57.23
133 Jacksonville St 57.15
134 South Dakota St 56.95
135 Colgate 56.95
136 Brown 56.95
137 Holy Cross 56.75
138 Delaware 56.74
139 Eastern Michigan 56.60
140 San Diego St 56.34
141 McNeese St 56.15
142 The Citadel 55.57
143 Western Kentucky 55.16
144 North Dakota St 54.95
145 Louisiana-Monroe 54.77
146 Lafayette 54.60
147 New Mexico St 54.52
148 Washington St 54.39
149 Eastern Kentucky 54.33
150 Montana St 54.31
151 SMU 54.25
152 Tennessee-Martin 54.24
153 Northern Arizona 54.03
154 Western Illinois 53.99
155 Pennsylvania 53.86
156 Tulane 53.85
157 Miami OH 53.70
158 Hofstra 53.56
159 Yale 53.39
160 Texas St-San Marcos 52.68
161 Albany NY 51.42
162 Tennessee St 51.33
163 Northwestern St 50.88
164 Sacramento St 50.56
165 Lehigh 50.36
166 Florida A&M 50.10
167 Grambling St 49.81
168 Charleston Southern 49.74
169 Northeastern 49.69
170 Stony Brook 49.64
171 Coastal Carolina 49.05
172 Idaho 48.85
173 Sam Houston St 48.66
174 Rhode Island 48.48
175 Towson 48.41
176 UC-Davis 48.29
177 Western Carolina 48.06
178 Gardner-Webb 47.46
179 Princeton 47.13
180 Eastern Illinois 46.80
181 Missouri St 46.73
182 Nicholls St 46.66
183 Prairie View A&M 46.20
184 SE Louisiana St 46.03
185 Jacksonville FL 45.85
186 Southern Utah 45.84
187 Youngstown St 45.50
188 Portland St 45.43
189 VMI 45.27
190 Monmouth NJ 45.24
191 Bethune-Cookman 45.19
192 North Texas 44.99
193 San Diego 44.81
194 Illinois St 44.80
195 Cornell NY 44.72
196 Fordham 44.17
197 Central Conn St 43.41
198 Morgan St 43.19
199 Stephen F. Austin 43.15
200 Hampton 43.15
201 Chattanooga 42.77
202 South Dakota 42.51
203 Dayton 42.20
204 Northern Colorado 42.07
205 Southern U. 41.63
206 North Dakota 41.26
207 Murray St 41.17
208 Bucknell 41.03
209 Norfolk St 40.87
210 Delaware St 40.69
211 Presbyterian 40.58
212 SE Missouri St 39.82
213 Columbia 39.77
214 Idaho St 39.15
215 Sacred Heart 38.43
216 Jackson St 38.09
217 Austin Peay 37.73
218 Tennessee Tech 36.77
219 Robert Morris 35.55
220 Bryant 35.33
221 Alabama A&M 34.96
222 Georgetown DC 33.63
223 Dartmouth 33.57
224 North Carolina Central 33.09
225 Butler 32.17
226 Morehead St 31.61
227 Drake 31.31
228 Duquesne 30.78
229 Winston-Salem St 30.63
230 Marist 30.26
231 Alabama St 29.86
232 Arkansas-Pine Bluff 29.06
233 Davidson 28.14
234 Indiana St 27.79
235 Alcorn St 26.39
236 North Carolina A&T 25.75
237 Wagner 25.35
238 Howard 24.44
239 Savannah St 22.38
240 Texas Southern 21.39
241 Valparaiso 20.00
242 Mississippi Valley St 18.54
243 Iona 17.15
244 St Francis PA 17.08
245 Campbell 5.46